Grief is a universal emotion, yet it is a profound individual experience. It is a natural reaction to loss. It’s not possible to live and never experience grief, yet it takes over us in a way we can’t control.

Grief can stem from any kind of loss, big or small. I’ve had a fair share of both, and they’re difficult to deal with. There are no chalked-out reasons for grief; it is a complicated emotion that goes far beyond any singular experience. You might not be ready to accept it, but grief takes time, and you can’t rush it. When I was grieving my loss, I just wanted to get past the sadness. Growing up, I realised that you just can’t push it away; there’s no off button to it. Dealing with grief is the only way to heal.

The five stages of grief

Grief comes in stages—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance and these stages are not linear. One day you might be in denial of the loss, the other day you might be depressed. For the longest time after the end of a 10-year-long friendship, I was swinging between anger and depression. How to deal with grief has no singular answer. Dealing with it is tough; you can’t tell it to pack up its bags and leave. That’s what I tried to do, and let me tell you, it didn’t work.

While there’s no guide on how to deal with the loss of a loved one, but here are some things that might help.

1. Allow yourself to feel 

Grief is a whirlpool of emotions. When I was dealing with grief, there was anger, frustration, sadness, guilt, and even peace at times. Sometimes, all of them came together, and I couldn’t make any sense of it. It took me time to understand that all of these feelings are valid and it’s important to feel them.

You don’t have to act strong or move on in a certain period. Grief doesn’t have a calendar to follow. Feel all these emotions as they come, scream if you’re angry, or laugh till you start crying. I have done both, and for a while, I felt like whatever was sitting on my chest had lightened.

2. Open up to your loved ones

When I lost a best friend, I felt nobody would understand it as no one around me had ever gone through something like this. But the truth is, no matter how different your loss is, all of us have had a meet-and-greet with grief. It was tough for me, but when I finally opened up to people, it turned out they too had experienced it in some way or the other.

Sharing your emotions and trying to let go feels much better, even if it is for a bit. If you find it tough to open up to loved ones; maybe opening up to strangers can help.

3. Healing takes time

Healing isn’t a ladder you can climb and rush to reach to the top; it is way more complex. You might feel like you have healed but it can still come rushing back. After seven years of dealing with my loss, I still have moments where it hits me like a truck. I can’t say I have not healed, but there are days when grief demands your attention, so give in. Healing is a process that keeps happening in the background as you move through life.

4. There’s meaning in loss

Trying to find meaning in things can be hard when you’re experiencing pain and are forced to live with it. When I lost someone close, I didn’t know if life could be the same again, and it wasn’t for a long time. But as I accepted the reality of their absence, I also realised that they were still with me. They continued to live with me through the lessons and the experiences we shared.

It took me a while to learn that when you lose someone, they aren’t completely gone. You can keep them close by cherishing them, or by living the way they did.

5. Accept the longing

I lost a loved one back in 2017, and I still think about them and wonder if I can meet them just once more. No matter how much you try to move on, the longing stays. After all, moving on doesn’t mean you have to forget about them. If you find yourself thinking or dreaming about them, it’s okay. It’s your way of dealing with the grief of losing someone close.

Grieving the loss of a loved one is a deeply personal journey, and you can’t apply the one-size-fits-all approach. Losing someone close to you is never easy, so don’t be hard on yourself in navigating through it. You can’t heal by pretending the pain doesn’t exist, or by rushing through it. Trust me, I have tried doing both and it was a success. Don’t push away your grief; invite it in and let it sit close. Ask what it wants and feel all the emotions it demands. That people, is the only way you can be friends with it.

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