How Do I Know I’m Getting Better?
Criteria for Reconciliation
From Understanding Grief by Alan Wolfelt
As you embrace your grief and do the work of mourning, you can and will be able to demonstrate the majority of the following:
- A recognition of the reality and finality of the death of the person who has died
- A return to stable eating and sleeping patterns that were present prior to the death
- A renewed sense of release or relief from the person who has died – You will have thoughts about the person, but you will not be preoccupied with these thoughts.
- The capacity to enjoy experiences in life that are normally enjoyable
- The establishment of new and healthy relationships
- The capacity to live a full life without feelings of guilt or lack of self-respect
- The capacity to organize and plan one’s life toward the future
- The capacity to become comfortable with the way things are rather than attempting to make things as they were
- The capacity to welcome change in your life
- The awareness that you have allowed yourself to fully grieve and that you have survived
- The awareness that you do not “get over your grief”, that instead, you have a new reality, meaning, and purpose in your life
- The capacity to acknowledge new parts of yourself that you have discovered in your grief journey
- The capacity to adjust to the new role changes that have resulted from the loss of the relationship
- The capacity to be compassionate with yourself when normal resurgences of intense grief occur (holidays, anniversaries, special occasions)
- The capacity to acknowledge that the pain of loss is an inherent part of life resulting from the ability to give and receive love