The 7 Stages of Grief After You've Lost a Beloved Animal Friend

When you’ve done all you can, weathered through the final chapters and your animal’s transition, then it’s time to make peace with what’s happened.

After working with thousands of animals who have passed on, I have a lot of experience in helping people and their animals work through the transition to find more peace, completion and feel empowered to move on with their lives.

Communicating with your animal after they’ve gone back to Spirit always helps you be able to feel them, to experience how they are doing, and to hear any messages they have to share with you.

It’s helpful to share stories of their lives with others, to take time to celebrate the time you had together, good and bad. Some find it helpful to create a memory scrapbook for their animal.

However, after a certain period of time, and when you have processed through all the stages of grief, it will be time to let them go.

Holding on to them after that point can stop them from moving on, and will also block your own healing and ability to move on as well.

Your animal does not want you to stop living because they left their body, nor do they want to be remembered with pain, grief or sadness. Just like our human family and friends, they want you to remember them for the love in their hearts, their wonderful personalities, and all the many gifts they brought into your life.

I find it helps to know the stages of grief, somehow it helps my left brain ‘know where I am’ and be okay with whatever I’m feeling.

1. SHOCK & DENIAL

You will probably react to learning of the loss with numbed disbelief. You may deny the reality of the loss at some level, in order to avoid the pain. Shock provides emotional protection from being overwhelmed all at once. This may last for weeks.

2. PAIN & GUILT

As the shock wears off, it is replaced with the suffering of unbelievable pain. Although excruciating and almost unbearable, it is important that you experience the pain fully, and not hide it, avoid it or escape from it with alcohol or drugs.

You may have guilty feelings or remorse over things you did or didn't do with your loved one. Life feels chaotic and scary during this phase.

3. ANGER & BARGAINING

Frustration gives way to anger, and you may lash out and lay unwarranted blame for the death on someone else. Please try to control this, as permanent damage to your relationships may result. This is a time for the release of bottled up emotion. You may rail against fate, questioning "Why me?" You may also try to bargain in vain with the powers that be for a way out of your despair ("I will never drink again if you just bring him back").

4. "DEPRESSION", REFLECTION, LONELINESS

Just when your friends may think you should be getting on with your life, a long period of sad reflection will likely overtake you. This is a normal stage of grief, so do not be "talked out of it" by well-meaning outsiders. Encouragement from others is not helpful to you during this stage of grieving.

During this time, you finally realize the true magnitude of your loss, and it depresses you. You may isolate yourself on purpose, reflect on things you did with your lost one, and focus on memories of the past. You may sense feelings of emptiness or despair.

5. THE UPWARD TURN

As you start to adjust to life without your dear one, your life becomes a little calmer and more organized. Your physical symptoms lessen, and your "depression" begins to lift slightly.

6. RECONSTRUCTION & WORKING THROUGH

As you become more functional, your mind starts working again, and you will find yourself seeking realistic solutions to problems posed by life without your loved one. You will start to work on practical and financial problems and reconstructing yourself and your life without him or her.

7. ACCEPTANCE & HOPE

During this, the last of the seven stages in this grief model, you learn to accept and deal with the reality of your situation. Acceptance does not necessarily mean instant happiness. Given the pain and turmoil you have experienced, you can never return to the carefree, untroubled YOU that existed before this tragedy. But you will find a way forward.

Now you can start to look forward and actually plan things for the future. Eventually, you will be able to think about your lost loved one without pain; sadness, yes, but the wrenching pain will be gone. You will once again anticipate some good times to come, and yes, even find joy again in the experience of living.