Taking a Break From the Grind of Grief
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY
Breaking points – we all have them. But, there are ways you can ride the waves of it without getting pulled down by it.
Resiliency has its limits. And, when you’ve spent years, or even decades, mastering the myths of grief (Don’t Feel Bad, Replace the Loss, Grieve Alone, Be Strong, Keep Busy, and Time Heals), resiliency will only get you so far before you reach a breaking point.
By creating rituals and routines, you create a system to help make better choices in your grief. Maybe it’s going to the grocery store that doesn’t serve alcohol. Or, paying at the pump rather than going inside and buying an obscene amount of lotto tickets or cigarettes. Whatever your vice is, there are systems (rituals and routines) you can devise that support your desire to take a break from the grind of grief. Because, when you resort to those vices or behaviors that make you feel better for a short period of time, you’re left with feeling shame and guilt for having those vices at all. These feelings only add on more grief.
Focusing on feeling better without the use of substances or people and thinking outside the box by making small choices over time is how you create momentum. And with that momentum, you’ll find a system that works, and over time, you’ll find yourself naturally choosing differently for yourself and your well-being.
Emulating these behaviors for children who are grieving will leave a lasting impression and make a positive impact, too. We often hear children are resilient. In reality, children don’t have a choice. Resiliency becomes a coping mechanism. And, because children grow up to be adults, too, it’s easy to see how adult grievers are emulating exactly what they learned as children. And this cycle continues, generation after generation.
We have a choice to create rituals that serve us and those that don’t. Both will give you a break from the grind of grief. But, which one would you rather fall back on? The one that only makes you feel worse or the one that truly helps you push pause, recalibrate, realign, and set you up to make better choices moving forward?
What does an ideal break from the grind of grief look like for you?
RESOURCES:
Crying is Okay and It’s Healing
Hi there. It’s just me, Victoria, your host of grieving voices. And thank you for tuning in. This is the takeaways and reflections episode where I’ll share some deeper insights into the episode I recorded with Kimberly Pittman Schultz Episode 84, finding peace amidst the ashes. And at the time of this recording, earlier in the day, I had recorded with another guest where for the first time in 84 episodes, I pretty much cried through the whole thing through the entire recording nearly the whole thing, but you know what, that’s okay. Crying is okay. And it’s healing. And sometimes you just got to do it. But I bring that up because there was a mother who was speaking about the loss of her child. And I mean, I just was captivated by her story in how she delivered it and articulated it. And the same with Kimberly. But I bring that other episode up because Kimberly talked a lot about taking a break from her grief. And I think that’s so important that we acknowledge what we’re feeling. And yet at the same time, allow ourselves to step away from it for a moment, that doesn’t mean you’re ignoring it, that doesn’t mean you’re stuffing it down, it doesn’t mean that you’re avoiding it. Quite the opposite. It’s giving your mind literally just your mind, which impacts your heart, of course, but literally giving your mind a little bit of a vacation from the hamster wheel of grief. Because it can feel like this downward spiral thought process that can really take you down and impact your health. And so even just 10 minutes step outside like Kimberly described, she would do to stare up into the night sky, give her thanks, listen to the water on the rocks, just brought her a sense of inner peace without her even realizing at the moment what was happening, but feeling the effects of that a short time later. And that’s really kind of what prompted what she ended up writing some about.
Finding Connection in Our Lives
And she had said that joy is about being connected to your life. And to the moment. And I think about that episode I recorded with my guest this morning, in how through the trauma and the grief that her and her family were able to find the joy and be connected to each other in what was happening in embracing their son’s life and his death in the moment. And I wish I could elaborate more on that episode. Look forward to that it will be with Casey Carmona. It’s an episode that is perfect for anyone who is facing hospice care has a loved one facing hospice care, someone that has lost a child, a couple that have lost a child. There’s a little bit of something in there for everyone, of course, like always, because our stories are what connected to each other. Like it’s our stories. That’s where we find connection is in the lives that we’ve lived in the stories that we share. The thing about grief too, is that it starts to tax us not just mentally, emotionally and physically or financially in a lot of cases. But we tend to, you know, have this stoic. I’ve got this. I don’t need support. I don’t need help. I’m strong. And you feel like you have to be strong for everyone around you and for some people who are in a relationship with people or with others who don’t seem to have the same stoicism is that a word? Who tend to flounder under pressure under stress, right? So there’s always those people in our lives that just don’t handle stress or stressful situations or challenging times very well. And that’s okay.
