Do you feel that you’ve reached a plateau in your grieving, and are you frustrated that it seems as if you’ve stopped moving forward?

Take heart! The plateau is a place where you can rest after expending all your energy on what needed to be done. Stop chastising yourself for being there. Everyone needs to rest when they are working hard. This caution extends to physical work as well as emotional, spiritual and mental work.

Instead, on the flat ground of this plateau, you can gather your thoughts; do something nice for yourself; look around for opportunities, etc. Be assured, there will be more mountains to climb in the future. Therefore, take this respite when it’s afforded to you and enjoy your ability to breathe freely and deeply.

And what if you feel as if you’ve taken many steps forward only to find yourself back at Point A again? I ask you to consider looking at this situation in the following way.

I think re-evaluating is the story of everyone’s life. I know that whenever I receive a new piece of information, it’s necessary for me to filter it through my brain in order to determine if it changes how I feel about a situation.

That’s what growth is – not getting stuck in old thinking just because that’s the way you’ve always looked at something. Once you detach yourself from old thinking, it allows you to expand and see the world through new eyes.

Consider the idea that perhaps the reason you’ve returned to Point “A” is because now you have new information that will move you toward a different (and more productive) Point “B” than the one you chose previously.

If you feel you’ve reached a plateau in your grief and don’t know how to move out of it, are you willing to spend some time in this place without coloring it with frustration or anger? Often, once you surrender to your circumstances, the energy that kept you stuck in them dissipates.

Ellen Gerst is a grief and relationship coach, author and workshop leader. The preceding is an excerpt from her newest book, "52 Secrets on How to Cope With Your Grief."  Connect with Ellen via her website and on Facebook at  Words of Comfort to Pave Your Journey of Loss for daily tips and thoughts on coping with grief.