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Stages of Grief

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The five stages of grief have evolved since their introduction. The five stages are not linear; neither are they equal in their experience. There is no such thing as a typical loss therefore there is no typical response to loss. Over the past three decades they have been very misunderstood. People grieve; their grief and other reactions to emotional trauma are as individual as a fingerprint and are specific to each individual.
There is no prescribed order, nor does everyone go through all the stages. There is no posted timeline for grief that states you should be at this stage at this point and time. These stages are to help us form and identify what we may be feeling. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance are a part of the framework that makes up our learning to live without the one we lost. With these stages comes the knowledge that help in making us better equipped to cope with life and loss.
Denial
This first stage of grieving helps us to survive the loss. In this stage, the world becomes meaningless and overwhelming. Life makes no sense. We are in a state of shock and denial. We go numb. We wonder how we can go on, if we can go on, why we should go on. We try to find a way to simply get through each day. Denial and shock help us to cope and make survival possible. Denial helps us to pace our feelings of grief. There is a grace in denial. It is nature’s way of letting in only as much as we can handle.
As you accept the reality of the loss and start to ask yourself questions, you are unknowingly beginning the healing process. You are becoming stronger, and the denial is beginning to fade. But as you proceed, all the feelings you were denying begin to surface.
Anger
Anger is a necessary stage of the healing process. Be willing to feel your anger, even though it may seem endless. The more you truly feel it, the more it will begin to dissipate

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