How to Cope with Loss and Grief Healthy Coping Strategies

Grief is a journey,
often perilous and without clear direction,
that must be taken.
The experience of grieving cannot be
ordered or categorized, hurried or controlled,
pushed aside or ignored indefinitely.
It is inevitable as breathing, as change, as love.
It may be postponed, but it will not be denied.

Molly Fumia

When it seems that our sorrow
is too great to be borne,
let us think of the great family
of the heavy-hearted
into which our grief has given us entrance,
and inevitable,
we will feel about us,
their arms and their understanding.

Helen Keller

People in mourning have to come to grips with death before they can live again.
Mourning can go on for years and years.
It doesn't end after a year, that's a false fantasy.
It usually ends when people realize that they can live again,
that they can concentrate their energies on their lives as a whole,
and not on their hurt, and guilt and pain.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

After a stormy period of mixed feelings
of prolonged sadness, there comes a calm.
After we become convinced that we are at the very brink
of eternal despair, or fear, or guilt, or sadness,
we are given a reprieve.

We have a breathing space
that eventually leads to whole days
that have personal value
and offer us the opportunity for affection.

Then we recognize that no period of misery
is endless and unrelenting;
it is instead, changeable.

Carol Staudacher