Hi Gabriel here. I am going to say something possibly controversial and it is not meant to be hurtful or offensive. We are all at different stages of grief but we must be STRONG as our departed loved ones would wish us to be.
Grief, loss and the attendant feelings of nostalgia in my opinion are NEGATIVE LIFE DENYING emotions which we must do our utmost to cast aside. Try to draw a line under the past in order to move forward with zest and exuberance.
Life is for living!
Draw up a bucket list of all the things you have never done and those which you would like to experience and slowly work you way through the list.
Please do not mope and stagnate as you will perplex and alienate your family and friends. RememberâŠ
Laugh/smile and the world reiprocates,
Cry/mourn and you remain alone and isolated.
We all need a PURPOSE and other PEOPLE.
Go and live your life from this day on.
Bless you for reading this and all my love. x
I understand what youâre saying @Gabriel, but I think by us all simply joining this site we are making an attempt to cope with our loss by reaching out to others for support. Yes, we all need a bucket list, but only when the time is right. First we need to grieve, mourn, self-isolate, socialise and scream whenever we need to. We need to go through that before we can get to the next step. However, I do strongly agree that we need other people and we need to reach out to them instead of always waiting for them to contact us. The more we put ourselves out there and engage, the more we have to talk about. Nobody wants the company of a misery who isnât making an effort.
In the meantime, I believe we are being strong by getting up and dressed each morning, and keeping going, for now.
Thank you for your response Sad Girlfriend. Are you in the early stages of grief and loss? Would it help to share more of your individual situation with me?
Sent with genuine concern and kindliness.
Gabriel
Ooo, as you say it could be a tad controversial! âKindly pep talksâ are what a lot of us face every day from well meaning friends who simply dont understand the depths of grief we feel, and therefore leave us feeling isolated and not heard. If you read Megan Devines work she would advise that to get through the painâŠyou have to get through the pain i.e. embrace those emotions first before you can contemplate any type of moving forward. What about those of us who have no bucket list now because life has lost its meaning and purpose without our loved one?
What might help people connect with your advice is if you were willing to share some of your story? Have you been in the depths of grief? What helped lift you from that point? How easy/difficult was that for you?
I do get that life is for living, but grief and nostalgia are not negative emotions, they are a stage that sadly we all have to go through when we lose a loved one. For all of us, life has changed completely, and it is only by acknowledging and living through that grief that we can start to heal, and find a new way of living. The mind and the body need this necessary time in which to mend. A broken bone takes months to heal, and so does a broken soul. Nobody here is moping or stagnating, but everyone here is trying to work through their pain in their own way. Even elephants mourn their dead, and so do we.
Did you feel like this 2 weeks into your loss or 2 months into your loss? Iâm intrigued that if you are in a good place, after 4 years, why have you only just signed on to a bereavement site?
Everyoneâs situation is different and some no longer have a purpose or other people, they are completely alone and find life a challenge and need to be able to share their feelings, regardless of what they are.
Now, i am a positive person but that doesnât mean i still donât have bad days or donât want to tell the world to fâ o-- but i also wouldnât suggest that people are negative or dismiss their feelings.
Grief is a process and it has to be walked through, by everyone in their own time.
Thank you Ally and Catrin for your responses. I feel and empathise with your pain. I am out this evening but will reply tomorrow drawing on my own experiences.
Meanwhile take care of yourselves.
Itâs a shame, almost everyone that uses this site says that it is a safe, non-judgemental place. I suddenly feel judged. Your post, which starts by admitting that it is controversial and a Pep Talk, is judgemental. Whilst I am happy for you, that you have, apparently, moved on with your life, I find it difficult to imagine why you would invite others to share their pain with you, whilst you mock their grief.
Also, it is generally accepted that the use of capital letters in script is aggressive.
I would therefore suggest that any response to your post is merely giving it oxygen.
I hope you had a pleasant evening and I look forward to tomorrowâs pearls of wisdom.
I am always up for a laugh.
I give myself a pep talk almost every day.
I also encourage my 4 kids to live their lives as best they can every day.
But whilst we all try to keep going, there are and have been, many days where our grief and sadness gets in the way.
