Being involved in a serious accident, suffering through the death of someone close to you and witnessing a natural disaster are all traumatic events which can upset and distress even the strongest people. Usually, the powerful and disturbing feelings these terrible situations create fade on their own with time. If you’ve suffered through a traumatic event and want to get back on track as soon as you can, here are 4 tips to help you learn how to cope with grief on your own.
4 tips to help you cope with grief
Be patient with yourself
The first step to learning how to cope with grief is to accept that the process will take time and to be patient with yourself. It can take weeks or even months to fully understand the traumatic event, acknowledge that it genuinely happened and feel strong enough to move on. So allow yourself all the time you need to move through these stages.
Progressing Through Grief is an excellent resource to help you come to terms with any kind of traumatic event and learn how to cope with grief.
Connect with others involved
Rarely do traumatic events affect just one person. So find comfort in the company of others who were also involved. If you’re suffering through the loss of a loved one, talk to other friends and family members who are grieving, too. Or if you’ve received news of a terrible illness, try talking to other people who’ve been diagnosed with the same thing. There are many different ways you can get involved with others in similar situations to help you learn how to cope with grief.
For helpful advice on how to cope with the death of a loved one, read Healing Grief, Finding Peace.
Get support
It’s so important to never bottle up your feelings when coping with grief. So get in touch with some close family members or trusted friends and talk to them about what you’re going through. Don’t be worried if they don’t know how to react or console you – it’s perfectly natural. Just talking through your feelings with another human will make you feel a lot better and will help you get back on track.
It’s not just adults who need to talk about grief – children do, too. If you need to discuss death with a child, Talking about Death will help you do it in a kind and sensitive way.
Get back into a routine
No matter how tempting it is, try your hardest not to stay in bed all day or avoid seeing your friends. When you feel ready, try to get back into your old routine. Wake up at your usual time, have a nourishing breakfast, get back to work and start going out with friends. It might feel incredibly unnatural and insensitive at first. But one of the most important stages of learning how to cope with grief is understanding that the world is still turning and you still have a life to live.
For an inspiring read that will help you cope with any traumatic event, read Shattered: From Grief to Joy After My Son’s Suicide.
Do you have any tips on how to cope with grief we haven’t included in our list? Share them below and help others get back to normal after a traumatic event.
To learn about people across the globe who’ve mastered how to cope with grief in order to be successful, take a look at the Stories page. To share your own inspirational story, click here.
