Life gives but also takes away. And when what we've lost is a relationship or a loved one, we all know that the loss can lead to emotions such as anger and grief. But what if what you've lost is your health, your job, or a precious object?
Even if the thing you lost isn't a person, you can still experience feelings of bereavement and grief. You might notice symptoms such as mood swings, anxiety, depression, fatigue, a loss of interest in your usual activities, avoiding being with people, difficulty sleeping and changes in appetite.
Such a wave of emotions and physical symptoms can feel overwhelming. You might feel as if you've lost everything and your world is going to end. Bach Flower Mix 68 can help you deal with the shock of loss, soothing grief and reducing depression.
While it might not be easy to deal with loss, you can come through this. If you look back through your life, you'll probably realise that it's not the first time you've felt like this. You've done it before, and you can do it again.
When we mourn for something we've lost, it's rarely the thing itself that we're grieving. It's what it represents to us.
If you lose the ring your grandma left you, you're not just losing a piece of jewellery; you're mourning a sense of connection and a feeling of being valued and trusted. If you're made redundant from a job you've held down for years, sure, you'll be missing your salary, but you may also be grieving for the feeling of being connected and belonging to a team, a loss of social status and a sense of self-worth.
If you feel overpowering emotions when you've lost something, it can be down to repressed emotion and negative core beliefs.
Our core beliefs are the concepts about the world and ourselves that we develop as children. We can then be controlled by these assumptions as if they are facts, even though they may be distorted thinking.
For example, if we lose something valuable, we might say to ourselves, "I can't be trusted to look after things". And when loss triggers these negative core beliefs, years of repressed emotions can also be stirred up.
We suddenly feel overwhelmed by sadness or anger without realising what has triggered these intense feelings. So what can you do to feel better when it feels as if you've lost everything?
It's absolutely normal to feel upset for weeks on end when you lose something important to you. So don't beat yourself up or tell yourself to grow up and stop being such a loser. Try to be kind and understanding to yourself as you would with a good friend. You wouldn't tell them to stop being such a drama llama when you know they're feeling very vulnerable.
Think of it as mourning. There's no set timeline. Everyone will take different amounts of time to grieve. And when you're ready, you will move on.
It can be easier to get over intense feelings of loss if you can work out what's really going on and what losing something has triggered for you. Talking to friends you trust can be great, as can keeping a journal of your thoughts and feelings.
Reflect on how the loss has made you feel and how your life is different now. And try to work out what it is that you've really lost, beneath the obvious. Now ask yourself what goals you can set so you can regain that feeling of connection/trust/self-belief.
Can you think back to an earlier time when it felt as if your world was ending? It might have felt as if you'd never get through it. But you did. And you'll get through this loss as well.
Maybe it feels that it's different or worse this time around. So try to imagine what life might be like for you in two years, five years or even ten years down the line. Now ask yourself whether things will still seem as bad in the future as you think they are now.
Try looking at this loss from a different perspective and see if there's something you can learn from it. The knowledge you've acquired from this experience will make you stronger and more resilient, and you'll find you'll be able to cope with whatever life has in store.
Sources:
https://www.youngminds.org.uk/young-person/my-feelings/grief-and-loss/
https://www.helpguide.org/articles/grief/coping-with-grief-and-loss.htm
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