When I was in my mid-twenties, my boyfriend at the time wanted a dog. I didn’t. I loved animals, but I didn’t want the responsibility of a dog. He promised he would take care of it. As soon as we got the dog, I fell in love with him and knew he was meant for me. My boyfriend and I broke up a few months later, but my little Miniature Pinscher, named Goliath, stayed with me. Fifteen years later and his life has come to an end. He was a huge part of my daily life – and after he passed away, I had to either overcome the grief that I was feeling or fall into a deep pit of depression. I could’ve gone either way. For a while, it felt like the pit was going to be my home. But, with the help of my husband and some positive affirmations, I was able to start feeling better.
10 Affirmations To Help You Overcome Grief
The following affirmations are taken from the Subliminal Guru album for overcoming grief. I bought it and have used it and found it incredibly helpful. If you want to know more about Subliminal Guru and how it can help you develop some awesome positive affirmations for just about any area of life, then you can read my full Subliminal Guru Review here.
1. My heart feels lighter every day
Grief makes the heart and body feel heavy. I felt like I was carrying around another me at certain points.
The problem is that as you focus on your heart feeling so heavy, you feel worse. It’s a reminder of what’s going on, why you feel the way you do, and the loss that you are enduring.
Using the positive affirmation, my heart feels lighter every day, helps you to stop focusing on the heaviness and find the thoughts, energy, and feelings to help you feel lighter.
2. I can cope with the grieving process
I found this to be an important positive affirmation to use because at a few points I thought I wasn’t going to be able to cope at all, and that was leading me down a very negative path.
You must believe that you can cope with the grieving process. You must believe that you are strong enough to go through it because, unfortunately, you have to go through it before you can heal. It would be nice if we could just skip to feeling good, but we can’t.
3. I allow myself to grieve then move on
This is another important affirmation to let sink into your subconscious. You need to believe that there will be a point where you will be able to move on from this grief. If you don’t, then there is a very real possibility that you will be stuck at this moment forever.
Who wants to be stuck in a negative state of grief forever?
And, would the person or animal you are grieving over want you to be stuck in grief for more time than necessary?
I’ve discovered that letting go of grief is not about forgetting about what happened. It’s about honoring yourself and whoever you lost in a positive way.
4. Every day I feel better and happier
There are only two ways to go: You can sink further into grief every day or you can head towards feeling better and happier every day.
As you can see from the following illustration, grief is very low on the energy vibration scale. The emotions below it are apathy, depression, guilt, insecurity, shame, powerlessness, despair, and death. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to go down into any of those emotions, especially death.
I choose to use the affirmation, every day I feel better and happier, and remind myself that each day can help me heal and feel better emotions if I allow it to.
5. I am ready to start living my life again
Anyone who is feeling grief knows that life seems to stop in its tracks. The daily habits, goals, and joy you used to have come to a stop because your focus is on the pain that you feel.
But, if you keep affirming to yourself that you are ready to start living life again, you will start to focus on your life.
For me, that meant getting back into my Lifebook and reorganizing my goals and what I wanted my day to look like now that it didn’t include Goliath anymore. Once I started to focus on my future, I was able to overcome my grief a little more.
6. I give myself the time and space to get over my grief
Do not ignore your grief. If you do, then you will have to deal with it later.
Face your grief head-on. Allow yourself to reflect on things, be sad, work through issues in your mind, and whatever else you need to do to start to overcome the grief you are feeling.
Those emotions arise for a reason. They are a part of us and have a purpose.
I think, in part, emotions like grief help us experience pain – both physically and mentally – so that we can appreciate the times when we feel good.
7. I deserve to be happy and enjoy life
This positive affirmation is so true. When grieving, it’s easy to get caught up in the negative affirmation of I DON’T deserve to be happy, but that’s not true.
Why wouldn’t you deserve to be happy and enjoy life?
Why would one part of life determine how you should go through the rest of your life?
We all deserve to be happy and enjoy our lives. Those are two of our basic rights as human beings.
So, this affirmation will help lift you out of your despair and find more happiness and enjoyment in your day.
8. I am able to look ahead to a bright future
You are stronger than you think. That’s what I’ve learned through this grieving process.
I used to picture the day that Goliath would pass away and visualize myself crumbling into a pile of weakness. I didn’t think I would be able to overcome the grief that I was feeling. But, apparently, I was wrong. I’ve been feeling better every single day and I have found myself able to look forward to a bright future, even without him in it.
Honestly, I feel like he will always be there with me in some way. I’m sad that he can’t be there with me physically, but I know that his energy and his place in my heart will always be around.
9. I am in control of my emotions
One of the things that I strongly believe in is our ability to influence our emotions in a way we want to.
For instance, if I want to feel sad, I can listen to some sad music or focus on sad facts around Goliath’s death. I can feel sad if I want to. I have control over that.
I can also choose to feel good. I can get out into nature and feel connected and alive. I can focus on how much Goliath enjoyed his life and how much fun he had and feel grateful. I can play with my other dog who is full of life and happiness. I can choose to do something I love, which helps me to feel good.
I have a lot of control over my emotions.
Even after you start to overcome your grief a bit, overwhelming grief can still hit you when you least expect it. But, when you affirm to yourself that you are in control of your emotions, you will find yourself taking action to help yourself feel better when you start to feel down.
10. I can be happy and optimistic
Some people think that they are just pessimistic by nature. I think it’s simply a case of not affirming to themselves that they have any control over their emotions.
When you believe the above affirmation, you start to believe this affirmation that you can be happy and optimistic. And when you believe that, you start to look for ways to be happier and your thoughts become more hopeful for the future.
I’ve found that to be a huge benefit to overcoming grief. It helps you get unstuck from the past, where the grief lives and then helps you move forward to something brighter and better.
If you resonate with these affirmations, check out the subliminal affirmation album here.
