Ask Yourself: Am I able to Remember My Loved One without Grieving?
After you’ve taken the time to grieve your loved one and you’re starting to feel better, how do you figure what to do next? How do you find your new normal? How do you know it’s even time to find your new normal?
To assess your readiness, ask yourself: “am I able to remember, love, and even miss my loved one without getting caught in a perpetual cycle of grieving?” When you’re ready to move on, you can keep your loved one in your life and still embrace the next chapter of your life.
Loss is so painful, yet when you’re ready, you’ll want to shift your energy, mind, and heart towards a different direction. But how do you go about doing so?
The first step is to begin. After you try something, you may feel as though you’ve failed. However, before you judge yourself, take that first step in creating a new path for yourself. Try some of these ideas and see what works best for you.
- Set a goal. Having a purpose and reason to do something daily is helpful in keeping you focused when you’re feeling lost. Set a realistic goal you can achieve for a positive start.
- Seek out a mentor. Identify people you admire, like, or look up to for what they’ve accomplished. It’s likely their lifestyle incorporates several elements and perspectives that you can learn from.
- Identify the reason for your feelings. If you don’t feel like doing something or have an idea about something that does not help you achieve your desires, reflect, and figure out the source of or reason for that feeling. Knowing where something originates can help you overcome it.
- Observe your thoughts. Just spend time with yourself without judgment. You may be in the habit of negative self-talk, but you may not even be aware of it until you spend time monitoring your thoughts. After you’re aware of your behavior, you’ll be able to start changing it.
- Engage in a new activity. If there is something you’ve always loved and put it aside, here’s an opportunity to bring it back or a reincarnation of it. For example, if you like art and used to paint, but no longer want to paint, visit or volunteer at an art museum. Being around an environment of something you like will bring good vibes.
- Stop one thing. Pick one bad behavior you find yourself doing and eliminate it. Ending one behavior will allow space for something new. It will also show that you do have control over something.
- Be open to the unknown. This means saying no to fear, which is restricting. Opening yourself up is necessary to creating a new path. Be open without seeking an immediate answer, you will be able to see things in a different light.
- Accept the unresolved. Learning to let go is courageous and critical to accepting that you may never know why your loss happened. Being content with not seeking a reason for your loss will set you free to find a new path.