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41: Grief Comparison

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Today’s topic is about grief comparison. There is so much comparison in our lives, especially in grief. Your grief is different from everyone else. You can’t compare the depth of your grievance to the other person. Comparison serves a purpose in trying to understand from a place of trying to understand. Comparison is like a judgment of who has it worse or who is valid in their grief.

The experience of loss is going to be different for each one of us. Focusing on your own journey can help on your grief journey. We have the right to grieve no matter what happened. You are right where you need to be. And each step you take is a step forward. Just keep taking little steps every day. You are never alone on this journey.

In this episode Megan discuss:

  1. Why are they feeling that way towards you?

  2. Why are they doing so much better than you?

  3. Are compassion and empathy finite?

 

If you are a grieving mother and looking for others who know the pain of child loss, come join my free Grieving Moms Community Facebook group: www.meganhillukka.com/community

Photo by Milada Vigerova on Unsplash


40: Choosing Joy in Grief

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In this episode, I want to talk about how each one of us has to make a personal decision on our own grief journey. How are we going to live in our grief and what choices we’re going to make? You’d think about how you’d become a better person after this traumatic experience. Will you be compassionate or have more love for others? But with pain and grief, comes peace and joy, if you want and look for it.

I’ve found so many blessings. Adversities are still there and it teaches us to be appreciative of the things and people we have around us if we choose to look for them. I still grieve, I still hurt, and I still have pain. But I believe in light and life. It’s not either-or, it’s both.

I’ll be discussing: 

·         How to process my emotions?

·         How to be compassionate for others

·         Learned to accept that every day could be our last day without the fear.

·         I can now find contentment in the little things. Smile with my kids, laugh at nothing, and at small things that count.

36 : Dealing with Anger in Grief

36 : Dealing with Anger in Grief
  • Grief does not give us the right to lash out at others.  It does not give us a free pass on acting in whatever way we want. I know you are in pain. The pain is unbearable many times. But lashing out to others and using your anger to hurt others only hurts you more. I want to ask you this. Do you like the person you become when you talk badly about someone? Do you like the energy you have when you get angry at somebody?

    The anger, bitterness, frustration. All of that can come with grief. It's so normal. It comes from this immense loss of control that we have over our lives.  Our child is gone, there is no changing that.

    After Aria died I had a lot of anger, though I would be the best mom afterward.

    Telling someone that anger is bad, or to just stop being angry doesn't help. Anger in grief is so normal and it can show up in many ways.  Anger at God, anger at a person, including the person who died.  Anger at others, Anger at nothing but everything

    How to get rid of Anger?

    -Picture a giant beach ball

    -find a way to release the built-up tension in a healthy manner.

    -High-Intensity things like running, biking, punching, writing, and screaming

    -Allow the anger to surface and release from your body

35 : Supporting Grieving Children With Jana DeCristofaro

35 : Supporting Grieving Children With Jana DeCristofaro
  • I asked my community for questions on how to support and help grieving children. Some of these are their questions, some are mine! :)

    -Who is Jana, and who do you help, and how do you help them

    -How do you respond and support children when they tell strangers they don’t have a sibling because they don’t want to feel sad that they don’t?

    -How can we tell the difference between behaviors that are grief-related, versus unruly behavior? And with that, how to know what’s normal for a child, versus needing extra support through grief?

    -How can I teach others to be gentle with grieving children? When they are acting out, to tell that they are grieving?

    -How little is too little for a child to grieve the loss of a sibling? As they get older, will they grieve in different ways?

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    Recommended Reading

34 : Staying Married After the Death of a Child

34 : Staying Married After the Death of a Child

There is huge expectation from society to be done grieving in a few days

The beginning of grief it was easier for me to allow grief in and to grieve openly because it was so obvious that I would be grieving. But as time goes on, grief really doesn’t have such a front seat in my life, and everyone might not realize the depth of grief and how vast it is in my life.

Here are some tools I’ve used to allow myself to grieve, even after many years.

-Allow space for my emotions and feelings

-Use something else to trigger the build up of emotions

-realize that I can’t always pinpoint everything to grief as time goes on, but that grief becomes a part of who I am. I can blame everything on grief, or I can take steps forward whether it’s grief or not.

-Begin discovering who I am

-Acknowledge that everyone else will move on- this doesn’t mean you are not allowed to grieve.