Tag: Grief

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Making Use of Unwelcome Change

Pre-covid I thought I knew as much as there was to know about change, though I have been accused of not having spontaneity. Never mind! It doesn’t take spontaneity to move from a small town to a big city or from one country to another. It takes nerves and planning, which has been key to my ability to insert change into my life and then manage it, come hell or high water.

And even the changes I did not drive such as a seemingly shift in societal norms the world over or a personal loss, I’ve somehow managed to stay in charge of my experiences to a certain degree, using my resolve, though I have learned along the way that grief doesn’t give a toss about resolve.

Admittedly, getting my head around change has not been easy, but it has been doable, if it meant somehow moving forward.

A former boss of mine used to say, “if you don’t do something to turn your life inside out for growth and development, something will happen to spur you on.” I took her at her word.

But here is the thing about change, it doesn’t always make clear growth opportunities, even when you have spearheaded the change. On the contrary, most times, particularly after a failure it suggests dead end after dead end.  Following a loss, which happens without warning, this is often the case, too.

Take Covid for example. For three years now, we have been waiting for this master of disaster to pack up and leave. It hasn’t and who knows if it ever well; it just keeps metamorphosising, throwing more blockades in the way. What now?

Acknowledge it, learn to live with what you cannot change, make the best of it, and change what you can, we are told repeatedly. Though it sounds crass, this way of life has worked for many of us over the years when we face seemingly insurmountable challenges brought about by change through no making of our own.

So why does it feel so much more challenging now? It could be the fast and furious nature of the change on a global, national, local, and personal scale. It is constant and tends to rob us of feelings of certainty which we need on a primal level to feel safe and well. We are living in uncertain times.

“The only thing that is certain is change itself.” says Anj Handa, founder of Inspiring Women Change Makers and guest of UIO’s How to Use Change for Betterment. That’s hard news, even if we have known this on some level all along. But as it is too close for comfort now all the time, thankfully, there are ways to make use of all unwelcome change.

Alongside accepting it as constant, Anj and I talk about the importance of being flexible and considering the ripple effects that offer positives, if you will. For example, though it was shattering to be outside of the US when I lost my father, one thing that the horrible experience gave me was the comfort that far more people attended his service online than would have ever fitted into the small church he loved so much. He was a great man and deserved a great homegoing.

This has been the case for others too, including the growth of online courses to support mental and emotional wellbeing, as well as marriage and other important causes and issues, for example.

Another way to use unwelcome change is to recognise imposter syndrome and send it back wherever it came from. Often after experiencing a challenge at school, in sports, at work, in our personal lives, we doubt our abilities. I see it time after time when a star athlete, for example, has a bad game, and is moved out of prime position.  Imposter syndrome creeps in. Only when they look for lessons learned and build upon those and go back to their own head and get the rest of us out of it, do they rise again.

Anj points out that even weighing in on an important conversation can be daunting for many people, especially young people, triggering imposter syndrome. Take advantage of technology and write a blog and if this feels too scary, choose an alias.

In a similar vein, when dealing with a change that causes conflict, use emotional correctness when speaking, whether voice to voice or through your writing. Anj explains that this means taking a viewpoint that doesn’t shame or upset people.

This is not always easy when your viewpoint differs from another, but the point is choosing correct language and delivery can be the difference in getting something achieved rather than being misunderstood. Hang on to who you are, no matter how tempting it is to react.

Finally, no need to go at it alone. When change is overwhelming, find a support network and develop your own coping strategy, a self-care plan if you will. If nothing suits, start your own group like the teenager who started Teen Grief Sucks.  And if this is not an option, it always feels good to help others—a neighbour, a friend, a stranger. The idea is to keep moving ahead.

While we can’t predict the future, we can accept that unwelcome change, as well as some welcome, is a sure shot.  For more information on making use of unwelcome change, check out How to Use Change for Betterment.

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Finding Opportunities In Grief

Unlikely, right. That is finding opportunities in something as all-consuming as grief.  But here is the thing: once grief sets in, it’s likely to be around for a while, if not always, though hopefully it loses its intensity in time. Of course, we all experience grief differently, but most of us can agree that dealing with loss can be akin to a destabilising journey.

No wonder it is important to find effective ways to cope. That’s where opportunities come in.

It’s hard to say when my own journey with grief got under way but I know exactly when it became up close and personal. It was with the loss of my mother some seven years ago and then it intensified again about four years later when I lost my father and another close relative.

Since then, in 2020, the world has seen loss on a huge scale. In the UK alone, there were 6.8 million bereavements during the pandemic – with around 750,000 excess bereavements during this period compared to the previous five-year average, as found in the report—Bereavement is everyone’s business—from the UK Commission on Bereavement

Perhaps, caused by the pandemic, my perspective on loss and tragedy has been stretched for miles, if you will as my roots are in the US and I live in the UK. Loss, for many reasons, seems to be everywhere, all the time—in conversations with friends, relatives, in the news, on social media and so on, causing my sympathetic nervous system, our ‘fight-or-flight’ activator, to trigger personal grief while trying to accommodate the collective grief.

