I have said this before ~ we should grieve the way a child grieves. By this I mean that children pace themselves. They freely give themselves permission to shut off the pain and to tend to their needs and to play. I don’t want to imply that children don’t need help in working through loss. They do. What I am saying is that children have a natural ability to do the work of mourning in “chunks.” The lesson for me in this is that “we don’t have to deal with our feelings all at once.”
Grieving is a process and not time specific. There will be days when you simply feel too tired to deal with anything. When that happens, give yourself permission to do something else. Go for a long walk. Sit by the water. Take a bubble bath. Watch a comedy and laugh. Have lunch with a friend and keep the conversation focussed on them and what is happening in their life. Go bird watching. Walk in a garden or get your hands in the dirt and plant some flowers.
Ignoring your grief indefinitely is not the thing to do either. Grief will continue to manifest in your life if you attempt to sidestep it, but taking a break and pacing yourself will give you the strength and courage to do the work of mourning. You do need to do the work to heal ~ you just don’t have to do it all at once.
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