I do not believe that these are negative emotions. They are an emotional response that reflects the love we had and still have for their dad/my husband. And of the loss we feel.
My older 2 have tried to do just what you describe - go out and live and they have continued to go on holiday, have nights out, go to work etc âŠ. But they come home wondering why they had an awful time, or why when they were out with friends they started to cry.
There is a time for bucket lists and living - but you canât do that authentically unless you take time to work through your grief and pain. However hard that may be.
I sometimes come across my older posts and think how sad, lost and desperate I sound. But thatâs ok. Iâm not like that every day, but in those days I am in a dark place it helps me to let it all out here and know there will be someone who will send me a lifeline and a pinch of hope that I can get through this.
Everyone is different, with different timescales and challenges and some of us have lost our loved ones out of time and far too young. I know I would worry less about the future if I was 20 years older.
This place is meant to be a safe space where you can write what you feel without being judged. All thoughts and opinions are valid.
ButâŠ.
Please just remember that we who are newly bereaved can be overly sensitive to criticism & advice, and we need to find a place where we can communicate our sadness, in a world where our lives have been shattered and those who support us can be few in number and lacking in skills.
In this hard life, a bit of kindness can often be what keeps us going.
Rest well all. Xx
Good morning all. Thank you for your replies and shared thoughts and feelings. I can only share my experience in the hope that it may help you on your personal journey. If you chose to dismiss or mock me so be it I can take it on the chin.
I lost two loved ones in quick succession. My wife of 52 years and my mother both of whom I adored and my life was built around them. In 2000 my wife suffered a series of strokes and I took early retirement to nurse and care for her for the next 20 years until her tragic accidental death.
I was knocked for six by this double whammy and I can only liken the experience to howling at the bottom of a deep dark abyss. A kind of descent in to madness crawling and scraping at the steep walls to no avail.
Over a great period of time I began to surface. Sharing the grief with family and friends, moving accommodation, joining a church community and drama group gave me such comfort. Most people are so kind and caring and this gives strength to carry on and helps to regain the joy of being alive. To reiterate other people and a sense of purpose are the key to recovery. Yes the progress is very slow but you must hang in there.
Remember our departed loved ones would not wish us to suffer. They would want us to rebuild our lives and to be happy. Try to glory in their memory remembering the good times. Reflect on the suffering of those in war torn areas of the world and be grateful for what you have and have had.
Life is very short and we must grab every opportunity to relish it and grow in strength.
Please accept the humble offering of my personal journey and I wish you all the very best in coping with your grief.
What works for one may or may not work for another.
We each will take a different pace of grieving.
Be kind to yourselves.
Do what is right for you.
Do not put extra pressure on yourselves. Others will do that for you!
We probably have people in our lives who ask âHow are you?â in the hope that we will say âIâm okâ.
They ask the question to get the answer they want.
So do what feels right for you, in your own timescale.
This may include seeking help and support from friends and family, online or from professionals.
Thank you for sharing your story @Gabriel - I am very sorry for your losses and its encouraging to hear that after such a difficult time you find yourself in a more positive place emotionally.
In your own story you acknowledge there was a time where you were in a very dark place and that it took you a great period of time to emerge from that. So it sounds like that was a very gradual process? I wonder how receptive you would have been if someone had advised you not to mope or stagnate when you were in those early stages of grief?
Im sure your post is meant as an encouragement to others who are grieving, but when i read words like âmopeâ and âstagnateâ i feel judged - is that just me? It suggests that someone no longer needs to be overwhelmed by their grief but is choosing to âhang onâ to their grief. Grief is so unique to us all - who can define a point when someone should be âoverâ their grief? Iâll admit ive worried personally whether i am âwallowingâ or being âself indulgentâ but my counsellor has urged me to let go of such thoughts and accept that i am where i am.
I agree that a good support network can be invaluable, (sadly not all of us have that)! But im certainly not going to worry about whether i am perplexing or alienating my family and friends - i would like to think true friends should accept you as you are, and understand that in the midst of grief you arent going to be the life and soul of the party?
@RoseGarden i think you summed it up perfectly:
Be kind to yourselves.
Do what is right for you.
Sending love to all of you on this difficult journey
