The Grieving Process - How Do You Grieve? How Do You React To Grief?
Recently, grief has been on my mind. It seems to be a universal idea- everyone suffers loss personally at some point and everyone knows someone who has lost something. However, despite the universality of it, it also seems that no one knows how to really cope with it or help others cope. The reactions and involved emotions range from sorrow to rage; some may experience one or both, and others experience neither for seemingly no reason. Some people try to comfort others how they would like to be comforted, with limited success and at worst making things even worse for the griever. One would expect such universal experience to bring people together and encourage mass empathy, but it seems like the exact opposite holds far more truth.
Personally, I am drastically different when it comes to others in this kind of respect. I don't truly grieve in the same sense others do. Perhaps I am simply used to the feeling of loss, but it doesn't seem to affect me as bad as others are affected. Sometimes I need some time alone to burn a bit of incense and drink some tea, but I rarely find myself unable to eat or sleep or any real emotional distress. At the same time, when other are in grief I am baffled as to what to do. I understand that others are in pain, but I lack the tools in which to cure them, likely no such miracle cure exists. Instead, I flail helplessly, doing little more than providing a listening ear and validation to their emotions while they work it through themselves. It's unsatisfactory to me, but I've yet to find a satisfactory method of how to help people when they are in grief.
So I come to DreamViews to try and get more information and perhaps some clues to solve the mystery of human grief out. What are your thoughts on grief? How do you handle it? How do you handle others grieving?
