Strouf Funeral Home understands the importance of offering support to someone who is grieving. With our cremation services, we offer a wide range of support to the bereaved. For people suffering from loss, trauma, or any adverse situation in their lives, the support from their near and dear ones can often help significantly.
We must come forward with our words and actions of hope and support to comfort the bereaved. Since the bereaved struggle with the situation and intense and painful emotions, we must prioritize comforting them in any way we can. Many correlative factors must be kept in mind. Many times, channeling sympathy to support can be pretty challenging.
Ways To Offer Support To Someone Who Is Grieving
There are no right or wrong ways to grieve. Loss affects each person differently. Hence, there are no definite ways to support a suffering person. But there are specific ways in which one can offer support to a person going through a painful situation.
You must remain careful about their sensitivities. The methods by which you can support the grieving are-
Acknowledging The Situation
Often one of the most significant ways we can support someone is by acknowledging the situation that they are going through. We must be careful not to tip-toe around it or invalidate the problem. That will only add more to the suffering of the bereaved. We must acknowledge their pain and loss in a manner that respects their feelings and simultaneously provides comfort.
Acknowledging the situation also involves refraining from advising or passing hurtful comments on the case. To comfort the grieving person, we must refrain from generalizing their circumstances. We must not say things like, “It happens to everyone, it was God’s plan, etc.” We must prioritize understanding their feelings and comforting them.
Sharing The Space For Communication
To comfort someone grieving, we must allow them to express their feelings, worries, and everything else they have to say. It is important to remember that there is no right way to grieve. It is common for the person suffering from loss to become involved in hysteric outbursts and frantic attempts to cope with the situation. We must allow them to express their feelings.
Allowing the suffering person to express what they are going through is one of the best things to do to comfort someone. There should be synchronized communication, where we allow them to determine the direction of the communication. When the bereaved feel heard and find the space to share their painful emotions, they can be relieved substantially.
Respecting Their Privacy And Boundaries
An essential factor to keep in mind and practice actively is respecting the suffering person’s privacy. Whether the person is going through a loss or any other situation, we must allow them the space to address it in their own right. We must not push boundaries and invade their privacy. This will only worsen the suffering of the bereaved person.
So, in communicating and offering support to the suffering person, we must remain careful about the sensitivities of their situation. Irrespective of the circumstances, we should not push them beyond their comfort zone to share more about the situation. We must always respect their personal boundaries and their privacy.
Offering Practical Assistance
Offering practical assistance is a remarkable and necessary way of showing support to someone dealing with a painful situation. Words of hope and strength are essential in times of loss. However, practical assistance becomes just as important during those times. So, to comfort someone suffering, we must be aware of offering them practical help.
Practical assistance involves preparing their daily meals for them. Naturally, the suffering family will be incapable of cooking food at such times. It also includes buying their medication, shopping for groceries, running different errands, helping with insurance, various bills and arrangements, etc. This assistance will relieve them from their struggles significantly.
Offering An Ongoing Support
An important aspect to remember while offering support to someone who is grieving is the importance of an ongoing support channel. Healing or recovery is seldom linear. The bereaved come back and forth from their painful emotions. Even after a period of time, their feelings can still remain raw. It is vital to check on them regularly.
We must also stay aware and look for signs of depression, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), symptoms of any other mental distress, etc. We must never stigmatize these discussions and offer them an ongoing support channel. This may include professional psychological counseling, support groups, anonymous media, etc. Nonetheless, we must be present for them regularly.
Things To Avoid While Offering Support To The Bereaved
As there are multiple ways in which we can offer support to the grieving, there are also numerous things we must refrain from doing in such circumstances. Doing these activities will ruin the whole activity of providing them support. Instead, it will worsen the situation and even add more to their suffering. So, it is crucial to be aware of these things.
Firstly, we must refrain from making any judgments on their situation. The last thing a bereaved and suffering person needs is criticism or judgments directed toward them. We must sympathize with them and avoid making snarky remarks, judgments, or criticism about their situation or feelings. We must not belittle their loss or their journey.
We must also be respectful towards the environment surrounding the person. Playing loud music, joking, laughing with other people at their home, and participating in tasks that completely ignore the emotions of the suffering individual will be highly insensitive and hurtful to that person. We should be capable of reading the room and avoiding these tasks.
It is also important to avoid generalizing the grieving of the bereaved. Saying things like “it is a part of life,” or “it happens to everyone,” or “it is a part of God’s plan,” etc., will not help them in this situation but rather make them confused and complicate their healing. So, we must not pass such generalized comments on to them. Instead, we should allow them to express their sufferings.
Conclusion
Offering support to someone who is grieving is never an easy task. The grieving process differs from one person to the other. So, we must remain cautious about our behavior and offer our best to comfort them during difficult times.
When it comes to dealing with the numerous tasks of support and arranging funerals for the person going through loss, Strouf Funeral Home is your trusted partner. Contact us if you want to learn more. We hope to assist you in any way we can. Thanks for stopping by!