Breaking Open Your Spirit

Elizabeth says that if you don't take the time to grieve for the loss of a loved one, your feelings may fester and turn into something else. "Perhaps it turns into bitterness or anger or blame and you never get over it," she says. "So letting yourself descend into grief and letting it do what it will with you for as long as it takes is a much more intelligent response to loss than cleaning up real fast and going back to work."

It's impossible to truly get over a tragic loss, Glen says, but it is possible to move on. "It's always there. You always live with it," he says. "And you use it as who you are to become more of a person."

"You wear [grief] as a badge of how well you loved," Elizabeth says. "Grief is an expression that you loved well."