How to find joy in mourning?
The person you loved dearly passed away, and now you are left wondering ‘how will I find the strength to pull through this?’ Even if you had your time to say your final goodbyes and ‘I love you's’ this life experience is the most difficult period that you’ll go through.
In these moments no words can really soothe you, no words can make you feel better. All your friends, relatives try their very best to comfort you with words that they might think are comforting, but only you know nothing can make you feel better in those moments. You can not see a time when the death of someone you love won’t break you over and over again.
And what we are about to talk about might not even be a thought in your mind but we know you can find the joy again. That does not mean that there will be a time where all sadness will disappear or that you can not mourn your loved one, it means that you are allowed to feel happy again and go through life with joy in your heart.
Maybe you can’t even think about a time when you’ll find joy again. We are here to tell you that this is still possible.
How can I feel joy again?
First of all you need to process the death that happened in your life. When you don’t allow yourself to feel all the emotions that come with grief and the process that comes with it you may never find the beauty that is left in your life.
You can become very irritable and irrational at times if you don’t take your time to heal the wounds that formed in your life, don’t feel guilty, your loved ones will understand that you need some time to find yourself again.
Remind yourself that grief is best dealt with in community. What does this mean? Go outside, allow others to help you with everything they can, share your experiences, your feelings with the ones who actually care to listen, talk about the emotions you are experiencing in order to heal and then the joy will come in unexpected ways.
The most important thing is to not feel guilty when you find joy again, finding joy in this process does not mean that you love the person you lost less or that you don’t miss them anymore. It means that you are on the path of healing.
How does acceptance impact the joy that we feel?
Accepting the fact that your loved one is no longer with you is one of the most difficult things you need to do. But what does accepting the passing of a loved one have to do with joy?
When you allow yourself to feel the emotions that come with grief and when you accept that this is in fact happening to you, you can start to look for all those little moments that bring joy in your life, you can look at the memories you have with them with happiness, with joy, that you still have those moments left, no one can take them from you.
But it is your choice if you accept to look at those memories with joy or sadness.
Remember this: the feeling of grief does not end at some point in your life, the pain that you feel will become more bearable and not as powerful and in those moments you can allow yourself to also feel the joy of life.