If there is something in this world that every one of us has experienced, it is ‘losses.’ It can either be the loss of someone or something. In either case, the emotions we experience are nothing less than grief. Loss of any kind is difficult to handle. It can be confusing, scary, or painful. All the emotions that we feel once we lose something cannot be controlled. It is an overwhelming mixture of emotions, commonly known as GRIEF.

There was an incident which happened in my life a few years back that shook me to my core. As a studious student, I had always been highly conscious of my grades and my academics. I set certain standards for myself and never scored below them. So naturally, I have never dealt with low marks. But this changed. A few years back, as I got my answer sheet after my exam, I was astonished to see the result. I scored far below my expectations. I didn’t know what to do. I felt dejected thinking about the disappointment on my parents’ faces. I repressed all of my feelings and retreated into being an empty shell. As the days passed, I realised that by supressing my emotions, I wasn’t just hurting myself but also those around me. That realization is what helped me overcome my problem. It took time, but eventually, I regained my spirits.

Everyone’s way of responding to losses is different. There are mainly two types of people when it comes to grieving. The first type is those who withhold all their emotions and put on a happy face to the people around them. They act as if nothing has happened, even when they are grieving inside. They are not ready to accept the emotions they are feeling and deny them. The second type is those who express their emotions freely. They might convey it through tears, texts, or maybe their actions.

Now, if you ask me, “Which is the right way of coping with grief?” I would say it is the way the second type of people does. Let me tell you why. The people who bottle up their emotions and deny them think they are helping themselves by not going through the pain, basically by distracting themselves. But in the long run, they are either going to break out or break down, which might leave an impact on them that can never be rectified. It is important to allow ourselves to feel the pain and express our emotions. Accepting our emotions does not make us a weak person. If anything, it makes us stronger and more connected to ourself. Without accepting our feelings, we can never overcome our loss. Grieving is the first step of coping with loss. Shedding a few tears or lying in bed for a few days are all normal ways of grieving. It is nothing to be embarrassed about. Nobody is going to judge us for that. In fact, nobody has the right to judge us for our way of expressing our emotions, as they haven’t felt the pain with the intensity that we have.

Acceptance comes next. Accept the loss. It is not easy, but it is not impossible either. It is difficult to accept the absence of that person or thing we’ve lost. But we will get used to it. We will learn how to grow without the person or the thing. Accepting does not mean forgetting. It only means that we acknowledge the loss and find peace with it.

The last step of overcoming our loss might probably be the hardest one as well – moving on. The world does not stop revolving because of our loss. The trees do not stop growing, or the flowers do not stop blooming because we have lost something or someone. And we definitely do not stop living. Move on with our life with the memories that we have of the person or thing we’ve lost. Time heals everything, but it leaves scars. We have to learn to survive with those scars. Again, moving on is hard and equally painful, but we often fail to understand that once we’ve lost something or someone we used to care about a lot, no amount of crying, bargaining, or even denying is going to change the fact that all there is left is nothing but a hole in our heart where that person or thing used to be. We will not be able to forget, but we will learn to adjust and live with it. We will grow into different people. And that change is good. We can’t change our past, but we can change our future by controlling our present. Loss is natural. Embrace it.

The beauty of life is that nothing is permanent. Everything changes – the weather, the climate, the seasons, and the people. When something changes, we can’t control the change, but we get to choose how to respond. And that choice is only up to US.