Grief is a natural response to loss. It might be the loss of a loved one, relationship, pregnancy, pet, job, or way of life. Other experiences of loss may be due to children leaving home, infertility, and separation from friends and family. The more significant the loss, the more intense the grief is likely to be.
Grief is expressed in many ways. It can affect every part of your life, your emotions, thoughts and behavior, beliefs, physical health, sense of self and identity, and relationships with others. Grief can leave you feeling sad, angry, anxious, shocked, regretful, relieved, overwhelmed, isolated, irritable, or numb.
Grief has no set pattern. Everyone experiences grief differently. Some people may grieve for weeks and months, while others describe their grief as lasting for years. However, through the process of grief, you begin to create new experiences and habits that work around your loss.
Grief, even when expected, leaves indelible memories and defines some of the most crucial turning points in our lives. We absorb the impacts of loss within our unique life circumstances, and as the individuals we are.
Each of us experiences the world in a way that is uniquely our own, within our worlds of experience, we learn to feel, behave, think, expect, and hope as if those we care about will continue to live. When someone in our world dies, we remain postured in that world as we were before the death, but we can no longer sustain that posture. We are challenged to learn new ways of feeling, behaving, thinking, expecting, and hoping after the loss. As we know these things, we cope. Grieving, by definition, is just dealing with the challenges that bereavement presents. Grieving is what we do in response to what happens to us in grief.