All About the Six ‘R’s of Mourning
Cremation services Morton Grove, IL, are a fact of life. Words cannot explain the tragedy and pain one goes through after losing someone close to their heart. Grief is a universal process that almost every one of us faces at some stage in life especially after losing a loved one.
Drawing upon clinical trials on the bereaved individuals, a psychologist found out that people experiencing grief have various commonalities in how they cope with the mourning process and the order of the feelings experienced during grief.
He divided the grief journey into six separate stages known as Dr. Rando’s Six R’s of Mourning, which are:
- Recognize the loss
- React to the separation
- Recollect and re-experience
- Relinquish old attachments
- Readjust
- Reinvest
These six steps are often categorized into three phases, which are:
- Avoidance
- Confrontation
- Accommodation
Here is a detailed explanation of these stages:
Phase 1: Avoidance
When you hear about the passing away of your loved one, your mind finds it difficult to acknowledge the loss. This is the earliest part of grief where an inner part of you still doesn’t process the reality. Rando posits that this stage has just one task – recognize the loss.
After some time, the person understands and accepts that the loved one has gone forever – and enters the next phase to which Rando calls the confrontation phase.
Phase 2: Confrontation
During this stage, the person tries to cope with the set of emotions in three separate tasks:
React to the separation: This stage involves reacting to and embracing a set of powerful emotions due to the passing away of the loved one – as well as the ‘secondary losses” that come along with the original loss.
Consider this phase as ‘how one accepts, feels, and responds to the loss.
Recollect and Re-experience: As the name indicates, this stage entails reminiscing about both good and bad times spent with the departed soul. How your relationship went through ups and downs in life, and how the deceased brought positive changes in your life – and will continue to do so.
The third and last stage of the confrontation phase is – relinquish old attachments. Unlike how it sounds, it doesn’t mean you have to forget the loved one and move on with your life. Instead, it is a slow and gradual process where you start adapting to the new reality – a world without your loved one.
Phase 3: Accommodation
In this phase, as the name indicates, the mourner tries to find the meaning of life without the departed soul. It doesn’t mean that you won’t experience feelings of sadness and sorrow – but you’ll be able to overcome them and find moments of happiness in your life. The main stage of this phase is:
Readjust: Trying to forget or get past the grief of the loved one and return to the normal routine. The loss of the beloved may have induced a permanent change in your outlook but will be better poised to cope with the challenges of daily life.
Cremation services Morton Grove, IL, are just the first step of the grief journey. Reach out to us now.