8 Affirmations to Help You Cope with Loss
Losing someone is an experience that reduces all others to dust. When it comes to healing from that, support comes in all forms. Friends, strangers. Letters, lyrics. Movement, stillness.
The words you speak, even, can be part of your support system.
It's why I wrote these affirmations, and why I write in general. To give you ideas. To help you illuminate the shadow their death laid on your future.
To remind you that, when the cracks start opening inside you, threatening to break you, you can take that pain and use it to forge yourself into a stronger person.
It's in those cracked open spaces within you where your person still lives. They made that space when they left, and they root there, and what blooms there: that is very much something you have a say in.
If you just lost someone you love, or you did a long time ago but it feels like yesterday, use these affirmations to root yourself in your own heart: where they are.
May these words help you cope with this great loss, with as much strength and grace as possible right now. Wherever you happen to be in your own process.
8 Affirmations to Help You Cope with Loss
1. I am a powerful woman (use your own noun). I have grown in determination and courage. I have always been strong, but through this agony I am forging myself into a woman (or: person, being, etc.) who can endure.
2. I can make it through this, too.
3. I find new strength and new light by helping others through their losses. I find my reserves of compassion have grown too, because everyone is longing to see someone again.
4. I am not a prisoner of my grief, afraid of the very light. I am a keeper of the light, even in those times when my loss consumes me: I am still me.
5. It's okay that not everyone can understand what I've been through. But for those who want to, I can make them understand in a way that will make them braver.
6. It's not a mistake to go on living.
7. My heart holds within it everything you are.
8. Deep in the chasms of my heart, split open by this loss, there's space for a conversation to carry on. The life we shared will take a new form there. The life I keep living will be fueled by what they still give to me: strength, and love.
. . .
Tell me:
Which of these resonate most with you right now?
Tell me in the comments. I read every single one, and I'd love to know.
With you,
Jen
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Comments on this post (7)
My husband died 6 months ago this Wednesday. These affirmations were extremely helpful. Numbers 2, 4, and 7. Were spot on for me. I truly appreciate this. Thank you
— Harrietta
India, I am deeply sorry for the loss of your dad. I know, nobody and nothing can replace what he was to you, and still is to you. I really do believe that love doesn’t just go away. Nothing can destroy that. It’s so so hard and hurts. Know that your struggle is real and valid. Hope is too. Love is always. Sending you a big hug and wishes that whatever you need to support you, will find you. x
— Jennifer Williamson
I lost my dad in February and have had the most difficult time. I stumbled upon this post …
8. Deep in the chasms of my heart, split open by this loss, there’s space for a conversation to carry on. The life we shared will take a new form there. The life I keep living will be fueled by what they still give to me: strength, and love.
Every time I read it, I’m in tears. I plan to say this everyday. Hopefully I can start to heal.
— India Matthews
Jim, I am deeply sorry for the loss of your precious partner in life. I hope these words do prove to be a source of comfort, even though I get it’s painful to be swimming in that knowledge and sense of great loss. There’s so much I don’t know, but I do believe in the beauty the people we love leave with us, and within us. The way you live is a manifestation of what she has brought into your life. May you find peace, maybe even hope, in that.
— Jennifer Williamson
Jennifer,
I couldn’t wait to read through your 8 affirmations to tell you bluntly that they did not help at all. Then I read “My heart holds within it everything that you are,” and something cracked open inside of me. I have tried to deal with the death of my dear wife for over a year now and nothing consoles me, but the thought that she still lives within me shook me up. I don’t know yet if it is comforting or not. I will have to give the affirmation time. My hope is that maybe it will bring me some peace knowing that she is still alive within me. This pain is so consuming that I also want to be free of it, so I can live the rest of my life with some comfort. No one every told be that the counterpoint to having “a marriage made in heaven” was the great sense of loss and abandonment that one will feel when one partner of that perfect marriage leaves. Sincerely, Jim Young.
— Jim Young
Thank YOU, Jim.
— Jennifer Williamson
Patches of blue in the billowing clouds
See the sunshine and the moon and the stars and the beauty and the love all around. Death and sorrow remind us we are alive and living and how brief it may be. We are a small part of a miraculous world. So, open your heart to kindness. It’s there for us to see. Thank you Jen.
— Jim