Healing From the Pain of Loss & Disappointment

Grief is an emotion that I know and have experienced all to well. Sometimes I reflect on the days when I didn't know much of what loss and pain felt like. It seemed that it was happening to everyone else around me, until the day loss and pain visited my door step.

Even though the emotion of losing key people in my life and setbacks started to visit me too often, somehow God gave me the strength to mature and grow. Not only as a woman, but grow into the knowledge of Christ and His love. It felt as if my world was turning upside down as I knew it, but yet and still sparking a new passion, love and desire within me.

Grief and loss can change the way you perceive and view the world around you. What most people have yet to realize is that there are different types of grief and often are not recognized. There is symbolic loss which comes from losing a job, having a loss in health, finances, status and key people who have made a difference in your life outside of relatives.

With the amount of loss that people are experiencing this present day and around the world from Covid-19, it is important to take care of your mental and emotional health now more than ever. Life has never stopped happening, but with a pandemic, a controversial presidential election filled with uncertainty, jobs, businesses, schools and even places of worship operating out of the norm, adds fuel to the fire. Not to mention, civil unrest and racial injustice. Certainly 2020 has been an unprecedented year.

How do we recover from such a crisis?

People need hope, love and encouragement.

1. Never allow anyone to tell you how long to grieve. Your healing is determined by your time table, not someone else's.

2. Do not allow anyone to convince you that your emotions are not normal. When you are experiencing grief, your emotions are sometimes unpredictable. There can be sadness, denial, anger, guilt, and finally acceptance. With the current state of our nation, uncertainty maybe an emotion that you experience as well.

3. One day, you may feel fine, the next minute you may not. Talk with someone you can trust if it all becomes to unbearable.

Remember you are not alone.