Traveling may seem like the last thing on anyone’s mind after a heartbreaking loss. It can require focus and a lot of physical effort. Clinical psychologists, however, praise the healing effects of traveling, especially for those whose loved ones have recently passed away.
If you have a friend, relative, or immediate family member coping with loss and grief, suggesting a getaway may help start their healing journey.
Another suggestion is to gift them with travel-friendly sympathy gifts. With remembrance tokens, anyone can leave their homes for a while and still take the memory of their departed dear ones with them. Sympathy shawls, memorial jewelry, and music memory boxes are just some of these handy yet thoughtful remembrance gifts.
The Healing Effects of a Vacation
One of the most significant benefits of a vacation is that it often lends a sense of freedom and the opening up to possibilities. To lose a loved one can be a crippling experience. It is common for those left behind to feel unhinged, vulnerable, and isolated.
It doesn’t help, too, that grief can be a lonely terrain. Even when everyone else is mourning, individuals may still grieve in very different, very personal ways.
Traveling, on the other hand, allows for the expansion of one’s perspective. Traveling opens up individuals into the world. This can be very liberating, and for many who have been shaken up by grief, emotionally healing.
Licensed therapist Claire Bidwell Smith, who traveled after she lost both her parents, affirmed how traveling reminded her of the “force that was life”. She also felt much braver when she realized she had been through the worst. In many ways, therefore, traveling can encourage resilience, balance, and independence, especially at a time when nothing seems to make sense.
Encouraging a Grieving Loved One to Travel
Grief can easily make people withdraw into themselves, leaving them without the desire to do anything worthwhile for a time.
If you must suggest traveling to a friend or family in mourning, it is best to do so in a sensitive and considerate manner. Do not impose your ideas and convictions unto them. They may spurn the idea at first, but you can still help them with research and planning. Was there any specific destination they have long planned to visit? Would they want to participate in a spiritual retreat? Travel options are varied and virtually endless. Also, by letting them read about the healing effects of a vacation, they may finally be convinced to take a much-needed getaway.
Grief translates itself into both physical and emotional pain. The pain can be made even more significant when one stays rooted in the place where the loss has transpired.
Traveling allows for a very tangible, albeit fleeting, distraction. This distraction, according to counselors and clinical experts, are an important part of healing from any irreversible loss, such as one brought about by death.
Traveling into a Better, Stronger Self After a Loss
Just like any new destination, grief is often a foreign territory that one must conquer. Traveling can provide a necessary pause, a reprieve from the physical reminders of the person whom one has lost.
Suggesting the idea of travel to your grieving friend or colleague may just be one of the greatest gifts you can give them. And as a token of your sympathy and love, you may gift them with travel-friendly sympathy gifts to let them know that, once they return home, you will still be there.
Travel-friendly sympathy gifts can come in many varieties. Check out our selection of memory keepsakes at the Comfort Company. From jewelry and music boxes to framed gifts, many of our items are handy enough to fit in a travel suitcase. Check out our offerings here.