Individualized Grief

Thought for the day: Our experience of grief is unpredictable, messy, unconstrained to time, and individualized–it is defined as loss, sorrow, sadness, heartbreak, suffering, pain, and more. We face grief in the most unexpected circumstances–loss of a loved one, loss of a job/business, unmet expectations, tragedy, lost items of sentiment, divorce, retirement, changes (good/bad), what once was, moving, and the list goes on.

Grief cannot be quantified by the experience or comparative. Each of us process through grief differently, and must be careful not to judge as others as they go through their individualized experience; as we cannot define a loss as great or small. The best thing we can offer ourselves and others is permission and the space to grieve, empathize wholeheartedly, and seek human connection–it doesn’t have to be with words, but it does require us to be present.