After you’ve chosen a Bellingham cremation service for your loved one who has died, you will experience grief. Grief is a process without a roadmap. There is no set way to grieve. There is no set time to grieve. There is no right way or wrong way to grieve.

The initial phase of grief is intense. If you cared for a loved one with a terminal illness, you likely experienced anticipatory grief before they died. You experience a different kind of grief after they die. It can be gut-wrenching in the hours, days, and weeks following your loved one’s death.

This grief is not unusual. You are mentally and emotionally processing the reality of the death and loss of someone you love. This grief is the bridge that allows you to accept their death and adjust to the loss as your new reality going forward.

You may experience many emotions during this phase of grief, including regret, sadness, anger, feelings of unfairness, resentment, and loneliness. These kinds of emotions may be hard to sort through and deal with because they may come all at once or you may repeatedly cycle through them.

If you find yourself in this stage of grief feeling completely overwhelmed or even wishing that you were dead too – and perhaps thinking suicidal thoughts – then grief counseling is an option that you should consider. Sometimes, working and talking through these emotions with someone who is objective and trained in helping manage them can help you develop ways to see them differently, cope with them better, and move behind them into a different phase of grief that is less intense and less destructive.

If you are having a lot of trouble sleeping well or at all during the grieving process, you should consider grief counseling. While some sleep disruption is common during the grieving process, unrelenting sleep disruption can lead to significant health issues and even death.

Sleep is how the body resets itself internally. When you don’t get enough sleep or quality sleep, the body doesn’t get this much-needed reset. Hormones get out of control and can lead to organ malfunctioning. Blood pressure gets elevated and can lead to cardiac disease or strokes. The brain doesn’t get toxins cleaned out of it and, as toxins accumulate in the brain, cognition can be impaired in both the short-term and the long-term.

A licensed grief counselor can help you work through the issues that are preventing you from getting restful, quality sleep. You may be spending too much time trying to work through emotions and feelings or issues related to the death of your loved one while you’re trying to get rest and get rejuvenated.

A professional grief counselor can help you address all of these and either alleviate them or find concrete solutions that will allow you to get the sleep you need each day.

Sometimes, in the middle of grieving, people lose their appetite. While a few days of a decrease in appetite will not negatively affect your health, a long period of time where you don’t want to eat and don’t eat can cause malnutrition, affect the functioning of your internal organs, and can lead to death.

Stress is behind appetite changes and a professional grief counselor can help you identify the stresses you are experiencing after the death of your loved one and can help you find the right tools to manage those stresses or eliminate them entirely.

For additional information about grief counseling after a Bellingham cremation, our compassionate and experienced team at Moles Farewell Tributes & Crematory – Bayview Chapel is here to help.