That's not grief!

Grief and loss are different.

Grief is a seven step process which when transitioned through allows a person to move through life without the all encompassing emotion of the passing of a loved one or the ending of a relationship.

Loss on the other hand, is a creation of negative emotion that causes the constant stab of pain we feel when we think of that loved one, that past relationship or any other loss we may have encountered. This could be family or friends moving away, a relationship breakdown with a friend of many years etc.

So what if it’s loss that we have now chosen to feel?

What would happen if every time we lost someone from our life for any reason we added to that pot of loss until it overflows?

Whenever we think of anyone we lost we feel that heavy weight because our mind has now connected the dots of each of those events. What do you think would happen if the root cause of that negative emotion was removed, so you could look back at all those experiences where you lost someone without that heavy weight. How fantastic would it be if you could remember someone with fondness regardless of what happened to them, as opposed to always feeling the pain from their passing.

Grief isn’t supposed to be a lifelong response, once you move through the steps it is supposed to get better. If we hang on to the pain for whatever reason then we never move forward as we always have one foot in the past.

You can choose to be free of the pain and move forward without it changing how you feel about the people you’ve lost. It’s a simple matter of asking yourself:

are you ready to choose to be happy? or do you want to continue to live your life driven by pain?