COVID-19 has profoundly changed our lives. We are grieving the loss of everything that is familiar to us. Whether you’ve lost a loved one, your income, your health, your social connections, or any other loss, I know your heart is broken.
Grief is the normal and natural reaction to your emotional losses. However, it is important that you acknowledge and process any grief you’re experiencing right now, rather than diminish it or ignore it through unhealthy coping behaviors. If you don’t, your grief can harm you now and years into the future, including decreasing your physical health and suppressing your immune system.
Emotional triggers can cause us to continue or accelerate unhealthy coping behaviors. We call these behaviors STERBS: short-term energy relieving behaviors. If left unchecked, our health and happiness can suffer greatly, sometimes subconsciously, and for years.
What can you do now, to grieve in a healthy way when we’re still very much in the midst of the pandemic? Spending this quarantined time reflecting on your life through the lens of loss and grief will help you process what you are going through without minimizing or suppressing your current emotional reaction to COVID- 19’s events.
The following are several strategies that can help you process your own grief.
4. Improve your self-care: Taking care of your needs during difficult times can seem like an impossible task. However, even the smallest steps in this area go a long way, for yourself and everyone around you.
Grief has been such an overlooked topic in our society. We all need emotional education to help us process our losses. We are left completely alone to navigate this time and may suffer physical consequences just when we need to be at our best.
We are enduring a profound life-changing period in history, the first since 9/11. Now more than ever, we need evidence-based practices that can help us recover from the massive losses produced by the Coronavirus Pandemic. Providing life-long tools for change ensures the restoration and maintenance of our collective well-being.
If you are interested in talking to Ronda, view her services and book with her here.