Navigating the Waters of Grief: Finding Your Shore

From the very first moments, even the anticipatory grief, depending on the loss that you've experienced.

There's this idea we are just swimming and wading in our grief. In the beginning for a certain amount of time there's these waves that wash over us and they're crushing and they just p ull us underneath and you can't breathe. 

And you're just rapidly trying to get back to the surface to catch your breath. And it's fearful. It's scary. It's difficult. Because it is so uncontrollable. And there's nothing you can do except to ride that wave out. To just allow yourself to settle into being pulled under. And embrace it. And calming your body and experiencing that motion in the same way that when you experienced that wave coming over you and remaining calm. 

So that way you can float yourself back to the surface. There will be a point when we want to start figuring out how can we maybe start getting closer and closer to the shore because we don't want to swim in our grief forever. We want to develop a healthy relationship with it and keep it as a part of our life. To keep our loved ones as a part of our life, but that will require us at some point to come out of the waters. And onto the shore. Getting to the shore is going to be something that you need to look within and discover what you need. 

You can do therapy, you could go to a medium, you could journal, you could read, like whatever it is that resonates with you to begin to experience what grief is for you. So for an example, for me, One of the things that I need to do is one stop using grief as an excuse, because that's pulling me back in. And 2: love and appreciation are the things that pull me closer to the shore. 

When I focus on appreciation and love, I become fixated on the present moment. Which is then in turn, pulling me closer to the edge. And this is now becoming a practice where I have to keep catching my thoughts. Keep catching myself. And the language that I'm using around my grief. 

Because I've, I have been so angry, so upset sometimes with the life that I have to live now without Ariana. It's frustrating. Every aspect of our life changes when we lose our person. When, we lose a significant figure in our life. And it can become all consuming if we just allow ourselves to get wrapped up in those thoughts of like, fuck this. I don't want to be here. I don't want to have to do this thing. 

I don't want to have to parent alone. I don't want to have to insert whatever it is for you. So for me it's changing that narrative. And finding appreciation for the life that I have. Or appreciation for the love that I had. Our grief that we experience is in direct proportion to the love and the joy and the prosperity that we can have in our life. 

They are linked. The depths and the vastness of grief and sadness that you experience is the same depth and vastness of joy and love that you can experience in your life. They are the same container, just opposite ends. I have had to shift that narrative in my mind when it starts popping up to find the appreciation. As small as it possibly can be to as large as it needs to be, but something. To keep me fixated on the present moment because I will use the past and get angry and frustrated and sad and broken about the past. And I use that and ruminate on it to inform my future and completely forgo the present moment. So find what it is that brings you to shore.

Whether that is love, whether that is appreciation being in the present moment. Whether it's, a cause that you want to pick up, whether it's figuring out ways to, to carry on the legacy of the person that you lost, whether it's your kids or a new partner or your job.

Find what it is that brings you into that present moment. The thing that is the anti narrative to the thoughts and the ruminations on your head. And hold onto those. And slowly feel yourself pivot out of the water. And head towards shore. And exists there and allow your relationship with grief and the person that you lost to be molded and shaped by the love and the joy that you will begin to experience in your life.