APRIL 2022

LIFE | LOVE | LOSS

“That is one good thing about this world…

There are always sure to be more springs.” – L.M. Montgomery

RENEWAL & RECHARGE  

What if we recharged ourselves as often as we did our phones?

Spring is a time of renewal and new growth.  Mother Nature is brilliant in showing us this every year in climates where the seasons change.  One of my favorite parts of early spring is when the bulbs emerge from the frozen earth to grow and bloom.

I have always loved to make analogies to life through nature.  I think our mental state can easily be compared.  Sometimes our thoughts and feelings are dark like short winter days.  Sometimes they are light and breezy like a cool spring day.  Other times our minds are in full bloom with thoughts of ease, positive affirmations, and progress.  A term that was given to my husband as a child was ‘vegetate’.  He can often sit quietly and just let his mind be still like a slow fall morning.  I envy that.  My mind is often like wrestling squirrels moving and flowing over one thing to the next and next and next.

What makes you feel renewed?

• Mentally
• Physically
• Emotionally
• Spiritually

If you do not easily know the answers to these questions, I invite you to ponder them and create something you think will make you feel renewed and recharged in each of these areas.

I am an avid reader.  I have a half a dozen books I am reading at a time.  Some I breeze through, others I read slow to be able to digest the message.  I read short action or romance novels as a mental break or vacation.  I love going on walks and being outside with plants, trees, and flowers.  Having my hands in the dirt recharges me!  Emotionally it varies depending on what type of emptions are the strongest.  If I am feeling upset or overwhelmed an Epsom salt bath with candles also soothes me.  If I am processing grief intentionally and want the tears to flow, I listen to music that I know will evoke deep feelings to allow me the release my body craves.  If I am mad, then I need something more intense to work through those emotions.  This could be talking loudly, swearing more, ripping paper, or writing a note then burning it.  Spiritual renewal is unique to us all. For some church attendance or reading religious materials can be recharging.  For others it’s time in nature or serving others. 

Whatever it is for you to recharge your own batteries in any of these areas, do that!

When you make time for yourself to recharge new insights, new growth and new awareness will come to you.

STRESSED & OVERWHELMED IN GRIEF

“Taking Time to do nothing often brings everything into perspective.”

• LVPest.com

In Brene Brown’s book Atlas of the Heart she has a section on Stressed & Overwhelmed.  I love her books, the way she thinks, the open honest way she shares her views and perspectives.

Below are various excerpts from this section.

“Stressed

We feel stressed when we evaluate environmental demand as beyond our ability to cope successfully. This includes elements of unpredictability, uncontrollability, and feeling overloaded.

Stressful situations can cause both physiological (body) and psychological (mind and emotion) reactions.  However, regardless of how strongly our body responds to stress, our emotional reaction is more ties to our cognitive assessment of whether we can cope with the situation than to how our body is reacting.”

Are you someone who says, “I can’t, or I am done” when things seem stressful or there is a circumstance where you don’t want to deal with a person or event?  This is your way of expressing your stress.  It is a time where your mind either does not want to cope or the situation appears to be beyond your desire or ability to handle it (well).

Anyone who has lived through a sudden loss certainly does not want to cope.  You don’t want to have to process or evaluate the extreme pain associated with losing someone you love deeply.  However, if you are reading this and have suffered such a loss you know now that you did manage this event.  You did put one foot in front of the other even if that was one breath, one day at a time.

Brene goes on to talk about being overwhelmed.

“Overwhelmed

Overwhelmed means an extreme level of stress, an emotional and/or cognitive intensity to the point of feeling unable to function.  I love this definition of ‘overwhelmed’ from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary: “completely overcome or overpowered by thought or feeling.”

We all know that feeling that washes over us and leaves us completely unsure of what to do next.  Even when people ask, “How can I help?” or “What needs to be done?” – responding with organized thoughts feel impossible.  This is also when I can get really crappy and think to myself, If I had the wherewithal to figure out what comes next and how we need to approach all of this, I wouldn’t be walking around in circles crying and talking to myself.

Jon Kabat-Zinn describes overwhelm as the all-too-common feeling “that our lives are somehow unfolding faster than the human nervous system and psyche are able to manage well.”

When I read that Kabat-Zinn suggests that mindful play, or no-agenda, non-doing time, is the cure for overwhelm it made sense to me.”

With any loss no matter if it was fast or slow there are sure to be moments and even extended periods of stress and overwhelm.  I invite you to incorporate non-doing into your routines to allow your mind and emotions the break they need to catch up.  Consider a tough loss or the ongoing struggle inside a loss to be like a computer with a lot of programs and windows open on a really slow wi-fi connection.

You must close some things.  You have to let some things ‘rest’ so you can move from a place of stress and strain back to a more productive balanced state.  If you need outside help, get it.  Make the time to regenerate through no agenda non-doing time.

All my best,

Genna