COVID-19 has profoundly changed our lives. We are grieving the loss of everything familiar to us. Whether you’ve lost a loved one, your income, your health, your social connections, or any other loss, I know your heart is broken.
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What is Grief?
Grief is a normal and natural response to loss. It is important to acknowledge and process any grief you may be experiencing rather than minimizing it or avoiding it through unhealthy coping behaviors. If left unaddressed, grief can affect your emotional and physical well-being over time.
Unresolved grief can accumulate over a lifetime and have compounding negative effects. Present-day loss can tap into unresolved pain from the past. If we have not processed earlier losses, we may be more easily triggered during difficult times.
These emotional triggers can sometimes lead to unhealthy coping behaviors. The article refers to these as STERBS, or short-term energy-relieving behaviors. If left unchecked, these patterns can affect our health and happiness, sometimes without us fully realizing it.
How to Cope with Grief
What can you do now to grieve in a healthy way while living through difficult circumstances? Taking time to reflect on your life through the lens of loss can help you process what you are going through without minimizing or suppressing your emotional response.
Tips for Processing Grief
The following strategies may help you process your grief in a healthy way.
1. Recognize the symptoms of grief. Grief can look similar to depression and may include sadness, low energy, changes in eating habits, sleeping too much or too little, difficulty focusing, irritability, withdrawal, and isolation.
2. Talk to someone you trust. Share what you are feeling with someone who can listen without judgment, advice, or forced positivity. You need space to be honest about your emotions. If needed, you can also speak with a primary care physician or mental health professional.
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3. Journal daily. Spending even five minutes a day writing about your thoughts and emotions can become a powerful wellness habit. Consider reflecting on these questions: What changes am I experiencing? What new challenges am I facing? What emotions are coming up for me? What choices do I have right now? Awareness is the cornerstone of change. We cannot change what we do not acknowledge.
4. Prioritize self-care. Taking care of yourself during difficult times can feel overwhelming, but even small steps can make a meaningful difference for you and those around you.
Grief is often overlooked in our society, yet many people need support and emotional education to process loss in healthy ways. Without that support, people may struggle emotionally and physically during times when they most need care.
We are living through a profoundly disruptive time, and evidence-based practices can help people recover from major loss and life change. Building lifelong tools for healing can support both individual and collective well-being.