It is seriously hard work, and unhealthy, too, but the good news is that I am able and willing to do the work. And while grief counselling, producing a podcast (Dealing with Grief), reading regularly on the subject and so on has been stabilising for me, it has been imperative to seek out up close and personal opportunities for healing on a regular basis.

It is all about sending a consistent message to my parasympathetic nervous system, creating opportunities to ‘rest and digest’.

For example, after my mother passed, my father changed the wallpaper on his Mac to a slideshow of family photos. I now realise that this gave him an opportunity to remember her fondly throughout the day.

After his death, I adopted the idea and enjoy a continuous slideshow on my Mac, and most of the photos, if not all of them, tend to lift me up, remembering those who have gone and reminiscing with and about those who are still here.

My niece and her softball teammates have taken the opportunity to remember their special loved ones by having personal messages inscribed in their softball gloves. So, every time, they play softball they connect with loving memories.

One acquaintance organised a lovely memorial gathering for his mother, which fell on her birthday. This comforted him, not only during the planning, but throughout the event.

Other ideas that have worked for me and others include celebrating birthdays of those who have passed in a special yet subtle way such as reading a letter from your loved one, wearing an item of clothing, jewellery, or even cooking and eating a dish that gave them great joy.

The key is to find opportunities on a regular basis that will comfort and nurture you along the journey.

For more information on coping with grief, check out UIO’s podcast, Dealing with Grief with Kristi Hugstad. Since its release in October 2020, it has been consistently our most listened to podcast.

The bottom line is: it’s important to deal with grief, whether the bereavement is recent or distant, for the sake of good health, no matter how complex or difficult it feels.

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UIO LAUNCHES AUTUMN VLOGGING SEASON

Almost October! It’s hard to believe that Autumn 2021 is here in full colour. Shrouded often by grey to black clouds, still the days reveal deep purples, tantalising oranges and the subtle yet impressive off-whites that we’ve become so familiar with during the season. Not to mention some of the lovely sunsets that seemingly come over the earth just a little bit sooner than expected.

It’s my favourite season, though I can scarcely remember what happened in Autumn 2020! Upon reflection, I suspect it felt more like a time of mourning than a time of changing but in many ways, the two or are intrinsically linked. That’s why I decided to kick off UIO’s new vlogging season with the subject grief. Tough topic but a very important one all the same.

I never feel too far from grief nowadays and though I haven’t gotten cosy and comfortable with it, I have accepted it as a teacher. Check out my vlog on YouTube for 7 lessons learned and don’t forget to subscribe. And for more information on dealing with grief, listen to our podcast with Kristi Hugstad, the grief girl.

Take care of you inside and out and remember it is UIO. Stay tuned for the next vlog coming soon: Navigating the New Normal.

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It’s Personal: To Share or Not to Share

Online Reputation Matters

Having friends online to share the good, the bad and the indifferent news has its pros and cons. The best part, if you ask me, is being connected to other people, having like-minded people to celebrate with or even to commiserate with during times of needs. Admittedly, however, I am not that comfortable with commiserating publicly, although it works a jewel for some people. I tend to send direct messages if for some reason I am unable to pick up the phone and call or see someone face-to-face. For me the going public with grief  somehow strips away the walls of privacy I need to come to terms with the matter.

Managing feelings when something sad or tragic happens is complicated unto itself without adding the worry of having an audience. I sort of freeze up if you will and can’t process what I am feeling in the first little while and have found it futile to try to express anything sensible to share on or off line.

A few years ago when my sister called me and told me my father had been rushed to a prestigious hospital in Atlanta with very little promise, I reverted to childhood—stopped eating, talking, walking, doing anything. Paul had to call the airline, book a ticket, pack my suitcase and coax me to get up and get ready to get on that flight.

And when my mother died, I didn’t make a public announcement and didn’t want public condolences and to be sure I didn’t get them, I said a quiet word to a friend or two and presto my wishes were respected. Honestly, I felt no judgements there nor have I dished them out on the flipside. For friends and family who are comfy with grieving publicly, there is nothing wrong with that. It’s a personal preference.

Still according to Nicola Morgan, guest on UIO: Your Online Wellbeing Inside Out, hearing sad stories repeatedly, which we do online, whether they are in the news, are our own, or in the newsfeeds of our friends, can drive us down a bit. As human beings, we naturally sympathise and empathise with each other and take on each other’s sorrows. I know I do. And when the going gets tough, my mood swings downward, which not only impacts me but also those around me. Ask Paul!

