Losing a spouse or significant other is one of the hardest things you will even face in life. This person has been your partner and shared some of the most intimate moments with you and their loss can be devastating. Losing your husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, or parent of your children is something that will rock your world and shake you to the core. The feelings that follow will be immense and at times you might feel like you will never be whole again. While the emotions that overcome you can be truly overwhelming, take solace in knowing that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. It will take time and plenty of work, but you can overcome the loss of someone so close to you.
Focus on Taking Care of Yourself
After losing your partner it’s important to continue taking care of yourself. At first, you might find it difficult to keep working through your regular routine, but it’s important to not lose sight of self-care. This is one of the most important aspects of the grieving process. You need to feel the emotions and express them, but don’t let them bury you. By exercising regularly, making sure you’re eating right and getting plenty of sleep you can keep your body healthy while your mind works on catching up. After a loss, it’s easy to turn to alcohol or other vises to cope, but doing this can put your health at risk and will only delay the grieving process.
Turn to Family and Close Friends for Support
Losing a loved one is never easy, but it is something that no one should have to go through alone. In fact, having a close support network can make the grieving process a bit easier. It’s important that you express your true feelings and have open and honest discussions with family and friends that you feel close to. Don’t bottle up your feelings because you think the world needs you to be ‘tough’ or because people make you believe that crying means you’re weak. In actuality, crying is good for emotional health as it’s the body’s way of expressing our inner most feelings. It’s also important to show your children—if you have any—that expressing emotions and being vulnerable during a trying time is okay. We know that no amount of sympathy cards or relationship grief gifts will make the pain go away but take solace in knowing how much people care about you.
Know That Grief is an Ever Changing Process
After losing your spouse or anyone else close to you, it’s important to remember that grief is a process and everyone experiences it differently. While there are five stages of grief, we all move through them at different speeds, in different orders, with different intensity. You cannot compare your bereavement process to anyone else’s because everyone experiences loss and grief differently. Don’t judge your healing process against anyone else’s because you never know what they’re truly feeling on the inside and trying to speed up your “progress” to keep up with someone else is detrimental to the overall grieving process.
It’s Okay to Seek Professional Help
Sometimes our emotions are too overwhelming to handle on our own. That’s okay. This is a person that you spent every day with, that you stayed up talking until sunrise, and experienced some of the most intimate moments of your life with. After losing this person, your rock, your partner, you are undoubtedly going to have intense feelings about the loss. It might take you a while to believe they’re actually gone and when you do, the pain can be immeasurable. Sympathy notes and gifts for grieving wives can only do so much to help you heal. In fact, just the sight of their favorite shirt in the closet can send you into a downward spiral. These feelings are natural, but if you feel truly overwhelmed you may need to seek professional help. A bereavement counselor can help you work through the intense emotions that you are experiencing and provide coping mechanisms and strategies to help you process what you are feeling. The emotions during the grieving process can be a complicated and convoluted mixture and it’s okay to turn to a professional for help through it.
Remember That There is no Deadline for Grief
Perhaps the most important, but the hardest part of the grieving process is remembering that grief has no expiration date. The saying time heals all wounds is true to an extent, but how much time is enough time? That depends on the person and the situation. Everyone experiences grief differently and the truth is that you might never fully escape your grief. Many people are not able to reach the acceptance stage after a loss and sometimes even those who do struggle after the fact with their loss. The truth is that you will never “get over” the loss of a spouse or significant other, you simply learn to live with their absence.
If you know someone who is struggling through the grieving process, consider sending them a touching sympathy gift from The Comfort Company. We offer a variety of thoughtful sympathy gifts, ranging from memorial jewelry to gifts for grieving women. With personalized options, whatever you’re looking for to help a grieving loved one, The Comfort Company has it.