We’re All Wired Differently
There’s no judgment there just some people just seem to be more built emotionally, to handle things or do better under pressure, I guess, not even so much that they’re built better or different, or what have you, but it’s that it’s how you’re wired. We’re all wired differently, right? And just some people are wired for, let’s say, an ER doctor, right? Like, someone that like is a professional chess player, they’re not going to probably be an ER doctor, right? They take time strategy, thought process, they need time to process in their mind, and they’re very much in their heads and in thinking, but you know, as a physician, an ER doctor, and I’m not an ER doctor, but I imagine you have to think on your toes, it’s very high pressure, it’s high stress, you have to be able to really strategize quickly, and problem solve quickly, just not everybody is wired that way. And so when we think about grief, and how differently, we are all wired, we can see how we show up to our grief, and others who are grieving differently too and perhaps this is where we get this idea of resiliency, when we see resiliency and others or we see others who are strong or being strong. Now, again, I’ve talked about it many times that is in a myth of grief, to be strong. And you will often see this in cases of caregiver relationships. Where we’ll say to each other, well, we need to be strong for grandma, right now. She needs us to be strong, you know, just as an example. But there are no specific instructions on how to do that. It is one of those expressions, that sounds good. But it really has no real value. And it’s also one of the most confusing of all ideas relating to loss. So again, when we’re looking at resiliency, and thinking people are being strong, or people are saying they’re being strong, what does that look like? How do you do that there is no manual on how to be strong. And so I think that’s where this idea of resiliency came from, where we see this ability and people to compartmentalize what is happening to put it out of their brain, and to just act to do what they need to do to be the caregiver to be the shoulder for everyone else to lean on. But at some point, and everybody has a breaking point, or are you just one day just absolutely get tired of having to be resilient.
Sharing Our Grief with Our Children
And I think in child Grievers who become adults and I can speak from personal experience where when you don’t have a choice to be resilient, because that’s your coping mechanism. But when you come in become an adult, and you have to make decisions and you are navigating your grief in an entirely different way. You have all this new information and knowledge because you’re an adult now and you’re processing trying to process all these feelings that you experienced in childhood, but the sense of resiliency, it’s you realize and come to know and understand that was just something that was put on you by other people because you had to be strong. And so that’s why in the upcoming episode that’ll eventually will be released with with Casey Carmona, she was talking about her child, her other child who lost his sibling, right? It’s so important that we share our grief with the children in our lives. Because when we emulate healthy grieving the children pick up on those cues and become adults who learn how to grieve well as adults. And this came up in my conversation with Kimberly, that there wasn’t this openness, communication about what happened. In fact, it wasn’t until till she was in her 30s, where she actually found out how the fire started and took her sisters lives, which added on more grief to to her to her life. And so it’s just important that we allow children the opportunity to communicate and share how they are feeling, even if it’s painful for you as the adult or as the parent.
Taking A Break from Your Own Grief
And so what are some things that you can do to help make it easier for the children in your life to communicate their grief? Well, you can take a break from your own grief and learn tools and education and knowledge about how to grieve in a healthy way and a part of that is and is helpful in that is creating routines and rituals about things that nourish you that bring you joy that help give some reprieve to the overwhelming feelings that come in waves. And when they do come allow it because that’s okay. But then learn ways that are right for you to channel that I loved how Kimberly shared the importance of routine. And I found personally that in times of challenge in my life, that I would forego my routine that I would let go of those rituals, it really, I found that that’s really what grounds me in my day to day life. And when that’s taken away, or I don’t prioritize those things for me in the morning, it’s meditation first thing in the morning, sets up the day for me to mentally prepare myself for what’s ahead. And if I am not taking that time to do that for myself, it doesn’t have to be meditation, by the way it can be whatever it is for you, that surrounds you, that makes you feel present in the moment that helps you get out of your own head, like Kimberly, stepping out into the night sky, listening to the water on the rocks, giving things to the stars, maybe it’s taking a walk in the early mornings, where you watch the sunrise, whatever it is for you that can help break up the monotony of grief. And I say the monotony of grief because it can feel like a grind.
Finding Break from Grief
Day after day, it can feel like a grind, and it will grind you down. It will grind you down if you let it but how you start to slowly chip away at it is by making these small, incremental micro steps towards joy, towards healing, moving forward to something that helps you feel better, that’s good for you. I’m not talking alcohol, I’m not talking gambling, I’m not talking shopping, or all of these other STERBS that I’ve talked about many times on this podcast, the short term and energy relieving behaviors that we resort to when we’re feeling the monotony and the grind of grief, we have to be able to have an awareness and recognize when that is not serving us. And I’m going to talk a lot more about systems in our lives moving forward. Because it’s come up a lot lately. I just want to encourage you to think outside the box a little bit.
So I’m going to have you grab a paper and pen and write this down. What are 10 ways I can take a break from grief? And list them journal on it and see what you come up with? Because those answers to that question. Those are the things that will fill you up. That will bring you joy that will serve your spirit and will give you the break from grief that you were probably looking for. I hope you found this helpful. I encourage you to listen to Kimberly’s episode, she had a lot of wisdom to share. She has written a book she talks about that in her episode we talk about how her work has been inspired by her life and the importance of rituals very important when we’re talking about taking a break from grief. So I hope you listen to her episode. And remember, then when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
P.S In order to live in the moment in order to feel connected in our life in with the people in it just as my conversation with Casey today illustrated which I can’t wait for you to hear it. I’m talking it up already. But it’s going to be so good to be able to embrace the light in the dark. This, my friends, is when you find your break from grief. But you have to create that you have to create those moments, you have to create the systems that make it easy to make better choices and decisions for yourself. If you want to listen to more episodes like this you can visit my website theunleashedheart.com or if you want to be connected with me you can visit me on social media like Facebook or Instagram.