Few of us like to feel sad or cry Grief can be tricky. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross identified the five stages of grief denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Those words barely convey the shock that can leave us dazed and numb for months, or the white-hot rage many of us feel, often toward our Higher Power, when we lose someone we love, or the odd way we feel so separated from the rest of the world when we grieve.

Then there are the stages of grief that few people discuss: the obsession with what we’ve lost, the guilt that’s part of grief (“I could have prevented it”), and the way grief can play havoc with our self-esteem (“I must be a terrible person for this to happen to me”).

People may say stupid things like “Aren’t you over that yet?” You may even expect yourself to be healed from a loss long before your heart is ready.

Challenge: Nothing about grief is easy. We may have to live with the pain from some losses all our lives. But the hardest thing for many people is losing the person they love.

We may think that being healed means we don’t miss that person anymore. What it really means is we’re willing to move forward with our lives.