The Art of Self Improvement

If you are like me, you’re one of those people who loves self-improvement.

Especially where other people are concerned.

Improving other people is very rewarding; all of the great ideas---Hey! You know what you ought to do?---and none of the work. Like getting up an hour earlier to exercise, or cutting out carbohydrates, or saving for retirement, you don’t have to actually do it yourself. You just suggest that other people might benefit from such endeavors. Not ME, of course. I love to sleep in, carbs are delicious and retirement is probably over rated. Or so I hear. It was on the Internet.

Occasionally my efforts at self-improving my friends and family are met with resistance. Perhaps they don’t feel like giving up smoking this week, seem to view that collection of antique spoons less as clutter and more like a hobby, and aren’t nearly as excited as I am about slashing latte purchases off of their weekly budget. (Full disclosure: I don’t drink coffee, I’m a tea person. I’m saving a FORTUNE on not drinking coffee. You should try it. This week alone I’ve already not bought coffee at least six times. And it’s not even Wednesday. Imagine how many cups of coffee I can NOT buy by Friday! That’s a significant savings right there. You should probably try it.)

Resist as they may, I’m no quitter. I’m not easily discouraged by their reluctance to make small little steps to improving their lives. I’ll often suggest a book they should read, a technique they could implement, a point of view they could embrace. And, I’ll happily remind them. Often. Because . . . I really want the best for them.

And I am happy to tell them what that is.

Part Two: Stress in Grief’s Clothing

The First Three Months

 In my life “After,” stress and grief are one and the same, conjoined twins that cannot be separated. I have tried—so hard!—to manage grief, treating it as though it were some sort of chronic condition---like diabetes—and that if I just did everything RIGHT . . . I could manage it, reduce the complications and minimize the damage.

It does not help to let myself become over-tired; to go too many hours without eating—even if I’m not “hungry”—because if these things happen/are not prevented, then a meltdown is inevitable. But grief is not so easily managed, and meltdowns occur anyway.

I try to give myself grace. I try to stay in the moment. I try to do the heavy lifting that grief demands, to feel all the feelings and not shut them down.

Three months--and two days---into my grief journey I wrote “I am not used to being so UNHAPPY for so long, not used to the apathy. I have to fight the feeling that—somehow---I should be doing ‘better.’”

I eat, at regular intervals. I try not to eat junk food, but I had no desire to cook during that First, Worst Year. And to be honest, I didn’t have the brain power to focus on cooking.    Salads, topped with meat were my compromise.

I sleep. But it was after midnight before I could fall asleep, usually after a session of tears and scribbling my pain in a notebook. Writing is part pain release, and part pain relief---probably the most effective therapy for me.

I walk. The benefit of being outside, the endorphins from the exercise, and the feeling of---physically at least---moving forward were all helpful. And later, yoga became a mainstay.

And I cried. A lot. I spoke of Shane and memories and I had good people who let me do both; tears and talking and sometimes, both at once. And sometimes, improbable as it might seem—we laughed.

I found music to be very cathartic and comforting.

Massage to relieve tension and to provide touch.

New routines help. I found that sleeping on Shane’s side of the bed enabled me to sleep better. It was as though my subconscious understood that things were “different” and I would no longer wake myself up, searching with my feet, seeking his feet under the covers. Climbing into bed on the “wrong” side somehow seemed to make it less empty; a seemingly small change that had a huge impact on my pain level.

How To Survive Grief

Part One: Mourn

It has been two years since my husband went out to get gas for his truck. I never saw him again. I had casually said goodbye, and it ended up being so.

In the days and weeks---and months. And now years---that followed I was given a crash course in grief. And, I was given a front row seat to seeing love in action. Loving people willing walked into the darkness with me, and held my hand. I learned much during that time and in the time since.

I don’t think Americans are comfortable with the thought of grief; we don’t want to look at it, we don’t know how to deal with it. And, to be more honest, I don’t think we realize that you don’t “deal” with grief at all---you just experience it. Grief is not really “manageable”---it just IS.

I can hear you saying, “Gee Sue, thanks for the tip! Survive grief by NOT managing it. Awesome. Very helpful.” I know it seems counter intuitive, we want to DO something, FIX it, stop it, control it. Make the pain and the soul numbing sadness GO AWAY.

But you can’t. And it won’t. Eventually, the pain either lessens, or we become more accustomed to it but I don’t know that it ever STOPS.  I’m only two years in and I probably have much yet to learn.

But I DO know how to survive the First Worsts, the first awful year following a loss. The best advice I can give you is to go ahead and GRIEVE. Let it in. Weep. Mourn. Find comfort in Ritual, even if you need to invent one for yourself. Don’t shut off your feelings and don’t let others---as well meaning as they might be—try to shut your grief down.

Grieving takes time. Lots of it. Everyone is different; don’t let anyone tell you that you need to “move on.” That’s probably just their blissful ignorance talking---they don’t know the hard truth that you know. You are moving through grief; tears and pain and sadness are a part of that process.

Stay hydrated. Seriously. It's a small thing, but it helped. It gave me something to do when there was nothing I could do.