Coaching practices for How to Deal with Death of a Loved One

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Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

  • They handled the money, or the cooking, or were just the person I leaned on
  • I know in my head that they’re gone, but it still hasn’t landed
  • There’s so much I never got to say to them, and so much happening now I wish I could tell them
  • I don’t want to keep distracting myself from the fact that I’ll die, but I don’t want to spiral about it either
  • I keep my head down and stay busy so I never actually feel the loss, and now it ambushes me at random and won’t metabolize

Practices that may help

  1. Task 3: Adjust to a world without the person
    Actively develop new skills, roles, and identity elements to navigate the changed life.
    Worden’s Tasks of Mourning, Made Practical
  2. Task 1: Accept the full reality of the loss
    Move from intellectual acknowledgement to full emotional acceptance that the person is gone.
    Worden’s Tasks of Mourning, Made Practical
  3. Speak or write to the person directly
    Address the deceased in letters, journal entries, or internal dialogue as a form of active continuing connection.
    Continuing Bonds in Grief, Made Practical
  4. Move from terror management to mortality acceptance
    Develop a genuinely held relationship with your finitude rather than suppressing or managing it.
    Terror Management Theory, Made Practical
  5. Deliberately engage loss-oriented work
    Set aside dedicated time to directly face the grief — the emotions, the absence, the meaning of the loss.
    The Dual Process Model of Grief, Made Practical
  6. Find a community that recognises your specific loss
    Seek out people who have experienced the same type of loss — online or in person.
    Disenfranchised Grief, Made Practical
  7. Task 4: Find an enduring connection with the deceased
    Relocate the relationship from physical presence to an internal, meaningful connection.
    Worden’s Tasks of Mourning, Made Practical
  8. Carry forward the person’s legacy in your own life
    Identify values, projects, or commitments the person cared about and carry them forward yourself.
    Continuing Bonds in Grief, Made Practical
  9. Task 2: Work through the pain of grief
    Allow and process the emotional and physical pain of loss rather than bypassing it.
    Worden’s Tasks of Mourning, Made Practical
  10. Construct a coherent narrative of the loss
    Tell the full story of the loss — who the person was, what happened, and what life is now.
    Worden’s Tasks of Mourning, Made Practical

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