Grief and Bereavement

The death of someone close is inevitable. Eventually we all lose someone we know and love. And someone will one day lose us.

Ideally, people get to live a long, full and mostly healthy life, with expected and usual challenges along the way that are addressed and taken care of. We know of course, this comes with the benefit of extreme privilege and is simply not the case for everyone.

What we do know is this…

Ageing is inevitable, if we are lucky.

Life and role transitions are also inevitable and hopefully involve progress.

Change is how we grow.

But what happens when we lose someone prematurely or suddenly? How do we make sense of any death outside the ideal of dying from inevitable old age, peacefully and gracefully?

The bereavement process is complex and unique to everyone. It forces us to evaluate life and its meaning from a deeper and more profound place. It also compels us to reflect on our own experiences, internal processes and emotions in relation to ourselves and others.

Some might call this an Existential Crisis. In the Counselling world, we call it Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG).

Counselling can support your transition through life’s greatest challenges. It doesn’t have to be linear, it certainly isn’t comfortable or neat. But with support, it can help you to come to more profound and meaningful awareness, not only about your relationship with the person who passed, but also and especially about the relationship with yourself, others, and the world around you after you have experienced the death of someone close.

We live in a world that does not value life. On the whole we are surrounded by or are witness to atrocity and carnage that should be the exception not the rule. This is not the cruelty and inevitability of our nature, or is it? Are we no better than the ferocity of the natural world? The opposite certainly exists too. Our capacity to love, create, grow, build and nurture. Where is the balance? Can’t we have the latter without the former? Isn’t the inevitability of death and destruction by natural causes enough to compel us not to create it through deliberate destruction? Isn’t the beauty enough to strive for or is that what we fight for when it is threatened?”

That last paragraph is what an Existential reflection might look like. Have a go and think about doing it with a Counsellor. Sometimes when the people closest to us are experiencing the same grief and bereavement as us, we can’t heal each other. Everyone is in the same boat. Working through your emotions and thoughts with a neutral and objective person listening can give you the perspective and strength you need to then go ahead and help others.

If you are experiencing grief and bereavement, you don’t have to endure it alone. You can talk to someone to witness your pain and turmoil, and support you to make sense of your responses.

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Fair Weather Friends and Trauma Fetishisers

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Reciprocal Relationships