How to process grief and loss

I was privileged to have a visit to the wonderful Salisbury Hospice today to have a tour around their facilities and to talk to Louise Compton about how Mustard Therapy & Coaching can help with fundraising for this amazing place. 

We go talking about the importance of supporting grieving individuals, families and friends in the way that they need support and when they are ready for accessing the support that suits them. I returned home awed and inspired by the ‘living well’ philosophy with whatever people are facing whether palliative care, end of life care or outreach to families. This prompted me as a therapist to write down my thoughts about how to process grief and loss. This is not designed to be a step-by-step guide, but instead a validation to grieve in your own way.

1. Grief and loss is an entirely individual process. It is a personal experience that does not have a timescale, deadline or schedule.
2. Each person is ready to process grief and loss in their own time-for some this can be immediate, for others it may be years before they feel ready. 
3. It is not possible to process grief by going over it, under it or around it. Instead we must go through it. This can bring a phlethora of emotions so ensure you ask for the support you need, personally and/or professionally.
4. Allow yourself to feel what you feel, don’t suppress emotions. Grief and loss can bring sadness, anger, numbness and even guilt. Acknowledge how you are feeling without judgement. The emotional intensity will pass.
5. Take care of yourself. It can sometimes feel incongruent or even disloyal to carry on with everyday tasks when you and others you love are going through something enormous.
6. It is common to feel angry with others around you and the world for carrying on when your whole world has changed.
7. Grief and loss is not just about the death of a loved one. It can also be experienced around illness, particularly something life changing. We also might need to process grief when we leave a job, a relationship ends, a child leaves home, or indeed any time when life is no longer how we thought it was.
8. There are likely to be times when a sense of grief and loss intensifies once more, it may be trigger by an anniversary or a birthday, it could be an unexpected trigger of a person or place.
9. Moving on never means forgetting the person. Even when someone has died, we continue to have a relationship with them emotionally, in our memories and in how they are still an important part of us.
10. Over time we will grow around our grief, rather than the grief shrinking. We will develop healthy ways to cope and develop as an individual because of a loss experience, rather than in spite of it.

Stewart Mustard

Stewart has over 10 years’ experience in hypnotherapy, psychotherapy, and counselling, following more than 25 years in social care across social services, local authorities, and charities. This includes work with children and young people, individuals with learning disabilities, addictions, dual diagnosis, and mental ill health. He specialises in anxiety, depression, self-harm, PTSD, weight management, compulsive eating, stress, performance anxiety, smoking cessation, and fears and phobias.

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