Riding the Waves of Emotion (Video)
Today I want to talk to you about riding the waves of grief around the coronavirus and all the other challenges you are facing during this time.
So, what I've been hearing and noticing in my life, both personally and professionally, is that people are really hitting this point of, “oh my gosh, is this still going on?”
And so I want to first acknowledge all of you who are experiencing the grief of losing somebody you love.
I want to acknowledge that that's very real, and I don't want to take anything away from that because it can be one of the most earth-shattering experiences in life to lose somebody you love.
I also want to talk about the grieving experiences that come from a loss of freedom, a loss of routine and what's typically going on in your life, a loss of dreams or expectations you had that something was going to be different than it is.
So for example, maybe you enrolled in a course, had a vacation planned, or maybe you had a vision of how you thought things were going to be right now, and they just aren't that.
And you know the first couple weeks you were thinking, “Okay. This is temporary,” and now you’re feeling like, “Oh my goodness, I’m starting to feel like I'm going crazy.”
If that sounds like you, I just want to recognize that there's a collective experience happening where we are all grieving.
No matter what your experience is, I just want you to know that all those feelings are normal and natural reactions to loss of any kind.
At the Grief Recovery Institute, we talk about how “grief is the conflicting feelings that come at the end of or change in a familiar pattern of behavior,” and it is also a “loss of hopes, dreams, and expectations.”
We are all experiencing grief on some level right now.
So whether you are feeling grateful and at peace, exhausted and devastated, or somewhere in between, just know that you aren’t alone.
What seems to be true for many people is that a lot of old grief is coming up because we don’t have our typical distractions. Normally we can plan, stay busy, go out, commute, fill in the blank of any other thing that distracts us from our feelings, and right now we can't plan. There's no way to know.
So if you're just noticing in your life right now that you're having a hard time, I want you to give yourself some love and compassion.
None of the negative self-talk.
Right now, I just want you to say to yourself, “You know what, you're doing okay. You're doing the best that you can and sometimes it's not gonna cut it… and I'm gonna keep trying to be better and kinder — kinder to myself and kinder to others every day.
So it's just being compassionate with yourself that this is not easy. It's not easy for any of us. There's varying degrees of challenge that we're all facing and for those of you who are dealing with immense heartache, let us, those of us who aren't dealing with immense heartache, support you.
If you are in the midst of heartache or hardship, please know that your job right now is to receive.
There's no shame in receiving. There's no shame in asking for help. When you have something to give, whether that's your love, or that's your energy, attention, whether it's a video like this, please share when you can.
That's the gift that we get to give in this time. There's this flow, this give-and-take.
So you are riding the wave. You are in it.
Some days are good, and when it's good, embrace it and be grateful.
And when you feel terrible, you're down in the dumps, you're spiraling, you're thinking, “My freedom is gone, am I ever gonna see friends again? “Am I ever gonna get out in the world?’
Let yourself feel that too. Just don’t stay there.
Give yourself this internal dialogue, “Okay, I'm gonna give myself the next ten minutes (an hour/day) to go into the depths of despair and then I'm gonna let myself move beyond it and find gratitude.”
Ride those waves, be gentle and kind with yourself, be gentle and kind with others; we're all in this together.
It is hard. And let that difficulty be what unites us right now rather than divide us.