Stop! Do you know what you’re saying and doing right now, isn’t the right way of handling the situation for others that are grieving for their loved ones? https://youtube.com/watch?v=2yE4awew0Mk%3Fversion%3D3%26rel%3D1%26showsearch%3D0%26showinfo%3D1%26iv_load_policy%3D1%26fs%3D1%26hl%3Den%26autohide%3D2%26wmode%3Dtransparent     This is just a bit of a shorter version of the reading you’re reading right now. Feel free to view this as well to gain a better understanding. Grief myths . . . they sure as hell drive me crazy. And, I am sure that it would drive you crazy too when you hear/read them somewhere, whether it is on the Internet or just from others around us. “Why did you say this in the first place?” Have you heard of think before you speak? Nope, I see that you’ve clearly haven’t! There are just so many of them, they come out in so many ways, and they make our grief so much more difficult.  Friends and family have unrealistic expectations about what or how our grief will or should look like because of these myths.  Heck, truth to be told that sometimes WE have our own unrealistic expectations because of these myths.  So today we are setting out to dispel about 64 myths about grief yet there are more that you may have heard once and for all! Disclaimer: what makes many of the things on this list myths is that they are not universally true.  This does not mean they are never true.  This is a very very important distinction, so keep it in mind as you read/watch the video that will come live soon on my channel. Also, there are some common themes with these myths so, where applicable, I have clustered the myths by themes in different categories if it made sense to do so. Okay, as Eleanor would say, let’s dive in! 1. Grief has an endpoint. Sorry friends, grief is going to be with us forever. It’s a part of us and after all, we are still humans.  This isn’t a bad thing, though! Don’t get me wrong!  It just means that when we lose something or someone we loved deeply, that loss will be with us in some way forever.  Grief may feel different or become more manageable to many of us, but it will always be there and that’s okay.  Too bad people often make us feel like we should have reached the “end” of our grief. 2. Once you are done grieving, life will return to “normal”. All the things you’ve heard about getting over grief, going back to normal, and moving on – they are misrepresentations of what it means to love someone or something like your pet who has died. I’m sorry, I know us as human people that does appreciate things like closure and resolution, but this isn’t how grief works. This isn’t to say that “recovery” doesn’t have a place in grief – it’s simply ‘what’ ‘how’ ‘when’ we’re recovering from that needs to be redefined. To “recover” means to return to a normal state of health, mind, or strength, and as many would attest, when someone very significant dies, we never return to a pre-loss “normal”. The loss, the person who died, our grief – they all get integrated into our lives and they profoundly change how we live and experience the world. What will, hopefully, return to a general baseline is the level of intense emotion, stress, and distress that a person experienced in the weeks and months following their loss.  So perhaps we recover from the intense distress of grief, but we don’t recover from the grief itself. 3. There is a consistent and predictable timeline for grief. My questions to ask you all is this while you’re reading and watching my video when it comes to light is this: How long does it take to fall in love? How many seconds pass before a parent loves their newborn child? How many arguments and rivalries can the bonds of sibling-hood withstand? How many heart-to-hearts and late-night phone calls before you know a friend is true? These are silly questions, aren’t they that I am asking to you? They’re like most riddles with no answer. There’s no scale to measure love or to quantify the bonds of friendship and family. It reminds me of one of my favourite lullabies, appropriately titled ‘The Riddle’. It’s a really simple song that my mother used to sing when I was young. It goes… I gave my love a cherry that had no stone. I gave my love a chicken that had no bone. I told my love a story that had no end I gave my love a baby, with no cryin’. How can there be a cherry that has no stone? How can there be a chicken that has no bone? Whoever heard a story that never ends? How can there be a baby with no cryin’? Well a cherry when it’s bloomin’, it has no stone. A chicken when it’s pippen’, it has no bone. And the story of ‘I love you’ will never end. A baby when it’s sleeping, there’s no cryin’. “The story of I love you will never end”; what a beautiful lyric. What a true lyric. Love, connection and caring, these are things that live on; they don’t just end….you know it…I know it…it’s just common sense, people. So why then do we often hear these questions like these? “How long does grief last? When will it end? When will I be over it?” If grief is the result of losing someone we love and care for, then there’s no logic that can be applied or formula that can be used in determining how long it will last. If you don’t believe me, just give it a try. So feelings of grief will diminish, but not disappear. Grief is infinitas which means ‘being without finish’. Grief doesn’t end, but with time it should look different; hopefully more peaceful, connected, and positive. Here are a few small indicators you might be making progress in your grief. I find it important