I'm talking years of stress! Years of coping with storms of anger at situations, at God, at my own helplessness and inadequacies, crippling anxiety even over the ring of a phone (which could be announcing more Bad News,) doubt that I could get through all of it without collapse, times of not sleeping and times of doing nothing but sleeping. And tears. More tears than I thought I could have in me. Pain so jagged and wrenching that I felt stabbed, over and over.
How can you deal with pain? There are so many ways, healthy and unhealthy. I chose some healthy ways, like being with loving friends and family, being quiet with healing Nature, prayer, exercise, contemplation, eventually beginning this Weebly blog. I know friends who use Yoga, go to the movies or theatre, absorb themselves in music or art or writing poetry, absorb themselves in working for good causes.
But at first the pain never stops, never quits. And often I faltered, looking for quick fixes to distract myself. Watching too much television. Hiding from people. Over-eating. I was brain dead. I wasn't thinking of the long-term effects of too much food and too much of the wrong kinds of food. All I knew was that savoring tasty food, smelling those delicious aromas, I could forget for a short period of time that my son was dead, my husband was suffering from post-traumatic stress, my daughter had cancer, and my mother's mind was inexorably leaving her.
Perhaps you understand what I mean. Are you like me? Do you cope with stress and/or grief in both healthy and unhealthy ways? Perhaps you too know the feelings of paralysis, of getting locked into certain unhealthy ways of coping, of not having the strength to change because all your strength is going to keeping your commitments.
The strangest thing is that all this time I was able to keep loving other people: my family, my friends, my church family. My husband and I have gone to numerous wakes and conducted prayer services, gone to numerous funerals, even though the sight of a coffin, even today, brings memories and grief back to us a thousand-fold. We know that we can understand other grieving people at a deeper level than most, and we want to share our loving understanding with them.
The one person whom I wasn't loving enough was myself. I wasn't taking good care of my body. I was taking good care of my mind, I was taking good care of my soul, but I wasn't loving my body enough.
But there is this Voice deep inside of each of us, the Voice of our True Self, the Voice that loves us whole-heartedly and speaks the truth to us about our thoughts, emotions, motivations, and actions. I finally reached the point in my grieving process when I was able to mentally stand back and take a good honest look at myself and what I was doing to myself. My Doctor helped. He told me that I was pre-diabetic and would become diabetic if I didn't lose weight and become careful about my diet. My True Self agreed. I have begun to diet.
I have begun to try to love myself better.
Whenever we are hurting badly from stress and/or grief, the terrible pain can make us almost suicidal. We do self-destructive things that we would not do if we were in our "right minds." We sometimes feel as if Death would be a relief! And, in a way, it's true that we do have to die to grieve properly because we have to walk through all that pain, which feels like dying. We can't deny the pain by using unhealthy quick fixes to avoid it.
The safest way through this kind of dying is the discipline and awareness of loving ourselves every step of the way, loving ourselves mind, body, and soul. Each one of us is unique in this Universe! We have something unique to contribute! We have to love ourselves enough to want to give what we have to give, and to love life, and to want to live it to the fullest. Because life is good. Very good. When we allow ourselves to look around, to truly observe and reverence all the people, places, and events in our lives, we know, deep down, that life is worth living and we deserve to live it as a whole person.
Perhaps you pray, or meditate in some way. I discovered that in one way all my prayer was a head trip. I was focusing on my mental and spiritual wellness, on my relationship with God, with the Divine. But I wasn't considering my body. Yet, God also loves our bodies! God wants our bodies to be healthy in every way that we can keep them healthy. Our bodies are as precious to God as any Church, Temple, or Synagogue or Mosque because the Divine has chosen to dwell within us, and "us" includes our flesh, bones, muscles, blood.
And so, please, Love yourself. Love yourself! Your love for yourself is what heals you! You are good, beautiful, precious, mind, soul, and body. Love yourself and care for yourself first, and then you will have the reserves to care for others. A healthy mind in a healthy body ensure that you will travel most safely and surely on your difficult journey through the debilitating darkness. of stress and grief. Your stress and grieving will eventually ease. You will come back to yourself. Be ready to change when you have the strength to change so that you will have a healthier self to come home to!