{"id":11863,"date":"2020-04-07T06:00:38","date_gmt":"2020-04-07T10:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/?p=11863"},"modified":"2020-04-04T12:17:07","modified_gmt":"2020-04-04T16:17:07","slug":"pay-attention-to-grief-and-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2020\/04\/pay-attention-to-grief-and-loss.html","title":{"rendered":"Pay Attention to Grief and Loss"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-11883\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/258\/2020\/04\/hug-2381652_1920-367x550.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"367\" height=\"550\" \/>When our sense of safety is rocked, our personal lives experience change. The things we took for granted may no longer be the same. And with each change, you might experience grief. Think about how that might look. You may be grieving people dying, that you can&#8217;t visit your elderly parent. Or maybe your wedding is postponed. I know a dad who couldn&#8217;t go into the OR when his wife delivered their baby during a C-section. There weren&#8217;t enough gowns or masks to spare. And what about the friend who wants to attend a funeral or visit a cancer patient in the hospital? The number of scenarios involving loss are many.<\/p>\n<p>When we experience loss, we need to recognize it and grieve it. To do so, we have to identify the loss and name it. And in this time when some are experiencing more serious losses than others, we have to be careful not to minimize our feelings. For example, it&#8217;s OK to grieve the loss of the family dinner at Easter. No, it is not as serious as someone dying, but it is a loss. For some, writing down your feelings can help. Others need to talk out feelings of grief. During grief, no one has to fix anything, rather allow full expression and a listening ear.<\/p>\n<p>Part of grieving is letting go of what we can&#8217;t control. And this is no easy process. We cycle through the stages of grief. First, we may deny that anything has changed. Then we may get angry and upset that things have changed. This can give way to bargaining and sadness until we finally reach an acceptance. This cycle is not linear. Those stages can come and go and resurface on new issues.<\/p>\n<p>You can&#8217;t always stop loss from happening, but how you respond to it matters. Probably the most important aspect of grief is to find a way to make meaning out of loss. A new sense of purpose can emerge when you pick up the pieces to move forward after a loss. You discover what is really important. You find that you have developed patience, compassion and empathy for others. And in the suffering that can come with loss, you grow deeper in your relationship with God. So while none of us ever wants to welcome loss, we do need to learn to embrace it. It will always be a par of our lives this side of heaven. In the long run, the way we respond to loss can make us stronger and more resilient.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When our sense of safety is rocked, our personal lives experience change. The things we took for granted may no longer be the same. And with each change, you might experience grief. Think about how that might look. You may be grieving people dying, that you can&#8217;t visit your elderly parent. Or maybe your wedding&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":419,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[925],"tags":[15,4728,851,1899,210],"class_list":["post-11863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mintle-mentions","tag-change","tag-coping-with-loss","tag-grief","tag-grieving","tag-loss"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Pay Attention to Grief and Loss<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2020\/04\/pay-attention-to-grief-and-loss.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pay Attention to Grief and Loss\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When our sense of safety is rocked, our personal lives experience change. The things we took for granted may no longer be the same. And with each change, you might experience grief. Think about how that might look. You may be grieving people dying, that you can&#8217;t visit your elderly parent. Or maybe your wedding&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2020\/04\/pay-attention-to-grief-and-loss.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Doing Life Together\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/drlindamintle\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-04-07T10:00:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-04-04T16:17:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/258\/2020\/04\/hug-2381652_1920-367x550.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Linda Mintle\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@drlindamintle\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Pay Attention to Grief and Loss","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2020\/04\/pay-attention-to-grief-and-loss.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Pay Attention to Grief and Loss","og_description":"When our sense of safety is rocked, our personal lives experience change. 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Dr. Linda\u2019s fun personality and expertise comes through whether she\u2019s helping her audience stress less or make peace with their thighs! Dr. Linda has her Ph.D. in Urban Health and Clinical Psychology and is a national expert on mental health. She has specialized in the treatment of eating disorders, anxiety, depression and pain management. With 30 years of clinical experience working with couples, families and individuals, she brings her common-sense approach to people who want to live in positive mental health. Dr. Linda is also a bestselling author with 21 book titles to her credit, a radio host of the Dr. Linda Mintle show, professor, national speaker, winner of the Mom\u2019s Choice Award, a national news consultant, featured writer for Beliefnet and hosts her own website. Her academic appointments keep her abreast of current research in her areas of expertise. Her media experience includes seven years as the resident expert for ABC Family\u2019s Living the Life television show and regular appearances on network television and radio. It is often said that being with Dr. Linda is like having coffee with a friend. She makes the complicated issues of relationships and mental health easy to understand and applicable to everyday living. The ease she has with people, coupled with her clinical training and experience makes her a sought-after speaker on college campuses, conferences and special events. Whether she is doing a TV skit with Tim Conway or discussing teen violence with Queen Latifa, Dr. Linda will entertain, educate and integrate faith and mental health in everyday living. Check out her latest book Hope and Healing for Anxiety, a whole-person approach to eliminate anxiety. .","sameAs":["https:\/\/drlindamintle.com\/","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/drlindamintle\/","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/drlindamintle\/","https:\/\/x.com\/drlindamintle"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/author\/lmintle"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/419"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11863"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11886,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11863\/revisions\/11886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}