
The Grief Journey:
Reconstruction
Picking Up the Pieces
When we are at this place in our grief journey, the emphasis of our grief work shifts from internal to external. We start to take action that allows us to check out what is and what isn’t going to work for us as we design a new shape for our lives. We begin grappling with the work of making long-term changes. We begin to do what is necessary to resolve the conflict between the pull of the past and our desire to be happy. This is a difficult time. We feel like an immigrant who must carve out a new life in an unfamiliar land. And, regardless of this difficulty, we step out and begin the tasks of longer-term change that are now required. We are brave for the same reasons that immigrants work so hard to make a good life for themselves in a new country. We want a life that both honors the past and has new meaning.