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	TOOLS FOR YOU Overview "Dealing with Loss" CONTENTS PART I - Getting Oriented PART II - Helping Children Deal with Loss

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Dealing with Loss
PART I

Giving help What helps? What helps you do the tasks of mourning so that you can establish a new balance and start living fully again, continuing to grow and develop as a person? Support from others can be helpful. Someone who cares about you can sometimes facilitate the mourning process, by providing safe opportunities for you to ask (and answer) these questions: What do I think? What do I feel? What am I doing? What meaning do I attach to all this? But sometimes, well-intentioned attempts to be supportive can disrupt, delay, or prevent the work that needs to be done on any or all of the tasks involved in the process of grief work. They can interfere with your own efforts to deal effectively with the loss and get on with life; can solidify your old patterns of ineffective mourning; and, ultimately, can add to the existing burden of ungrieved painful losses. Here are some examples people have reported of things that others have said or done in an effort to be helpful immediately after a divorce.
WHAT WAS NOT HELPFUL	WHAT WAS HELPFUL
Suggesting a quick fix Giving complicated advice Withdrawing Saying, "You're better off now "Saying I'll get over it Saying their story was worse Getting me to take care of them Saying, "It's God's will "Saying it could have been worse Saying it was my own fault	Listening and not fixing Acknowledging the loss Taking time to be with me Asking me if I want to talk Valuing me Asking me what I needed Just plain being there Offering me a hug Staying with me Coming back more than once

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