The seven stages of grief is a process that the majority of us will experience in our life whether we realize it or not. Grief is our normal response when we lose someone or something in our life that we we bonded strongly. The process can be long and involves many feelings such as shock and denial; pain and guilt; anger and bargaining; depression, reflection and loneliness; the upward turn, reconstruction and working through; and finally acceptance and hope. The feelings don't necessarily have to be in that order but is it likely that a person grieving will experience most if not all of those feelings.

The reason I bring this up is it’s important to understand the notion that sometimes people can’t control their emotions. People are flawed and thats ok, life is something all of have to do and sometimes grief is going to be a part of that. As we move towards the future I hope we are able to develop a more compassionate and empathic human nature. Currently things such as violence, fear, anger and hate dominate our lives, a lot of the time the sadness and grief isn't something that will be visible to the world like everything else, its something people would rather keep hidden then share.

It’s a constant struggle but its important to realize every person has their own personal battles going on in their life. Reality hits people like a brick, awful things happen out of our control and theirs nothing we can do about it. Its important though to be aware of we can do rather than we cannot do. To just be a good person and to have an empathy and compassion towards others goes a long way to making society a more enjoyable place where we value the emotions of others no matter what they are. It’s difficult to do that since we are all emotional creatures who let are emotions get the better of us, but despite this we have to at least try. Try for a better more compassionate world. We don't like what we don’t understand but it doesn't always have to be that way.

Another issue in society is that we often feel like we should hide our emotions and out true feelings. This couldn't be further from the truth, we can't control how we feel and its important to express it and not suppress it.