Posts Tagged ‘managing grief’
Religious Rituals–Catholicism, Judaism, Islam
For many people who’ve experienced the death of a loved one, religion can help both find meaning in his or her passing as well as solace in the belief of an afterlife. Different religions have a different interpretation of what happens after death as well as different rituals that are supposed to help both the…
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Religious Rituals–Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism
The way that death is understood in Asian religions is quite different from the way Judeo-Christian culture thinks about death. This difference in perspective leads to dramatically different rituals related to death but also to a generalized difference in the way losses are mourned. There are too many differences between Asian cultures and Western cultures…
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Grief and the Overachiever
One of the hardest things when writing about grief is that everyone’s experience of grief is so different, and depend on everything from the person’s temperament, life situation and their relationship with the person who died. If you’re used to excelling in life, however, grief can pose some specific challenges might not be as troubling…
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Experiencing Grief for the First Time
Although most people will, at some point in their lives, experience the death of someone they love, the first major loss happens at a different time for everyone. Grief is still a taboo subject in our society, and many people have trouble finding someone to offer wisdom or advice about the grieving process. You might…
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When Grief is Anger, not Tears
Grief is not really an emotion—for most people, it’s a complicated package of emotions, some ra-tional, others less so. We think of grief as being synonymous with sadness… and thus think of tears as the most appropriate response. Sadness is definitely part of the grief package, but it’s far from the whole deal. Some people…
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Why Most People Don’t Understand Grief
One of the most common complaints from people who have lost a loved one is that others in their life don’t get it. Friends and family have a tendency to make comments that range from awkward to downright cruel, and just don’t seem to understand either the emotional responses to the death of a close…
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Who Am I Now?
Those who haven’t lost someone close to them might find it melodramatic when you say you feel like a part of you died with your loved one—but it’s not an exaggeration. When a loved one dies, we lose part of our identity, as a husband or wife, as a son or daughter or as a…
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Young Widowhood—Children
Many deaths come with a cascade of losses—the loss of hopes and dreams, the loss of specific traditions, the loss of your relationship with specific family members. When your spouse dies young, one of the biggest losses relates to children. If you already have children, you’re grieving not just the loss of your spouse but…
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Young Widowhood—Dating and Sex
Most young widows eventually feel ready to date and perhaps even marry again, but most find that everything related to dating and sex is more complicated as a widow than it was as a younger single person. In the dating world people talk about baggage—and while your late spouse isn’t a suitcase, most widows do…
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Young Widows: Preserving Memories
When you’re faced with living another 30, 40 or 50 years without the person you assumed would be by your side for decades, it’s common to worry about memories fading and/or losing your connection to your late spouse. This fear is often especially acute in young widows who have children—you feel a responsibility to keep…
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