Whether the loss of a loved one is expected or sudden, it remains one of the most difficult challenges to overcome in life. It's hard to cope with the inevitable flood of emotions.

In your heart you know that your loved one wouldn't want you to grieve forever. They want you to carry on and live a good life, while still remembering and loving them. The best honor and dedication to your relationship with a loved one who has passed, is to have learned from not only the loss but the incredible love as well in order to live the rest of your life in a happy and healthy manner.

Each person must grieve in their own unique way and in accordance with their time frame. However, it can be helpful to know ways in which others have been helped in their grieving in the past.

Consider the following tips for coping with loss:

1. Be open. Your first reaction to loss may be to close up. You may need time alone to work through your feelings and to grieve. For some their first reaction to...

The Dalai Lama says that we should gain familiarity with the process and practices of death so that when we are physically weak our mind will continue to function in a way that serves us and others. 

Lately, the whoosh of everything fleeting has haunted me, chilling my skin. I remember being 17 and knowing the exact number of days until I could leave my mother and stepfather’s home; in that forever, my life would begin. Each day until my departure moved like a giant Galapagos tortoise. All of my counting blinded me to the beauty around me.

A trite mantra rings in my mind, “Like a flower, take in and grow from both sun and rain.” The knowing that all events are grist for the mill and that nothing is permanent is not enough. One must live in a way that reflects one’s knowledge of life’s impermanence. To do so, we must cultivate patience with pain, discomfort, and loss so that each encounter becomes part of the practice of dying and a piece in the...