What to Do When You Have No Family or Friends
Supporting someone y'all love who is grieving tin can be tough. Part of this is because you want to help, but deep down, you know that you can't fully take their pain away. In add-on, it was difficult to console a grieving friend or family member before the COVID-xix pandemic — simply this past year has certainly complicated the procedure. Offering support with a screen separating yous from your loved ane can prevent you from extending a comforting hug or paw and furthering your bulletin of support.
Withal, knowing what to say and practice — in addition to merely being there for them without necessarily maxim or doing too much — is a great start. Grieving is a gradual process, and the ultimate healer is time. However, in the procedure, you can help a loved 1 cope by providing back up in different ways. Use these tips to get started in offering reassurance and comfort to someone who's navigating the grieving procedure.
Many people are hesitant to directly mention the cause of someone'due south grief. We tend to call up information technology'll make the person experience worse, equally bringing upward a name or a situation can oftentimes prompt the person to start crying as memories or thoughts come up flooding in. Yet crying is a natural and healthy role of grieving. Speaking candidly almost their grief can be much more comforting than noticeably barring information technology from the chat, besides. If your friend or family member is comfortable with it, yous can use the word "died" rather than "passed away" if that'south the root of the grief. Speak the name of the lost loved one.
For example, "I'grand going to miss Stephanie so much," is much more heartfelt and personal than the universal "I'thousand sorry for your loss," notes Harvard Medical Schoolhouse. Using truly comforting words — and expressing your authentic sentiment — over a loss can be more helpful than proverb something you could imagine telling someone you don't know well. Your authenticity and recognition can brand your grieving loved ones feel more than comfortable most their grief and the way they're feeling.
It'southward of import to sympathize that some people who are grieving feel shame around their grief, as if they're a burden considering they're pain or difficult to be around. Acknowledging their grief out loud is an effective mode to let a person who'southward grieving know that isn't the case. Of grade, you want to be sensitive about how y'all bring the situation up, but don't erase it from the conversation. It can help loved ones recognize that you're someone they don't have to tiptoe around and that they can speak honestly to you about what they're going through.
Reach Out First
Don't await for someone who's grieving to reach out to yous. People going through something difficult often don't have the energy to ask for help. Many times, they don't even know what to ask for. Doing that work for them is some of the best support you can provide. Telephone call them to express your sympathy and ask them if they desire to talk. Check in with them often, even if information technology's just to permit them know y'all're thinking virtually them.
Offer to help out, too. Don't tell them to let you lot know if they demand anything; they might be reluctant to practice so, and that won't brand things easier for them. Aid out with specific things, like bringing over groceries or pre-made meals, cleaning their house, driving them around, assisting with childcare or answering their phone. Many people dealing with grief feel guilty asking for this kind of assistance, and if you know the person well enough it tin be best to just exercise these things without request. They'll appreciate information technology.
Listen Without Trying to Fix Everything
Your grieving loved one will demand someone to listen to them when they feel like talking. They demand someone to listen without offer unsolicited communication and without judgment. If someone special to them died, let them do the talking near how they feel. Let them repeat the story over and over if they have to. A compassionate ear helps more than y'all know to lessen the pain. Yous can offer words to comfort the bereaved without putting your two cents in or interjecting. Merely give advice if they specifically ask for it. It'due south perfectly okay to admit that you don't know what to say but want them to know they accept your support.
Part of existence a good listener to someone experiencing loss or whatsoever type of grief is agreement the grieving procedure. It doesn't ever manifest as sadness or depression. Feelings of anger and anxiety are common. Having trouble sleeping is normal, as is feeling fatigue. Disruptions in eating patterns happen oftentimes likewise. If you feel okay with it, you can be someone to whom they feel comfortable letting information technology all out. If you're talking in-person rather than through a screen, you might concord their paw and hug them instead of trying to come with solutions. Retrieve, no advice you tin give is going to take the pain abroad. However, your presence tin can do wonders for helping them cope in the meantime.
Don't Minimize Their Loss by Being Overly Positive
Information technology can be helpful to bring upwardly genuine positives to a loved one who is grieving — simply the way you lot do and so matters. For example, reminding them that the person they lost was loved or lived a full life can be comforting. Even so, you lot want to avoid overdoing information technology or just focusing on the good. Non everything has a positive spin, and that'south okay; it doesn't have to. Being too positive can easily make someone who's grieving experience similar you're minimizing their pain or loss, as if it isn't a big bargain or they're being too emotional about it.
An instance of a minimizing comment might be, "What doesn't kill you makes yous stronger." While it's truthful they may come up out the other end of their grief stronger, in the moment it tin experience like you're pushing aside their sadness or suggesting their emotions aren't valid.
Expressing things through the lens of your faith to someone who doesn't share your behavior is some other thing to avoid. If someone doesn't believe in God, telling them their expressionless loved one is "in a meliorate identify" won't help them experience improve. Maxim that what happened is "function of God's plan" could brand them feel angry rather than comforted. Even if you mean well, leaving your religion out of it is much more than supportive if they don't share your beliefs. Your words of sympathy and comfort can easily be expressed using non-religious language instead.
Seeing people y'all love grieve is never easy, only take heart. The loving support yous offer can be a powerful tool in helping family unit and friends process their grief.
Resources Links:
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/cease-of-life/expert-answers/grieving-process/faq-20058274
https://world wide web.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/cease-of-life/in-depth/grief/fine art-20045340
https://www.health.harvard.edu/listen-and-mood/ways-to-support-someone-who-is-grieving
https://pathwayshealth.org/grief-support/grief-tin can-have-very-existent-physical-symptoms/
Source: https://www.symptomfind.com/health/support-grieving-loved-one?utm_content=params%3Ao%3D740013%26ad%3DdirN%26qo%3DserpIndex
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