While grief is a universal experience, the mourning process varies from family to family and from culture to culture. What I am referring to as the mourning process are the rituals that most of us grow up with about how to behave and how to speak when confronted with a loss.

It is painful to work a muscle or joint that has been injured. We feel as if we can't move it at all without some type of annoying ache. We may feel as if we can't go another minute working that area because it just hurts so badly. However, we soon find out after time the pain has subsided and we are able to use that part of our body again without much difficulty.

If you don't get closure at the end of a relationship it can niggle away at you for years. The end of a relationship is a big deal, but there are lots of smaller unfinished deals that can also be niggling away. As you walk through your home what do you notice? Perhaps the picture that still needs to be hung on the wall, the laundry pile that needs to be folded, the tax return that still needs to be completed?

Resilience is the quality of being able to bounce back from or adjust to major loss or change. Resilient survivors have developed skills and beliefs to meet the challenge of living without the physical presence of their loved one. How can you develop the resiliency to meet the new circumstances of life? Here are seven key areas to concentrate on.