Support For Grief Quotes & Sayings

Each loss brings growth with it, and learning to handle new experiences and taking charge of your needs is part of the transformative process. — Elizabeth Berrien

Allow yourself to be an anchor and anchored by others. — Asa Don Brown

Journeying through grief is one of the most "normal human" experiences you can have. Nevertheless, all too frequently the heartbroken seem to feel alienated by society. Unfortunately in our culture, we are taught to hold our feelings in. If someone asks us, "How are you doing today?" the expected answer is, "I'm okay." But what if you aren't okay? You obviously don't want to go into a monologue of why you're not okay, but sometimes you feel as if you're going to explode if you can't "tell off" that well-meaning person for even daring to ask you such a thing in the first place! — Elizabeth Berrien

It was only when I started to reconnect with my inner child four years into recovery (I was over four years clean and sober off drugs and alcohol) and started to attend a love addiction support group that I was able to trust again and have faith that there are just as many honest and trustworthy women as there are women who are not interested in monogamy.
However, it was after ten years of continuous recovery that I started to really dig deep into my childhood grief work and was finally able to reclaim my inner child. I started to take risks again. On a practical level, you can't get very far in this world if you resent and distrust the opposite sex and, sadly, many men and women suffer in this area. Rather than celebrating the opposite sex, they fear them. Empathy and self-compassion has helped me in this area too. — Christopher Dines

In the support group, the counselor had said: When you lose a loved one, you feel as if you're inside a confined space. Everyone else will seem to be careening along outside of this space. In time, you will become aware of an opening you are going to have to step through. It might be the touch of a new lover, a new job, a move--but you'll know. You will step through. — Jamie Quatro

I used to feel afraid of the future, always assuming the worst. But now I've realized that my worst fears have already happened, and I've survived them! I've walked into the fire and made it out alive. Only the loss of a close loved one could have "woken me up" to reality in the same way. — Elizabeth Berrien

Mothering while grieving should involve being understanding and keeping a gentle attitude toward yourself as you work to balance your own needs and your child's. You become stronger by remaining aware of your own well-being, which in turn makes you a stronger person for your child or children. — Elizabeth Berrien

If the world offered nothing, nowhere to support or make bearable whatever her private grief was, then it is that world, and not she, that is at fault. — Thomas Pynchon

The cloud weeps, and then the garden sprouts. The baby cries, and the mother's milk flows. The nurse of creation has said, Let them cry a lot.
This rain-weeping and sun-burning twine together to make us grow. Keep your intelligence white-hot and your grief glistening, so your life will stay fresh. Cry easily like a little child.
Let body needs dwindle and soul decisions increase. Diminish what you give your physical self. Your spiritual eye will begin to open.
When the body empties and stays empty, God fills it with musk and mother-of-pearl. That way a man gives his dung and gets purity.
Listen to the prophets, not to some adolescent boy. The foundation and the walls of spiritual life are made of self-denials and disciplines.
Stay with friends who support you in these. Talk with them about sacred texts, and how you're doing, and how they're doing, and keep your practices together. — Rumi

And it is, by the way, from the presence of others that we really derive support in our dark hours of grief, and not from their talk, which often only serves to irritate us. — H. Rider Haggard

Another misconception is that if we truly loved someone, we will never finish with our grief, as if continued sorrow is a testimonial to our love. But true love does not need grief to support its truth. Love can last in a healthy and meaningful way, once our grief is dispelled. We can honor our dead more by the quality of our continued living than by our constantly remembering the past. — Judy Tatelbaum

We never truly "get over" a loss, but we can move forward and evolve from it. — Elizabeth Berrien

We hold death, poverty, and grief for our principal enemies; but this death, which some repute the most dreadful of all dreadful things, who does not know that others call it the only secure harbor from the storm and tempests of life, the sovereign good of nature, the sole support of liberty, and the common and sudden remedy of all evils? — Michel De Montaigne

That's the nature of grief: It's a creature with many arms but few legs, and it staggers about, searching for support. — Yann Martel

How can we accept a situation in which there are no longer orchestras, choruses, libraries or art classes to nourish our children? We need more support for the arts, not less
particularly to make this rich world available to young people whose vision is choked by a stark reality. How many children, who have no other outlet in their lives for their grief, have found solace in an instrument to play or a canvas to paint on? When you take into consideration the development of the human heart, soul and imagination, don't the arts take on just as much importance as math or science? — Barbra Streisand

It is important to recognize when you have been detached from life for too long. The fact is you are still alive, and I can only imagine that your loved one would want you to go on living. I highly doubt they would have said to you, When or if I die before you, I want you to spend the rest of your life sitting on a couch staring at the wall. Please fulfill this important task for me. — Elizabeth Berrien

