Many people that know me well recognize that I got in to counseling because I lost a close family member. 

Grief can slam in to us like a truck. 

An otherwise safe and well buttoned up reality comes apart at the seams. 

Tragedy so overwhelming it doesn’t fit in any of your categories. Grief that seriously impacts your functioning. Splintering your psyche.

The big thing with grief is it attacks our sense of meaning. It cuts at the very heart of our understanding of the world. When this happens KNOW IT’S GOOD TO GET HELP! 

There’s a formula to get through this kind of grief. It’s not easy, but if you do it, you’re psyche will become integrated and you’ll successfully process your grief.

1). Get professional support, or the dedication of someone you trust to help you through wholeheartedly. Psychodynamic issues can constipate emotion, you need to start a journey inside of yourself. You will be different when it’s done.

2). Realize the quickest way out is directly through. Through you complex and overwhelming emotions, directly facing your darkest thoughts and moods about this loss.

3). Learn the grief stages. This is your general blueprint through. Shock/denial. Bargaining. Anger. Depression. Acceptance/Making new meaning. 

4). Begin seriously encountering yourself. Associate more to your experience. Intensify your experience. Inventory what you are thinking/feeling, and with support experience it directly, in detail. 

5). Breathe with your emotions, feel them fully but if you can don’t let them own you. Let them flow, don’t damn them up. Process, be detailed but try not to hold on. Breathe in and out, allow whatever you feel. There’s no wrong answer except denial. Repeat. 

6). Recognize the heart has its own schedule and everyone grieves differently, efficiency is being fully with your experience and telling the truth. It’s ok whatever comes up. 

7). After some time be open to finding new meaning. You must be open to learning some new stuff, at the end you will recognize the power of a new worldview. It will help you live again. It will help you find some meaning amidst the loss.