Losing a Loved One

We live in an age where many feel that they are entitled to a perfect life. But at some stage, everyone will face a tragedy.

When tough times do come, resilient people seem to recognize that suffering is part of every human life. Understanding this stops you from feeling discriminated against when trouble comes.

Resilient people typically manage to focus on the things they can change and accept the things they can't.

Don't get swallowed up by your troubles. Don't lose what you still have to what you have lost.

While going through difficult times, we are all losing, more or less, the shared rituals we used to have with others. But that is not actually such a bad thing.

Instead of thinking about what was lost, we could think about what we still have and figure out ways to make the most of the time spent at home, like staying more with our family or getting in touch again with old friends by calling them.

It’s not that difficult to create rituals online. Focus on:

• Asking people to bring to their online gathering something symbolic to share, to create a sense of connectedness.
• Marking the moment as something special by having someone provide an opening statement.
• Creating emotional highs by using music or something else with high emotional resonance to augment the experience.
• Having a distinct ending that includes an emotional peak, because people tend to remember an event better that way.

Resilience is most times associated with being tough. But that’s not gonna get you very far with feelings. Don't try to be invulnerable. Aim for flexibility instead.

You cannot avoid or resist all pain in life. But you can learn to live with your discomfort better.

We have trouble dealing with feelings because the usual problem-solving rules don't really apply to them.

When faced with a problem, we can always avoid it or deny it. But attempting to resist negative feelings won’t work. Any attempt at suppression only amplifies them. We must go from avoidance to acceptance.

• Challenge: Resilient people turn difficulty into a challenge. They don't fight against reality, they confront it. 
• Commitment: Having something to fight for gives you extra motivation. 
• Self-Control: Free will is the realization that you own your actions and control your reactions. 

• Reframe your thoughts about reality: You can’t control reality, but you can manage how you adapt to it.
• Prepare for the worst: You can’t train to deal with every possible situation, but you can prepare your mind to adapt to unexpected ones.
• Create alternative paths: Creativity plays a critical role in overcoming adversity.
• Leverage the power of relationships: Rescuing yourself from adversity starts with you but strong relationships are critical for bouncing back.
• Mind your spirit: Religious and spiritual support bring us comfort during adversity.

How we deal with our emotions affects how we love, how we live, how we parent and how we lead.

We should not view our emotions as good or bad, positive or negative. We need our emotions for real resilience.

When we go through tough situations, we cannot ignore our negative emotions with the hope that they don't matter.

Write down what you are truly feeling in a personal notebook. Move beyond the rigidity of denial.

Grief involves anger and loss of emotional control, often a state of confusion.

Anticipatory grief, for those who experience it, is sometimes even more severe and stressful. It does not lessen the burden of actual grief after the loss has been experienced, and is not a substitute for it..

Anticipatory grief is a chance of closure and personal growth which comes at the end of life. It is a chance to reconcile differences and heal the heart with forgiveness.

The stages of coming in terms with grief are:

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

These widely accepted stages are considered rigid and obsolete as modern psychologists update the understanding of grief.

It focuses on the psychological connectedness of grief, looking at the quality of bondings that are made during the course of our lives.

Grief, and even the behaviour of babies in the absence of parents suggests it is not just a mental experience, but has physiological effects, like raising the level of the stress hormone cortisol in our bodies.

Studying the natural disasters of the past, sociologists agree that while news reports lean towards the negative, a vast majority of people, good samaritans, doctors, nurses, government servants stay calm and help to the best of their abilities. While there can be panic and fear, caring for the other becomes common.

Economists and politicians often have views based on logical projection and past data, but human beings are an evolving race, and many assumptions now need to be overhauled.

A crisis helps draw awareness towards our fellow human beings, with our starting to embrace dependency, community, and solidarity, something not visible in normal circumstances.

Though we have to keep a physical distance in these strange times, we embrace each other more warmly.

• Make space for other people to vent aloud. They know that they are powerless, and they have to accept the situation. Venting gives them the illusion that they are in control.
• Have a little competition with your best complaints.
• Create a house chart of complaints where your kids can let out their own.
• Avoid complaining mistakes (such as: getting carried away by anger, firing too many complaints at a time or thinking that complaining alone will save us from our problems).

Night terrors are very intense episodes of fright during dreams. These frightening episodes are often accompanied by screaming or yelling, as well as by physical movement such as leaping out of bed or flailing in panic. 

Research suggests that sleep terrors occur during non-REM sleep dreaming, while nightmares tend to happen during REM sleep. 

Studies suggest that recurring dreams may contain more threatening content than regular dreams. Research suggests links between recurring dreams and psychological distress in both adults and children.