Feeling your way through Grief--A Self Love Journey

Last Sunday was the third anniversary of my dad’s death.  He battled Alzheimer’s for 10 years, beginning that journey when he was 57.  What I’ve learned through my journey of grief, is that time does in fact help heal the wound that is left gaping open, but it leaves a scar. 

Grief is a rollercoaster ride, or like the ex you don’t want to see again, always popping up at inopportune moments, and always throwing you for a loop.

Reflecting on my own journey, I’ve realized that grief and self-love go hand and hand. How you may be wondering?  I’ll share with you a past way I “dealt” with grief, and how this weekend I dealt and I believe you’ll begin to see the correlation.

Vulnerability has not always been easy for me, I’d say that the majority of my life, it resided on the cons side of my traits.  Dealing with emotions was always achieved by some kind of coping mechanism; numbing out by either food or booze.

The majority of the time my dad was sick, and years to follow; I mixed these two coping mechanisms like a pro. This only ever resulted in me feeling worse than before because now I had the shame and guilt spiral added to the mix. 

Here is the thing, if you don’t deal with emotions, they don’t go away.  Shocking right?

The longer I went without facing facts, the worse it became, to the point that I’d be out having fun and drinking with friends, and suddenly the excess amounts of alcohol I’d consumed would flood my system and I’d be sobbing crying in public, or on the front lawn of a friends house—one of the last instances I recalled before I took a break from drinking to deal with my shit.

Numbing feels really good in the moment, its super seductive because you know you can escape from the crushing blow of grief.  But let me tell you, it’s the antithesis of self-love.

If I had been fulling loving myself in those instances, I would have dealt with my shit, not numbed it all out.  It took me YEARS and YEARS to find a path to manage my grief through self-love.  I don’t have all the answers, I still make bad choices, but unlike the past, I always find my way back to dealing with the issue at hand with self-love.

If you are experiencing grief, or experiencing unpleasant emotions that make you inclined to numb out, here are 5 tips I’ve learned over the years to help you on your journey.

1. Honor your needs- in the thralls of grief or any other difficult emotion, its easy to ignore what you truly need.  We can feel obligated to continue to show up as if nothing has happened, which for me always exacerbated the desire to numb out—because I was pretending everything was just fine, going through the motions.  Maybe this looks like taking a mental health day off work and doing nothing but laying in bed, reading a book you’ve been wanting to read, making delicious food, or self-care like a massage, a pedicure or a facial.  Take a break.  Focus on yourself.  Honor your needs.  If you listen close enough,  your body tells you what it needs, and when you continuously ignore its needs, it will force you to slow down in some way.

2. Feel the emotions-  I blocked out crying for so long, it almost made it difficult to even allow tears to flow.  I would be a stoic, emotionless statue even when faced with events and experiences that would normally illicit tears; they wouldn’t fall.  Maybe its listening to sad music and letting the tears out, watching a sad movie, looking at old pictures, do something to let the tears out, because when we bottle up the feelings, they can fester inside of us, creating unwanted illness, sadness and more.

3. Find a healthy way to cope-  Journaling my feelings has been a real way for me to work on feeling it all, and most importantly, getting it out of my mind and body.  Maybe you’re not into journaling, perhaps therapy is you jam (I also highly recommend this) talking to someone that doesn’t know you and can help you process things is really a sigh of relief.  Work it out—dancing, running, lifting weights, moving your body can be a great way to break up the feelings inside and release endorphins. 

4. Be kind to yourself- Your emotional journey is YOURS.  Its not up to someone else’s timeline, or methods of managing, it is uniquely yours.   Give yourself grace and compassion.  There is no shame in crying and taking time to process.  Be kind to yourself, celebrate your wins, and treat yourself like you would a loved one dealing with grief.

5. Find things that bring you joy and feel gratitude-  $10 flowers that make you smile, buy them.  Lighting your favorite candle that makes you feel at peace.  Sitting in the sun, spending time with your friends.  Snuggling with a pet.  The simplest things can bring joy into your life and can help in the grief process, relish in these.  Similarly, find one thing to be grateful for daily; the first coffee of the morning, a sunny day, the quiet of the morning, whatever you can feel grateful for, acknowledge it.  Gratitude has truly been a huge catalyst to my own grief journey, but more importantly, my overall life satisfaction.  Even in the darkest times, we can find 1 thing that we are grateful for, the more you can acknowledge these things, the more you can allow light into your life.