Grief is a funny thing. It's something everyone will go through at some part of their lives, a loved one passing on, a break up, a loss of job. Those things are very accepted reasons to grieve, and that fact is when a loved on passes on in some cultures grieving is the most important part some cultures spend a whole year in mourning of the loved one, to grieve is to love.
What one doesn't expect is to grieve for yourself while your still alive, sudden disability thrusts you into certain stages and the stage that isn't talked about enough is grief and it's importance; we aren't really supposed to grieve for ourselves whilst still alive. It's a very bizarre thing.
Grieving walking with ease, grieving your abilities, I'm certain older folk would grieve their former younger selves, yet when we are in our prime and grieving the what could of been? What we could have achieved?
We wish to become our former selves and turn back the clock, slipping and sliding into the causes the thing that made it happen, we hold on to our former selves with such heard ache and heaviness. I was x y z. And now they are gone, stripped away. Who am I now? Im nothing without x y z, I'm just a shell of the former self.
It's natural to be scared to grieve, or even feel it's silly "I'm still alive i should count my blessings" we can feel it's almost selfish to do it.
In order to move on we need to allow Grief to flow through us, to cry tears, to be angry, to sit in it's darkness. To look back on your life.
Why is grief important? Because we start to reflect on ourselves and we learn a lot through this period.
At the start if you had told me do you want to go back to your former self I would of quickly said YES. However after the grieving process that i allowed to flow my reply would now be a hard NO.
You may be thinking why? Why would want to be more disabled, finding it hard to complete simple daily tasks. I would tell you because of the lessons learnt.
In complete honesty I didn't like who I was before sudden onset. I was always doing, doing, doing; not taking care of myself, always others. I would do things that I didn't want to do to please others. I was a people pleaser, I was always moving even though my body was screaming at me. I was fawning to people whom didn't deserve my presence. I was quick to anger and ruminated on feelings of injustice yet I didn't actually voice it due to fear of arguments and fall outs. I also moved all day because I was so uncomfortable with sitting with my past and thoughts.
Through this Grief process I was able to look at the lessons within this new information. I can say NO now, I'm not doing that, or I'm not going to involve myself in arguments. I'm stronger with following my moral compass, I take the time every day to work on myself and the art of resting. I can sit with my ruminating thoughts and work on those unhealthy habits. I love myself more. And most importantly i have boundaries now, I know my worth.
Grief still pops up every now and then, and I sit with it eager to learn what its telling me.
So for anyone reading this, please don't fear grief, you do not have to be physically disabled to feel self grief, your allowed too if your anxious, depressed have a new diagnosis of anything. It's a natural response with a load of little goodies just waiting to be shown to you. Don't ever let the "other people have it worse" no you are valid, your feelings are valid and your healing journey is most important. So sit with your grief for a minute.
Close your eyes and breathe slowly, welcome grief in with warmness and compassion, talk to it, ask what it wants to tell you, talk with it and dance the dance of grief in all its power.
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