Personal Grief and Loss Awareness Activity

As a result of experiences with loss and grief, each of us develops  our own unique style of dealing with these issues. Understanding your  attitudes, values, assumptions, beliefs, reactions, and unfinished  business (if any) is an important task of self-awareness. The goal of  this assignment is to facilitate your reflection about how these issues  present themselves and relate to your personal coping style as well as  your interactions with others coping with loss and grief.

Part 1 – Loss Timeline: Construct a time line which represents the  loss events in your life, including non-death related losses such as  loss of dreams, loss of job, loss of home, etc. You can begin by making a  list of items, starting with your earliest memory and working through  to the current day. Some people prefer a line with bullet points along  the way, while others will use a chart. You can decide the way you’d  like to represent your time line – be as creative as you would like!

Part 2 – Personal Death Awareness: Complete the Personal Reflection handout included as an attachment. 

Part 3 – Reflection: Using the information you’ve identified in your  loss history and the Personal Reflection handout, write a reflection  summary  on the impact of these events upon the  following:

•  Your interest in issues of grief and loss as well as personal goals for this course;

•  Your personal style of dealing with loss i.e. how has your  upbringing, culture, religion, ethnicity influenced your coping style  And how do you cope with issues of death and non-death loss in your  life?

•  Your comfort levels in dealing with different issues of grief, and  different kinds of loss with others i.e. are there specific kinds of  losses that you feel will be particularly challenging to work with?; do  you have experience with specific groups of people or specific illness  or events that have proven to be difficult in the past?; do you have any  value-oriented or ethical conflicts with certain issues, people,  events?

•  Your thoughts on stages of grief and types of losses individuals and their families may experience.