Coming to terms with your grief.

I remember so clearly the moment that it felt like my life had been ripped away from me.

All of my plans, my business, my ability to care for myself and support myself had all been taken away and nothing seemed certain or reliable any more.

The hardest thing was that no one else seemed to be able to even begin to grasp the enormity of what it was that I had lost and that how everything that made me “me” felt like it had been taken away.

The grief was completely overwhelming. I cried more than I think I have ever cried before and I am not a person who cries easily and certainly, not in front of others. Suddenly here I was, crying in front of people who had never seen me cry before and I don’t think I have ever felt so vulnerable or so helpless in my life.

So I understand why it feels so frightening and so overwhelming to even think about connecting to the grief that is there, lurking in the background, feeling like an enormous tidal wave of emotion that will knock you so far down that if you let it in and really feel it, you may never, ever get up again.

It feels easier to stay stuck in denial because if you stay busy enough and distract yourself enough and exhaust yourself enough, you can pretend that it isn’t there. You can make believe that everything is still ok and things can go on as usual and you can refuse to allow chronic illness to be part of your life.

But unfortunately, the grief breaks through.

You have moments when you start sobbing for no apparent reason or you wake up crying in your sleep.

You have times when you miss the “old” you so desperately that it feels hard to get out of bed and face the day and you sink down into the depths of depression.

You have days when you feel so alone and so isolated and that no one else can possibly know how hard it is to keep going and keep pretending that you are still the person that you used to be.

But you push the grief down because the fear of actually confronting it feels like it could break you.

There is something important that I want to share with you about the grief of chronic illness and I really need you to hear this.

It is not the big, destructive monster that you fear it will be.

In fact, facing your grief, feeling your grief and coming to terms with it is an important and necessary part of the healing process.

You cannot move on until you have grieved what you feel you have lost.

Unresolved grief eats away at you inside.

It takes energy to suppress the grief and the anxiety of being overwhelmed by your grief creates stress, inflammation and an increase in your physical and emotional symptoms.

It is quite simply, exhausting to live with and exhausting to keep pushing away and the grief will continue to break through the moment your defences weaken for even a second.

I know that it feels like you have lost everything.

I understand that it feels like you will never be the same as you were before.

I know that it feels like your life is over and all of the plans you had and the life you thought you were going to live are gone.

Doesn’t that deserve to be respected and grieved for the major loss that it is?

Once you turn and face your grief, I promise you, it is nowhere near as overwhelming as you fear it is.

Staying in denial or trying to stay so busy that you distract yourself is ultimately self-defeating and can make your symptoms and illness even worse.

You may mistakenly believe that you are “protecting” the people that you love from the pain of your own loss but what you are actually doing is depriving yourself of their comfort and support.

Trying to push down your grief and not let it show mean that you create distance between yourself and others, which only makes you feel more isolated and alone.

When you come to terms with your grief, you will finally be able to truly start moving on and set yourself free from the fear that has been keeping you stuck in denial, isolation and pain.

If you feel that you can’t do this alone.

If you can’t get past the fear that the grief will break you and take you down into depression and despair then you don’t have to do it all by yourself.

You can book your FREE Discovery Session with me and find out exactly how I can help you break free from your fear and grief and truly start to take back control of your life, health and happiness.

Trust me, you will be amazed at how much better you will feel once you come to terms with your grief and see that it is a vital piece of your healing process.