Each of our heart has an inner room where we hold our greatest treasures and the deepest pain which are resulted from sadness of grief. Both sadness and grief are inextricably linked. Sadness is like an anchor dragging down any momentum of joy. The life becomes upside down when being engulfed by the grief, consequently the physical, cognitive and emotional self is being affected. Ever experienced restless nights with insomnia and tears accompanying you while you are trying hard to wallow the pain and heal the wound by yourself? The on-going process of grieving wholeheartedly, wallowing the pain and healing the wound could be taking much longer time than what's expected. Sadly, there are people who are unable to step out from the misery of grief where these people might choose to end their life.
Saying this from my own experience, it's a difficult process of struggling over the sadness of the loss of loved one, the betrayal, upsetting life, work stress, and etcetera. The mind and feeling have non-stop battles, consequently you have hundred or thousand of times lingering around the same question " Why this ever happen to me?"," Why is he/ she does this to me...?"," Is that the karma?", etc. This is exactly the same as the 1st stage of grief framework. Next stage will be overwhelming with denials of the truth and engulfed with anger, following by bargaining. The heart swings back and forth between the need to be determined and the urge to escape. There comes the depression where my mind is engulfed by the picture in my brain how things are supposed to be. Yea, my life is screwed up by own expectation. The cruelty of reality has to be accepted finally whereby you have to master the art of the broken pieces of yourself.
14th July, a remarkable date of this year that I have received two bad news. A respectful ex-principal has passed away due to cancer, while an ex-schoolmate has committed suicide due to depression. Perhaps the video above could let us picturing how depression affects a person physically, cognitively, emotionally, socially, and spiritually. While death as a result of depression exhausts the grief self , there are many ways to alleviate the pain and embrace sadness. In other words, we need to find ways to change the emotional states:
- Seeing eye-to-eye with own feelings and minds. Sometimes, sadness and grief let you aware the importance of the lost, and of course the real needs of yourself too. Self-love is what I have found out from recent loss realizing that I have cared over those little thing/ people too much than they deserve.
- Let the tears flow- Aching heart need tears to be accompanied with. Crying out aloud is an avenue to release negative energy.
- Create space. When being depressed and exhausted, it is imperative that you find times when you can walk away from the place where you are needed most to take deep breaths and recollect your minds.This method works to me most of the time when come to workplace stress and dissatisfied work. People loves to judge and interrupt your privacy. Whether you like it or not, some may claim that this is breaking the ice (they would like to befriend with you/ knowing you more). This is not to say we should be anti-social. Rather, a short period of time where we need to concentrate without being distracted.Turn off social media and keep yourself away from the human interruption. I find that a short getaway or solo trip, a journey to jogging, a retreat on food are great ways when you need to reclaim the sacred space for mediating yourself.
- Deviate the attention to work, relationship, sports and etc. While focus is placed on other stuff, you will find that less crying, less over-eating, more space and time for yourself. Japanese lesson has come in time, where I have most of the time occupied in mastering the language. Bakery is also one of the best avenues to keep you busy for the whole day (preparing ingredients, checking the recipes, baking, serving and cleaning up the mess).
- Set up goals. It takes months or years for the healing process depending how much the damage is done to yourself. Healing doesn't mean the damage doesn't exist, but it means you're controlling it from continuously devastation of yourself. A twist of concentration to embrace the sadness could be done by having a slight twist of concentration on the goals you set for yourself. Goals to be achieved- career, reduced weight, participate in marathon, experiencing something new, etc.
- Seek for motivational words - Positive words from articles, books, blogs, song lyrics and etc. could help to change your emotional state to calmer, less sadness. Sometimes, you need friends or external parties to talk to when you're in the sorrow.
When you stop struggling to make something go the way you've expected it to,
you will find ways to start your life anew!
you will find ways to start your life anew!
