Losing a loved one is one of the most difficult things that a person can go through. While it’s normal and healthy to take time to mourn, you need to work through your grief in a healthy manner. Use these tips to help as you navigate your life without your loved one.

Accept Your Grief

Too often we expect ourselves to be strong and to need much time to feel grief after a major loss. This is the wrong way to handle things. Accept that you are mourning and allow yourself to grieve. It’s okay to be sad, it’s okay to cry and it’s okay to feel pain. Know that it won’t last forever, but allow yourself to feel it now.

Find a Support Group

Many people push others away after a tragedy and want to be alone. While these feelings are normal, extended isolation won’t help you. One of the best things you can do is reach out to others who have been where you are. Seek out friends and family and find a local support group. Leaning on others can help you as you work through your grief and help strengthen you. When you are ready, you will be able to help strengthen others.

Express Your Grief

Don’t keep things bottled inside. You won’t be able to work through your grief until you express your emotions—and there will be a lot of emotions. Grief can express itself as sadness, anger, fear, guilt, and a dozen other complex emotions. While these are negative emotions, you need to express them before you can fully move past your grief.

No matter what you’re feeling, it’s important to express it. Find a healthy way to work through negative emotions. Journaling, painting, drawing, and exercising are all good, healthy ways to express your pain and sadness. Try a few things and find what works for you.

Try Reaching Out

When things are left unsaid, it’s one of the most frustrating things about losing a loved one. People often say if they could just reach out to their loved one or tell them that they love them one more time, that they will feel peace about the situation. Try reaching out to a loved one who has passed through a psychic medium hotline or through prayer to get the peace you need.

Find Joy

Eventually, you will laugh, have fun and find joy, in life again, even though things seem dismal right now. When you start to feel good again after a loss, you may feel a sense of guilt at finding joy without your loved one. This is normal, but don’t let that guilt prevent you from finding fun and love again. Your loved one wants you to be happy, and finding joy is the best way to honor them while living your best life.

At some point, everyone loses a loved one. Though nothing is more difficult to face than loss, working through the grief in a healthful manner will help you as you move past mourning and find a way to live a new, beautiful life.