Grief Counseling

Grief can be overwhelming, sometimes causing us to experience a plethora of conflicting thoughts and feelings. Many people get “stuck” in grief, meaning that they shut down and don’t know what to do next. Feeling helpless, clueless, or exhausted is a natural part of grief, and it is okay to remain in this state for a while. However, many people experience a build-up of anxiety that comes from knowing they should get out of this state but not knowing how. Being Caught Unaware We are not taught how to navigate grief. Our culture regards death, sickness, and suffering in clinical ways. However, we all face death at some point, either directly when we lose someone close to us or indirectly when we support a friend through grief. It’s not uncommon to feel unprepared and shocked over death, even when we have anticipated it. Richardson Christian Counseling offers compassionate, faith-based support to help individuals and families process grief with hope and healing, grounded in God’s presence and truth. Everyone has a unique experience with grief. What one person goes through will not be the same as another, even within families and friend groups. Certain thoughts and feelings can be alarming and can cause us to question our mental health or character. For example, we may feel both sadness and anger at our lost loved one. We might not even feel anything at all for a long while until something triggers our emotions unexpectedly. There is no correct way to grieve, and this is one of the reasons why grief is so complex. We can feel unhinged in grief, and we might genuinely be emotionally unstable for a while. Grief forces us to confront all of the things that we would rather avoid. That can be draining on every level. Getting [...]

One thing that most people crave is a sense of stability, to know that their world has some constants that allow them to make sense of the world and themselves. That sense of constancy may come from the house we live in, the routines we adhere to, or the people we have around us. Few relationships frame our existence quite the same way as that between a parent and child, which is why the loss of a parent and the grieving that follows is so significant. A child often comes into the world with parents around them, and these are the first people that the child knows. Their family forms the first relationships they have, and those relationships shape them in profound ways as they grow older and form relationships with other people. The loss of a parent likely marks the end of one’s longest-standing relationships, and the grief from that loss will mark a person for the rest of their life, and it can be complicated in various ways. How our grief works. You may have heard about the 5 stages of grief before. It’s something that Elizabeth Kübler Ross wrote about in her book “On Death and Dying”. In that book, she noted that while everyone can grieve differently, there are some commonalities in how grief works for different people. Grief can be divided into five stages that describe certain feelings experienced during grief. Kübler Ross’ observations came from years of working with terminally ill people. The five stages of grief are as follows: Denial. One can pretend that the loss they’ve experienced isn’t real. It may simply be too overwhelming to process and acknowledge at that moment. Anger. Feelings of anger can mask other emotions that you may be carrying at that moment. The anger may [...]