Grief - Acceptance
We never truly get over grief or "move on," but that's not our goal. We don't need to forget; we need to adapt the traumatic experience into our lives, learn our new reality, embrace all of our emotions, and move forward.
Grief - Depression
Depression is difficult enough to handle, but one of the worst side effects is the negative thoughts that will bombard you. They can stack up faster than you think and before you know it. You're asking yourself if the world would be a better place without you. The answer is no. If you’ve had thoughts of suicide or harming yourself, don't be afraid to ask a close friend or family member to do daily checkups on you. If I could list my personal number here, I would, but for now, save this number in your phone 800-273-8255.
Your life is one of a kind and one hundred percent worth living.
Grief - Bargaining
Trauma and loss steal many things from you. Love, joy, security, money, health, relationships, peace, or in some cases all of the above. Like a thief, it will break into your house, find your most cherished items, and leave without you ever knowing it was even there. But worst of all, trauma steals your control. You’ve lost your chance to tip the scales, control the outcome, or influence the decision, hell you weren’t even invited to discuss it.
Grief - Denial
Grief is a powerful thing. Whether we fully understand it or not, it affects us almost daily. We feel the weight of it, we feel its influence. It doesn’t matter if grief arrives from a large traumatic event or a small minuscule one, it is surrounding us. Grief can help us contort our reality into something more manageable, or make us lash out at someone to release emotion, but it is not to be ignored. Over the course of this blog series, you will begin to understand and process your grief, harness its emotional energy, and arrive at a place of healing and acceptance.
This blog series was adapted from the Kübler-Ross Model of the five stages of grief. For more information, check out Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's book On Death and Dying here.
What do you see?
Do you have the ability to purposefully shift your focus?
Are you able to listen to another point of view, even when you think it is wrong?
If the answer to either of these questions is no, then it may be time to explore the philosophy of dualistic and non-dualistic thinking.
God’s Fight Club
Have you ever been so angry at God that you would take a swing at Him if he physically showed up in front of you? Me too. This is that story.
Don’t Flea.
We create imaginary boundaries and limit the ways of thinking that keep us stuck in our situations. If you want the potential to grow and jump higher, you have a few choices to make.
Change of pace.
Falling into complacency and forgetting we were meant for more than just existing is easy. Maybe it's time to do something uncomfortable and start living.