The Science & Process of Healing from Grief

Our hearts work the same way as our minds in this regard. As long as we are telling ourselves that we must let go, the more deeply we feel attached. So don’t tell yourself to let go. Instead, tell yourself that you can cry for as long as you need. That you can fall to pieces and be a mess and let your life collapse and crumble. Tell yourself that y

Grief work applies to everything we lose or leave. It includes as normal stages: anger, denial (disbelief), bargaining, depression, and acceptance. These are repeated in different sequences over and over throughout our lives, but each time with less debilitating charge and more personal empowerment.

There is a wide range of emotions associated with grief, not just sadness and despair. We may become aware of a feeling of loneliness, for example, and, rather than deny, distract from, or repress the feeling, we pause and stay with it because we see it. Seeing it, we are awake and self-aware even amid the ache and unease.

As you remember these experiences, notice how you feel on a visceral level. A cognitive recounting will not suffice, unless it is connected strongly to a bodily feeling, because your memories were stored in your body on a cellular level. The challenge is to find the accurate sense of feeling but not necessarily a storyline. Truly grieving involves

Sorrow is heavy, hard work. It stalls all your systems in order to force you toward a very, very painful task: coping with loss.