Grieving Process: The 5 Stages of Grief and How to Cope

Grief is a natural response to significant loss of one kind or another. It often refers to the mourning process after a close friend, relative, or associate dies. Still, you might feel grief and other related feelings of loss after leaving or losing a job, breaking up with a significant other, or receiving a dire health diagnosis. While grief might be unpleasant, it also teaches people lessons about remembrance, compassion, and inner resilience.

You might experience grief for a variety of reasons. Here are just a few types of loss that might bring on the emotion:

• The death of a loved one: Losing a loved one is perhaps the most common cause of grief. It’s difficult to even fathom how someone with whom you share so many good and loving memories has passed on forever. Grief support groups can help you deal with this tough transition.
• The diagnosis of a disease: If you receive news of a terminal illness, you’re likely to grieve your previous state of good health. Some might take out their frustration about such a diagnosis on the health care workers who told them the news, but learning to accept unfortunate tidings like this is a sign of resilience and maturity.
• The end of a relationship: When a romantic relationship comes to an end, it’s common for both parties to feel like they’re losing a part of themselves. It’s possible you might even feel pangs of regret or sadness long into the future. Still, it’s very possible for both you and your previous partner to move on and find love again with different people.
• The loss of a job: Suppose your boss fires you or lets you go. This triggers a major life change likely to unsettle you at least for the short term. In such a scenario, you can mourn the loss of your prior state of security while searching for new opportunities.

Grief manifests itself in many different ways. Consider these unique variations on the feeling:

• Complicated grief: A grieving person might have mixed or complicated feelings about a person who passed away. Even if someone is a family member, mourners might feel a mixture of sadness and unresolved resentment. This can make the grieving process even more complex.
• Prolonged grief: For some people, grief might feel like a never-ending process. While it’s common to have a difficult time for a long while after a major loss, you might be experiencing prolonged grief if you’re still just as upset years later as you were in the wake of the initial news.
• Widespread grief: Certain major events cause mass trauma and grief. Think of the September 11th attacks in the United States or the COVID-19 pandemic. In these types of scenarios, people lean on one another to overcome their feelings of mutual pain.

Psychiatrist Elizabeth Kübler-Ross first elucidated the five stages of grief in her book On Death and Dying. Some people will experience these five stages in a linear fashion, whereas others might bounce back and forth between different stages, skip a stage, or experience more than one stage simultaneously. You might find you experience grief in relation to these milestones someday:

1. 1. Denial: When you experience a major loss, it throws your daily life out of balance. In such a circumstance, it’s natural to deny the reality of the situation either explicitly or implicitly as a coping mechanism.
2. 2. Anger: As the emotional and physical symptoms of grief start to take hold of you, you might find yourself lashing out. For example, you might blame your parents’ caregivers for not keeping them alive. This is also the phase when you’re most likely to contemplate the essential unfairness of mortality.
3. 3. Bargaining: During this period, you’re likely to spend substantial amounts of time asking yourself what you could have done differently. You take efforts to change an already permanent and indelible situation.
4. 4. Depression: At this point, all the sadness the loss has caused comes rushing in without any filters. You become acutely aware of the permanence of the situation. During such a time, you might benefit from receiving treatment from a mental health professional.
5. 5. Acceptance: Your experience of grief might never come to a complete close, as you’ll always miss the person or circumstance you lost in some way. Still, in the acceptance phase, you return to a state of well-being as you learn how to cherish memories while moving forward with your life.

Grief is a painful and unpredictable process. Take these tips into consideration as you develop the coping skills to deal with grief and bereavement:

• Give yourself time. You’re likely to experience emotional pain due to grief for a very long time. Accept the highs and lows as they come. Give yourself the grace to experience all sorts of emotions. Time will eventually heal all wounds.
• Seek out support. When you grieve, you’re at your most vulnerable. Reach out to compassionate friends and bereavement support groups. Consider booking a therapy session as well.
• Take care of yourself. It’s easy to let grief take total control of your life, leading you to make unhealthy decisions that might exacerbate the negative feelings. Try to continue eating well, exercising, getting enough sleep, and practicing self-care as time passes.

Those who grieve deserve all the support you can offer them. Keep these tips in mind as you console them in their time of need:

• Display your love. Let the bereaved person know how much you love them in whichever ways you can. Take it upon yourself to show up and help them process their loss for as long as it takes.
• Offer tangible support. See if you can help with normal day-to-day tasks as a grieving person heals from a major loss. For example, this might mean running errands for them as they attend a support group.
• Provide a listening ear. Many people process grief by talking through their memories and feelings. Assist friends and loved ones through their own grieving processes by listening to them when they need you.

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