Death – Phases of mourning and the mourning process – Coping with Death

After a death, we mourn the deceased and go through different stages of mourning during the grieving process. The loss of a loved one requires a fundamental reorientation within. Coping with grief also means slowly making your way back to order.

Death - phases of mourning - rituals - mourning process

Abbot Reding from the Honora Zen monastery continues to support the relatives after the death. The commemoration ceremonies were designed so that the phases of mourning can be manifested externally in a ritual. Not wanting to believe Often one cannot and does not want to believe what has happened and that is why many feel isolated and helpless or even desperate.

Duration: A few hours, but often days or several weeks

Emerging Emotions

Breaking up of feelings like anger, pain and rage. Often one is also plagued by feelings of guilt, which is expressed in the question; why I am allowed to live while the loved one had to die.

Duration: Depending on how close the relationship was, this phase lasts weeks, months or even years.

Find and separate

There is an inner confrontation with the deceased and his death: mourners seek out places of remembrance, let shared experiences happen and have quiet conversations with the deceased. With this conscious saying goodbye you can process the loss better.

Duration: weeks, months or years.

Reorientation

Inner peace slowly returns and the pain fades into the background accordingly. The death of the loved one is accepted and one can now begin to make new plans and redesign one's life without the deceased.