How to Open Your Heart After the Death of a Loved One

10 simple yet powerful reminders to practice daily that will make a big difference while recovering from the loss of a loved one.

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Nothing teaches us that life is fleeting more than experiencing the death of a loved one. Maybe this has happened to you recently or you have a vivid memory of losing someone in the past that still brings tears to your eyes.

Death, experienced at any age, can be confusing, shocking and devastating. Even if you saw it coming that doesn’t make it any easier to process the death of someone you care deeply about.

Grieving is a necessary and vital part of the healing process. Working through the emotions, remembering this person and how they touched your life is essential in accepting their passing and moving forward.

However, it’s easy to get sucked into a numbness of grief after the death of a loved one. Or go into your shell, hiding behind the walls you put up to protect your heart.

And when you do go back to “normal” whatever that is, it may be just going through the motions.

But it doesn’t have to be. You can begin to be happy in life again, even if it is by doing the little things. Have compassion to start where you are and be encouraged to open your heart after loss.

10 Tips to Open Your Heart When You’re Recovering From Loss:

1. Eat the damn cake. Cake, the extra five minutes on the playground with your kids, the long hug with a friend. Enjoy the “extra” things in life, it’s what makes life sweet! And, you deserve it. You deserve to be treated and feel pleasure — so enjoy it!
2. Color outside the lines. Have the thrill, be a rebel. Chances are it’ll make one hell of a story and make you laugh every time you think back to it. Let go of the fear that kept you safe and venture out again to do something that excites you!
3. Have a sense of humor. Don’t take yourself or others so seriously. Have a laugh, crack open and connect. Your light is infectious and you never know whose day you’ll brighten with your smile.
4. Dream big (Bigger!). Like you can do anything because you can. At any time, at any moment. It only takes you choosing to go after it. So onward!
5. Sing, even if you don’t know the words. At the top of your lungs, you’re the headliner of your life. Have the confidence to be free, to be self-expressed, to feel alive. Like roll down the windows driving down the road with a Beatles song on the radio and just belt it! That energy is healing!
6. Be kind. To the people you know and those, you don’t. There is so much hurt and sadness and fear already. Offer kindness, offer people the benefit of the doubt. It’ll be the best thing you ever did, for you. It gives you peace.
7. There’s only one you. There is room for you wherever you want to be. That job, that school, that home. You belong. Invest in you and you will discover what an amazing beautiful complete human you are. You bring a superpower no one else has, you’re you. That’s magic. Own it!
8. Say I love you. Tell the people you love that you love them. Don’t just assume they know it. Show people you care, it’s never wasted. There is so much love for you to give, I promise you won’t run out if you share it.
9. Don’t hold back. Not to please anybody or because you’re scared. If you’re scared, do the thing scared! Do not hold yourself back when you know your heart is pulling in a direction. Go, listen to it. Trust yourself.
10. Fail, hard. That’s how you know you’re living. Don’t let the fear of failing, whatever that even means, stop you from chasing and jumping into life. Into what sets your heart on fire. This is what you’re here for.

When we experience the death of a loved one, our mind, body and heart go into protection mode because it perceives this painful event as a threat.

By practicing heart-opening activities, we are telling our mind, body and heart, that the threat has passed and we can relax again. We can open our hearts and allow relief and healing to enter.