Dealing with Death

As in previous blogs, I’m going to present a challenge. This one has to do with the death of a close friend. I will ask you to apply the skills and the attitudes of resilience to dealing with this challenge. The challenges are from the card game  “Bounce Back” that we are developing into an electronic game that can be played off of a website.  This game is a tool that we have been using in teaching the skills and the attitudes of resilience for a number of years.  It is a serious game that asks you to apply the skills and the attitudes to a specific challenge and describe how you would respond to that challenge using these skills.

Here is the situation. A good friend of yours, someone you’ve known for many years and have been very close to has died suddenly just a few days ago.  Your friend was married and had small children. How would you deal with the loss using the attitudes and skills of resilience?

Death brings up a lot of feelings for us. Dealing with these strong feelings is a normal part of the grieving process. Denying them and refusing to admit they exist is not, in the end, going to help us manage this loss in our life. Grieving requires that we mourn the loss and deal with our feelings. Staying busy so we don’t have to think about what has happened usually is not helpful. Being “strong” does not require that we deny the feelings that we have.

This is definitely a time for connecting with others and for communicating about our feelings. We need to be able to provide support and accept support from others.  This is part of the healing process. This is why connecting with others and communicating are critical parts of the process of recovery from a loss.

We need to provide support to others who are experiencing the loss and we need to take care of ourselves in the process. Continuing to eat and sleep are important parts of this self-care piece. Eating, even if we don’t feel hungry, and sleeping, even if we don’t feel that we can.

This is also a time when we usually think about our own mortality. Thinking about the purpose and the meaning of our lives is something that often comes up when we have lost someone close to us. This is a normal part of the process. We need to share this with other people and admit that we may be having a difficult time dealing with this and the other issues that the loss of a good friend may bring up.

You may have thought about other skills and attitudes of resilience that you would apply to this situation. Every person and every situation is different. One size does not fit all. What we have provided are suggestions that you might utilize in dealing with this situation. Again, these are only suggestions. We would encourage you to talk with others and ask them how they would deal  or  have dealt with losing someone close to them in the past.