Each week we will be sharing a tip from our school psychologist, Mrs. Rollins.

This week we are talking about – Understanding Grief and Loss

There is a lot to unpack with grief and loss. It can be such a disorienting feeling caused by circumstances completely out of our control. People like to categorize things so they can understand them. This week I want to give a few ways that people categorize and try to understand grief.

Most of us are familiar with the 5 stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. What most people don’t know is these were developed with people who were terminally ill. If you have found that some of these concepts fit your grief, but others never did, then maybe that is why. Also, these are presented in an order but in reality, they don’t have any order.

Another way to look at the “tasks” of grief is the acronym TEAR:

• T- ‘To accept the reality of loss” by not avoiding grief or pretending it didn’t happen.
• E- “Experience pain of loss” by working through the emotions caused by grief with trusted people or professionals.
• A- “Adjust to a new life without the lost person.” How long this takes depends on how much of an impact this person had on your life. Was it a distant relative or a close friend/family member? You may need to learn new skills or make new connections to fill the void of the loss of the person.
• R- Reinvest in the new reality or figure out how you can let this person live in your memories, take space in your heart, but still find new things that bring you pleasure and meaning.

One last way to look at it is to imagine your life as a circle and then shade a section of that circle that represents your grief. People think that the shaded section becomes smaller as though your life returns to what it was before the loss. But in reality, your life should grow around that grief with many new experiences after loss. As that happens, grief seems smaller, but your overall circle is bigger. This recognizes that your life doesn’t “go back”, but becomes something different.

I hope understanding these concepts helps with understanding grief and how people process it better.

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