The grieving process is not pleasant, fun, or exciting; however, it is a normal process one goes through after a loss. In God’s grace, much prayer, and a Christlike support group we can endure the journey.
Below are five suggestive ways to maintain our health during the grieving process:
1. Experience the grief. Instead of avoiding or ignoring the process by staying busy or telling ourselves we do not need to grieve let us feel. Let us allow ourselves to express our feelings. Our grief feelings will not be ignore eventually they will surface.
2. Keep our bodies moving. Physical activities help us to feel good, remain energetic, and clear our minds. As we are going through our grieving process, let us pay close attention to our bodies and emotions. When needed to break from physical activities, feel free to rest, seek God through prayer and meditation.
3. Surround ourselves with a support system. There are times when we will need to be alone. It is great to be among friends, family members, and spiritual leaders who we can express our feelings too, let us cry, or just hold our hands. Being around others who let us be ourselves without judgement.
4. Eating healthy. We have to watch eating our personal comfort food (ice-cream, donuts, candy bars, potato chips) when feeling sad or missing our loved ones. We tend to gravitate towards foods that have high levels of sugars and fats. This is the time to make ourselves drink plenty of water, eat our fruits and veggies (90% of the time). We can still enjoy eating our favorite dessert (10% of the time, once a week, when engaging in social events). Even during our suffering from a loss, God wants us to enjoy who we are in Him.
5. Be kind to ourselves. Time will pass, and we will continue on in life. Our moments of sadness will lessen. We need to make sure that we include some weekly and much needed me-time.
“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans *: 37-39 NIV).
