Category Archives: Grief

How To Cope With Grief And Loss

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How To Approach And Cope With Grief And LossI have published this article about coping with grief and loss as a guest post over at Letters of Love, a support group for people struggling with depression, self-injury, addiction & eating disorders.

It’s the first article in the “Ask a therapist” series where I have been invited to answer readers questions over the next few weeks. (Quite a lot of weeks actually as everyone had so much to ask!)

The readers question this week is:

I had a difficult time dealing with my father’s death on my own and would ask about tools that could help me avoid some of the pitfalls I experienced. Pitfalls such as drinking too much, seeking comfort from men who can’t provide anything I need, unexplained anger and frustration, etc.

Click here to read my answer.

If you are visiting from Letters of Love, welcome!

I’m a therapist specialising in stress. My primary passion lies in helping you improve your health, decisions, relationships through helping with the psychological reasons behind your health and behavioural issues.

Here are some of my key posts you might like to start with:

Subscribe to the free monthly newsletter and the free blog updates by email. These resources help you make the changes to invite better health and well-being into your life.

Thanks for dropping by! Please feel free to join me on Twitter @ReetaLuthra.

To view all the articles in this series, you’ll find them filed in the Q&A topic.


Problems Are Stages In Personal Development

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Problems Mark Stages In Personal DevelopmentThe tragic news of Alexander McQueen’s apparent suicide has devastated much of the fashion industry.

Fashion heathen that I am, I had not heard of Alexander McQueen until news of his death broke out.

Yes, I should get out more. However, the papers have told me so much, it feels incredible that his name was unknown to me 16 hours ago.

You know who else is unknown?

The 3000 people around the world who will commit suicide TODAY.

According to the World Health Organisation, an average of almost 3000 people commit suicide every day. That’s one every 30 seconds. And for every person who completes a suicide, 20 or more may attempt suicide.

In fact it’s very probable that you yourself know someone or have a friend of a friend who’s taken this route.

There’s always the helplessness afterwards: “If only she’d got help” or “It was only an argument, he seemed fine” or “I had no idea he was depressed.”

As individuals we are STRONG. Incredibly, beautifully, jaw-droppingly strong.

Yet, despite this strength:

  • Yes, we need help finding a solution to a problem sometimes
  • Yes, it’s damn hard to ask for the help we need
  • Yes, we feel alone, helpless and bound by our situation

This is a NORMAL part of our personal development. If you think about it, you already know that not a single baby born today will make it to old age without experiencing these feelings to some degree at some point.

Our Strength

Our ability to develop skills that deal with life is what lies at the heart of our strength – even if we don’t know it yet.

Fear, confusion, grief, anger, pain…. these are horrid feelings that do however serve a purpose. At the very least they give us the opportunity to recognise what is important to us.

Yet when the depression sets in, it combines with these feelings to somehow mock our inability to achieve what we value. Self-esteem goes out of the window and we’re left with this shell that used to be us but now is just so… empty.

The paradox is that when you get to the point where you feel you have no choices left,  you actually have all the choices in the world. And they’ve been there all along.

If you suspect that someone you love is struggling with an emotional crisis such as depression or having difficulties making choices and decisions, be their eyes and encouragement for a while and guide them into getting the help they need.

In this situation, people often can’t see their options because they’ve reached a personal development opportunity that’s frozen them in fear. The emotional safety of confidential professional coaching and therapy provides the tools and resources to move forward freely without the guilt that they’re burdening you.

The same applies of course if it’s you that’s struggling.

How do you recognise the personal development opportunities in your life? How do you maximise what you can learn from them?