My answer is simply, “you just do.”

So the good news is that as time moves, the thoughts change with them. And while most people facing any type of tragedy would love to “get to the other side of it” as quick as possible, the good news is that it still takes the time to work it through.

Wait! Hold it … that's the GOOD news?!?

Yes, it truly is! I have used an analogy in my practice of an iceberg. Big, massive, jagged, cold hunk of ice. Imagine how it looks up in the frigid waters. Rock solid. Imagine, if you will, this iceberg being taken in whole and dumped into the Great South Bay. What would happen? A huge damaging mess. Floods, ice, destruction and devastation. Isn’t it a good thing that when an iceberg naturally breaks away, it begins to drift slowly toward the warmer waters. Melting, changing, evolving, and arriving as natural as water.

Grief is a massive iceberg. Jagged and cold, filled with harsh emotions. But as time moves it along, the thoughts, feelings, emotions all begin to evolve and change. So much so that when the anniversary arrives, you begin to look back on the year and see the changes rather than the emotions.

As I look back on my own year, I am seeing for the first time the freedom that I have created in my mind. I have let go of some old emotions surrounding my once one-room therapy business in order to let it grow to the 15-room practice it is now. I needed to release the emotions of writing and creating my book, The Zing and allow others to experience their own journey in it’s pages, rather than seeing it as an extension of my own. I have allowed my personal and professional relationships to evolve and mature by letting go, rather than jumping in and grabbing on to make sure I don’t lose something (again).

It was time to enjoy living life by doing new things, outside my comfort zone. And each time I did, I began to realize that there wasn’t that “old feeling” that I often found myself trapped in. Call it what you will — guilt, disappointment, sadness…. those negative emotions that hung around early in my grief journey had simply evolved. Why? Because the iceberg melts...

Because I wasn’t being hit anymore with the negative, I began to trust more that I was even allowed to enjoy living life. I evolved… and it was time to embrace the arrival. Buy new clothes, update a massively old computer, take more trips, including a return with my whole family, children and grandchildren, to Disney… something I had not done since the loss of Michael.

The emotions of grief are by far the deepest and darkest in the human experience. It is what causes the hurt. Some will try and move it along by constantly seeking answers. Some will try and stop it by doing self-destructive behavior. But the bottom line, the iceberg has to melt in a natural way. Because when you allow life to keep flowing — let the hurt evolve, mature, change, and resolve — you arrive with a free mind, a healthy body, and an even deeper an more powerful relationship with yourself and the one you lost.

My greatest peace comes to me now in those quiet moments. It is now easier to work through the challenges because I know that Michael is always right there… and he is no longer clouded by work, people and things. I have been able to free my mind because the emotions have evolved, resolved and released.

The good news? The massive, jagged, harsh frozen iceberg melted and, throughout it all, Michael is still there.

I pray for peace for you and your journey in life — Ron Villano