Understanding and Managing Grief, March 24 - March 30, 2024

Best selections from Grief Healing's X feed this week:

Meghan Riordan Jarvis, a trauma-informed grief expert who specializes in how grief affects the body, told me that because the death of a loved one is a completely novel experience, it is "very energetically expensive." She confirmed that grief can impair our balance as well as memory and our ability to do multistep functions. Can grief make us accident-prone? « KLCC

A ritual is a ceremony of meaning, a continued observance of ceremonies which are repeated routinely are known as rituals. Rituals can either be done in an isolated manner or by gathering lots of people; it varies from person to person. Rituals are held to mark important events in one’s life, for example, birth, wedding, graduation, and death. The main purpose of a ritual is to add meaning to an event to add depth to it, whether secular or spiritual meaning. Power Of Rituals And Memorialization In The Grieving Process « AfterTalk

The human-animal bond provides psychological and physical benefits. A recent poll by the American Psychiatric Association and the American Veterinary Medical Association found that animal companionship has a positive impact on mental health. It found that pets provide a calming presence, alleviate stress, encourage physical activity, and boost social interactions. Pet related routines provide predictability and a sense of accomplishment. Are there mental health benefits to having a pet? « RTE

As a younger man I thought funerals were just an expensive tradition — overdone sentimentalism. Now a septuagenarian, I more deeply appreciate our society’s funeral customs and what they do for the survivors. My views on funerals have been shaped over many years, going way back to childhood. I consider myself fortunate that my parents believed children had a place at some funerals. Grief expressed is grief relieved « The Daily Freeman-Journal

When we confront the lessons of grief, we opt for surviving and transcending the pain. If we choose to do so, we can look at the pain of loss as having a specific purpose. Turning crisis into opportunity, we can find emotional and spiritual peace. We have a choice: we can either give up and withdraw into our tragedy or we can grow from the experience. We can either succumb to the pain or decide to transform ourselves. The choice to grow, to transform the self is not an easy one. It requires work, perseverance and endurance. Like everything else in grief, it is a process, but it is what makes loss worth surviving. Confronting The Lessons of Grief « Grief Healing

Your feedback is welcome! Please feel free to leave a comment or a question, or share a tip, a related article or a resource of your own in the Comments section below. If you’d like Grief Healing Blog updates delivered right to your inbox, you’re cordially invited to subscribe to our weekly Grief Healing Newsletter. Sign up here.