Your pain becomes my pain just as your hope becomes my hope.

It hits you in the gut. That sense of hollowing and an inability to breathe. The sensation of a rogue wave of sadness and loneliness slamming down out of nowhere.

To say that we grieve is an understatement. We experience grief. It is less an emotion so much as an inward experience.

At times, we are grief.

The grieving process is shared by everyone at the same time. Yet in it we can feel alone, even when our family members and friends are also grieving. Our pain is common, but felt in our own way. It is unique.

Sometimes we resist grief support and welcome the intense emotions and pain of loss. But it’s important to pay attention to its effect on our mental health and physical health and find our way back to healthy ways of living, with the loss.

There is no one right grief process and there isn’t a way to short-cut the grief process or avoid the pain of grief – the only way forward is to go through it. The good news though, is that there is someone here to help you if you feel ‘stuck’ and need some clarity on how to move forward.