Grief is a private, internal thing. No one can say their pain is worse than yours because they don't know. So maybe it's not good to compare. Maybe it's better to talk to people who know you. — Anna Maxted

Where one might break, two can stand tall. Where one might fold, two can hold firm. From here until the end of your days on earth, you will have someone to support you during times of weakness, comfort you during times of grief, encourage you during times of fear, and celebrate with you during times of joy. That is a gift, one that should never be abused or taken for granted. Cherish each other as God cherishes you, and you will both know peace. — S.C. Stephens

Everyone's pain is relative. We've learned how to deal with grief, because we've had to. But Bree hasn't. And our grief was shared, because we all felt it at the same time. She had to deal with hers alone. — Kate Lattey

It is true that the grief journey is very lonely, but it is also up to you to decide just how lonely you will make it. — Elizabeth Berrien

Love is love," I told her, as I tell all of my patients who are ashamed to find themselves shattered by the death of a dog. "Loss is loss. — Meg Donohue

What was I going to do? The choices seemed basic and slim: Die. Exist. Live. I wanted to die, but with two young children to care for and a husband, that wasn't an option. Exist. I could do that. I was doing that now. but how flat and lifeless. How dreary and endless the long march would be until I met Charlotte again. The only option that resonated with me was to live. But how? I wanted to want to live. That was the best I could do in that moment. — Sukey Forbes

Someone's boyfriend died in a rock-climbing accident in Switzerland: everyone gathered around her, on fire with tragedy. Their dramatic shows up support underpinned with jealousy- bad luck was rare enough to be glamorous. — Emma Cline

Set your compass to beauty, humor, and grief; stay the course no matter what, and I'll support you with everything I've got. — Chris Jordan

Once you have walked down the grief path, what you have gained on your journey may turn into invaluable advice for someone else. — Elizabeth Berrien

This was how to help a family who has just lost their child. Wash the clothes, make soup. Don't ask them what they need, bring them what they need. Keep them warm. Listen to them rant, and cry, and tell their story over and over. — Ann Hood

Surviving the death of a loved one ... one day at a time. — Sandra Toscano Huerta

Even as she listened to murmurs of support, she heard the relief in other people's voices, the immense gratitude that it wasn't their child who had died. She heard I'm so sorry until she despised those words as she had never despised anything in her life, and she discovered an anger in her soul that was new. — Kristin Hannah

A compassionate willingess is required - as is the courage to live before the fact, before the understanding, before any rational support or certainty, to live the moment to its natural peak and conclusion, and to accept with dignity whatever joy, grief, misfortune, or unexpectedness occurs. — Clark Moustakas

It's my own deep-rooted feeling that our souls never truly die and that life continues in some way. I know I need to have patience as my beliefs continue to evolve with my personal growth. As I've looked around at the things I do have in my life, I've gradually started to trust in life again, little by little. I think, How could all of these other amazing things come into my life if there was not something larger than me? — Elizabeth Berrien

The sin we commit against each other as women is lack of support. We hurt. We hurt each other. We hide. We project. We become mute or duplicitous, and we fester like boiling water until one day we erupt like a geyser. Do we forget we unravel in grief? — Terry Tempest Williams

It is okay to release your feelings when you feel the waves coming. It's all part of the process of having to let go of your relationship with your loved one as you once knew it. And remember, letting go is not the same thing as forgetting! — Elizabeth Berrien

Love is so much more than some random, euphoric feeling. And real love isn't always fluffy, cute, and cuddly. More often than not, real love has its sleeves rolled up, dirt and grime smeared on its arms, and sweat dripping down its forehead. Real love asks us to do hard things - to forgive one another, to support each other's dreams, to comfort in times of grief, or to care for family. Real love isn't easy - and it's nothing like the wedding day - but it's far more meaningful and wonderful. — Seth Adam Smith

I would. I could stand on my feet without you." "And the tide would still go out without my pushing it. The spring will still melt the snow without my warm breath nagging it. You're a person, all on your own, with hopes and thoughts and dreams completely separate from mine. Do you think I want a woman who needs to lean on me to be complete? I don't, dearling, I want only you, as whole and self-sufficient and tender as you are. I want to know that if I die tomorrow, you can support my father's grief and raise my son to manhood. — Christina Dodd

There is nothing like feeling truly "awake" and aware of my life and what it means to me. So I look ahead and think, "There is still so much to be done, and I will continue to make the most of it. — Elizabeth Berrien

Remember to view yourself and your humanness with a kind heart. — Elizabeth Berrien

Some of the choices you make might not always turn out to be the best ones, but at least you are learning as you go. — Elizabeth Berrien

When Congress votes for all sorts of benefits, without voting for enough taxes to pay for them, they get the support of those who have been promised the benefits, without getting grief from the taxpayers. It's strictly win-win as far as the welfare-state politicians are concerned. But it is strictly lose-lose, big-time, for the country, as deficits skyrocket. — Thomas Sowell

