Sep 5

Sep 5 On Grief and Grieving

To watch a 60 second video about Grief, click here.

Let’s talk about Grief…

Grief is often misunderstood, but it’s something we ALL experience.

Grief has a profound impact on our mental health, wellbeing, and interpersonal relationships.

It's important to understand how grief works and that everyone experiences grief differently, so we can be better prepared and informed to support ourselves, our loved ones, and our coworkers.

The most well-known form of grief is the loss of a loved one.

Grief can also happen when you are ending a relationship or going through a divorce, if you lose a job, or you’re grieving your former self, maybe your circumstances in life have changed a lot.

The bottom line is that grief can happen in a lot of different scenarios.

Stages of Grief History

You may have heard there are 5 stages of grief, that model has been updated to 7 stages of grief to allow for the complexities that we now know happen within grief.

The original 5 stage model was developed by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. Kübler-Ross later collaborated with David Kessler on many books, research, and programs. Kessler proposed the 2 additional stages after Kübler-Ross’s passing, bringing the total to 7 stages of grief.

Stages of Grief:

(in no particular order)

Shock
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Testing
Acceptance

It’s important to note that the 7 Stages of Grief are not linear.

We don’t travel through one stage to another in an orderly fashion. No, grief is messy.

We can bounce around from one “stage” to another. Or even hold two conflicting emotions at the same time.

We might be depressed 1 minute, angry another, back to shock and denial, briefly to hope and acceptance before bouncing back to bargaining.

And that’s not a bad thing… it’s normal and it’s a part of the process.

There is no timeline for grief.

And there is no “right way” to grieve, everyone’s process is different.

It’s so important to be gentle with yourself and give yourself grace through this process.

Know that there’s nothing bad about grieving. There’s nothing wrong with crying. There’s nothing weak about crying. These are normal human emotions. And crying is a normal biological response.

Next Steps…

If you enjoyed this short explanation, be sure to let me know in the comments!

► If you're struggling with a loss or your grief and want some support, schedule a free Discovery Call with me.

Be kind to yourself and others.

Sending so much love and light your way,

♥️ Lo

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