Taking a tip from Nicola, I try to manage my intake of sad news, which is not always possible if it is happening directly. In that case, like people whose job involves dealing with sad stories all the time, such as therapists, clinicians, people working in war zones, I might consider a talking therapy of some kind.

But where I can control how much sad news I take in, I make an effort, as I did in the days of old before the internet. Then it was the television and the newspapers. I switched off or didn’t read, as simple as that.  Of course, it made me a poor conversationalist at parties and so on but I was perhaps the happiest person there. Never mind being ignorant.

So whether you are happy to share sad news online or not or you tend to sponge it up, how to cope with it, manage it, applies to us all, young, old or in between. But as Nicola points out, sad news can have a bigger impact on the mood, emotional health of a more vulnerable person. And certainly when I was grieving the loss of my mom, I was in the vulnerable group and likely still am.

Anyhow, here are my top tips:

  • For every sad news story, read an uplifting one. And in the time of grief, remember the good times.
  • Offer private messages to friends and family when at all possible. There is something about a private moment that matters deeply. Recently I had the occasion to be there in person for some bereaved family friends that I grew up with and reconnecting offline did us all a world of good.
  • And if you do share your sad news stories, don’t spend oodles of time focusing on the negative, pluck out the positives where possible.
  • And finally, avoid checking to see who has responded and how many people have responded. It’s not a measure of how much people care. That’s personal.

But so is the preference for whether to mourn and grieve online or not. In any case, what matters most is that you protect your mental and emotional health. And that is truly personal. Take care!

 

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Ready to Work

Readiness is important in many major areas of life: ready for university, ready for marriage, ready for parenthood, and sometimes after a long absence, we need to be ready to do something vital again such as work.

For weeks now, I have not written anything comprehensible, haven’t worked. I am sure this hinges on the loss of my mother. Though I have had much to say, I haven’t had the wherewithal to say it in writing. Let’s face it. Daunted by grief, I quit working for nearly three months.

This is not to brag about it. Nor is it something that I am particularly proud of. On the contrary, I would like to pretend it hasn’t happened. But it has and all things that happen out of order, my silence as a writer, deserve an explanation.

Otherwise, such practices sneak their way into the norm, though I do understand that it is normal to grieve. And that there is no set time when we should get back to work, back to life as we knew it before loss. Of course, the latter never happens since with loss, life changes and often drastically, depending on the degree of the loss. We find ourselves taking on new roles, living in unacquainted space, etc. I know I have, but that’s another blog.

In any case, most of us have a responsibility not only to ourselves, but also to our surviving loved ones to live after loss and often to the deceased one, too.

A friend pointed out that surely my mother wouldn’t want me to quit indefinitely. Spot on! When she lost her father to a tragic accident and then her mother to an illness, my mom felt broken hearted as I do now, but was able to maintain her commitments to family, church, community and work and so on.

On this note, it is fortunate for me that I am self-employed and have a fall back—my husband. Otherwise I am almost sure I would be out of job, not to mention what else I would be out of.

But writers, artists, the likes, do have a history of long absences; dry spells and so on, since the mind is our most valuable tool. And grief, at least for me, has been mind blowing. The tricks of the trade that helped me out of the dessert in the past have been futile —stepping away from the work, running, which normally satisfies my thirst, letting the work rest and going back to it and so on.

Typing for Inspiration
How about typing for inspiration?

This time, the quagmire, whatever you want to call it, was different. As I came to terms with this, I accepted my feelings as natural to the grieving process, although they felt (and still do) rather alien, as alien as death itself, though dying is a natural part of living, I said with a brave face to a dear friend the other day.

With heartfelt remorse, she replied, no it isn’t.

Of course we’re both right. Everyone has to die; there is no way around it. It is the natural end to life, however it comes about. But death is an evasive matter, one that plunges us into the depths of grief. Nothing about it feels natural. Nothing.

Yet, here I am, to some still early days yet, returning to work. To others, I am ever so late. Due to the nature of their work and the way they process grief, they’ve been back for ages, even if their hearts still ache.

But here is the thing that we likely have in common. To some degree, we return to work, do what we need to do, when we are ready. Ultimately it was such words that provided the incentive I needed to write again, coupled with a take away from my church’s Bible in One Year subscription.

In Luke 19: 11-14, Jesus tells The Parable of the Ten Minas, in which a man of noble birth called ten of his servants and gave them a mina each before he left on a journey. When he returned, it was the one who turned the one into ten that received the highest of blessings, precisely because he made good use of his resource.

To paraphrase our vicar, Nicky Gumbel, we are not only supposed to use our money, but also all the gifts God has given us. That means the gift of writing, too.

Hence, I am ready and I hope you are too. Visit sonjalewis.com or sonjalewis.com for weekly blogs on life, on lifestyle, on London, and other relevant topics. See you next week.