You have to do what feels right for you. Do not let anyone influence you otherwise. It is your mind, your heart, and your own internal wisdom that will lead you in the direction you need to go. — Elizabeth Berrien

I began to feel that nature itself was nurturing me, reminding me that life still offered beauty and calm, and that I was also made out of these elements. — Elizabeth Berrien

The general assumption, which I think is a valid one, is that a lot of the major media were on their heels a little bit and prone to share the grief of the nation and to give Bush all the support it could. — Seymour Hersh

I would still rather feel things and live life to the fullest rather than hide in a cave and attempt to protect myself from the uncertainties of the world. — Elizabeth Berrien

The truth is, we never know what life will bring us and we don't have as much control as we might think we have. But we CAN choose how we walk through life and how we spend our time. — Elizabeth Berrien

Where there is support, there is no grief. — Jodi Picoult

All I know is that after 10 years of being sober, with huge support to express my pain and anger and shadow, the grief and tears didn't wash me away. They gave me my life back! They cleansed me, baptized me, hydrated the earth at my feet. They brought me home, to me, to the truth of me. — Anne Lamott

Men today cannot claim their identity via culture because they are obliged to find other uninitiated males as their models or succumb to the empty values of a materialistic society. Again, before healing may begin, men must acknowledge the reality of what lies within. Among those confusing emotions is a deep grief for the loss of the personal father as companion, model and support, and a deep hunger for the fathers as a source of wisdom, solace and inspiration. — James Hollis

The intense roller coaster of emotions will gradually lesson over time. But there is no timeframe for the grieving process, and it will not be rushed, no matter how fast you'd like to "get over it." The reality is that there is no getting over it; you can only walk through it. — Elizabeth Berrien

Everything assumes a different intensity when you are feeling the pain of loss. Be prepared. A minor annoyance that you might once have managed with a shrug now becomes a nuclear crisis! You are no doubt going to do things perfectly imperfectly. That is part of our path as humans. Forget about striving for perfection while dealing with grief! If you beat yourself up every time you forget something, have a breakdown, or don't do something correctly then you're going to end up very black and blue. I guarantee you won't want to look in the mirror! So be kinder and more patient with yourself. — Elizabeth Berrien

One might expect that the families of murder victims would be showered with sympathy and support, embraced by their communities. But in reality they are far more likely to feel isolated, fearful, and ashamed, overwhelmed by grief and guilt, angry at the criminal-justice system, and shunned by their old friends. — Eric Schlosser

For who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty? — Madeline Miller

Believe in the strength of your own resolve. — Sandra T. Huerta

In the world, it will be women, mostly colored and poor. women will have to bury children, and support themselves through grief. — Suheir Hammad

I began to recognize that there was a part of me that was stronger than I ever could have imagined. I didn't know how I was still standing. I surprised myself. I was waking up to the fact that I was in charge of my own life and it was my choice whether to sink or float. — Elizabeth Berrien

In the first year of my grief, there were times when I felt like hiding my personal story of loss and other times when I wanted to wear a sign on my body that read "Be nice to me, I'm grieving," or "Don't tick me off; I've already got the world on my shoulders," or maybe even "BEWARE - don't upset the widow!" I needed a variety of signs that I could switch out depending on my daily mood. — Elizabeth Berrien

A feeling of pleasure or solace can be so hard to find when you are in the depths of your grief. Sometimes it's the little things that help get you through the day. You may think your comforts sound ridiculous to others, but there is nothing ridiculous about finding one little thing to help you feel good in the midst of pain and sorrow! — Elizabeth Berrien

I'd lost my family to my years of failing as a songwriter. All I had were bills, child support, and grief. And I was about to get fired. It looked like I'd trashed my act. But there was something liberating about it. By not having to live up to people's expectations, I was somehow free. — Kris Kristofferson

Grieving is not a race, nor is it a predictable experience - it is as unique as each and every one of us. Therefore by creating your own path you will find your own way through. — Corrie Sirota

In other words each of those calm and melancholy days on which I did not see her, coming one after the other without interruption, continuing too without prescription (unless some busy-body were to meddle in my affairs), was a day not lost but gained. Gained to no purpose, it might be, for presently they would be able to pronounce that I was healed. Resignation, modulating our habits, allows certain elements of our strength to be indefinitely increased. Those - so wretchedly inadequate - that I had had to support my grief, on the first evening of my rupture with Gilberte, had since multiplied to an incalculable power. — Marcel Proust

I believe I gather strength from the generations of women who came before me - that together we all hold the suffering of the world. — Elizabeth Berrien

Never let the salt of your tears be tasteless in grief. — Munia Khan