Grieving A Lost Loved One

DistantYou grieve because you loved. This is why your grief exists. Grief is love turned upside down. Grief is as natural as rain. It is made to come and go and decrease over time.

Grief lingers only when we do not give grief the time it requires. If you welcome grief as a sign of love that was lost and trust that we were made to grieve our losses, grief will be a meaningful experience that comes and goes, lessening in intensity over time.

If you refuse grief when it comes, you may push grief away temporarily but it will return distorted and transformed into symptoms or illness. It is fundamentally unnatural to refuse grief.

I have seen grief transformed into every kind of illness both psychological and physical. Grief changes shape when we refuse it.

When refused, grief will linger, some times for years. As if what or who was lost, not grieved, remains waiting and trying to enter the human heart and mind. Because grief is natural, because we are built to experience grief when love is lost (through a breakup or death), grief is necessary to resolve a loss.

Grieving is something you should ‘give into.’ Your mind and body know what to do. You will cry and feel profound sadness. You will remember events that took place involving your loved one. You will have images of him or her. Entertain them, see these thoughts, feelings, and images as ‘gifts’ of love returned to you because of your feelings of loss.

These gifts are what you will retain in your mind and heart of the loved one you have lost. In a most profound way, they are the disembodied psychological essence of your loved one now in your heart. Cherish it.

These thoughts, feelings, and images of your loved one will settle into you over time as your grief subsides. They will remain in you as a memorial of the love you had and have for your loved one.

Remember, in its natural state, grief is a healing emotion. In a most fundamental way, grief is love returned to you in the form of healing for the love you have given to the one you’ve lost.

Comments? Welcome. Dr. Tom Jordan

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Dr. Jordan

Dr. Thomas Jordan is a clinical psychologist, certified interpersonal psychoanalyst, author, professor, and love life researcher.

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