Do you need to give yourself permission to grieve a loss?

More people than you might think need to give themselves permission to grieve. Especially if the loss they have experienced is not in the “must be grieved” category.

If you break a leg, you push pause, head to the hospital and have the break put back together. Then you give yourself permission to rest and heal until you are back on our feet. Only then can you progress to walking then running.

It’s very normal to give yourself permission to grieve after your heart is broken because of the death of a loved one. You also need to push pause and grieve after a material loss, a job loss, a loss of identity because of retirement, or the loss of a dream.

The grief will look different depending on the type of loss but it’s wise to go through a grieving process.

When we grant ourselves permission to grieve, we make the experience of grief something we recognize, something we welcome into our lives. We allow it to show up the way it wants to through feelings, identities, and actions. — Shelby Forsythia

Because loss is part of the human experience, it’s healthy to normalize grief and welcome it as our traveling companion after loss.

Healthy and thorough grief involves time and space to feel sad, reflect, process, wait, rest, connect, discover, let go, breathe, walk, pray, get angry, remember, cry, sleep, be embraced, and so much more.

Grief is itself a medicine. — William Cowper

When we give ourselves permission to grieve, we put ourselves on the path that will carry us forward in our healing and to a place where we can discover how to live again.

If you think you might have a loss to process and reflect on, check out our online grief course available here.