10 Words Which Don’t Help Our Grief
June 3, 2009 by Anna Farmery
Filed under Affirmations of Life
Words are powerful and can effect the way we feel – I am a long believer that it is not really what others say to us that affects our mood but what we say to ourselves! Here are 1O words or phrases that we need to stay clear during our bereavement
- If only….
- I can’t…
- But….
- Why him/her?
- There is no point…
- I will never get over this….
- I can’t cope..
- Maybe if I had….
- I wish I had said/did..
and of course 10) I will never love again…..
The more that we repeat these words, the more we will believe them…they are all natural to say, they stem from the pain of grief however we need to find a way of changing I can’t to I can, from I will not to I will….to start the process of recovering from our loss.
Would you add any words to this list?
We can relate to that collection of phrases for sure. The only other one I can think of is “It might have been………”
It” might have been” a wonderful retirement. It” might have been” a long , healthy life. It “might have been” all of the joys we were anticipating before the cancer was diagnosed. On and on.
The scariest one for me was shortly after he died when I woke up and said ” I don’t care!” I cared about him but I didn’t care about anything else on earth that day, including me. Thank heavens a little more time and sanity came to my rescue.
Oh gosh yes missed that one…and I smile about the not caring as I said something very similar as an emotional barrier, somehow trying to trick my brain to not feel the pain…needless to say that didn’t work!
Words are so important, important to express our emotions and also how we talk to ourselves….words are so often just “thrown out of our mouths”, sometimes I wish that we all understand and valued them so much more…
I think I have said all of these phrases to myself many times in the last year. “I can’t”, “There is no point”, “I will never get over this”, and “I can’t cope” were the ones I said the most. A year has now passed and I can happily say “I can”, “There is definitely a point to living”, “I will never get over it, but I am getting used to it”, and “I can cope”. I have so much to be happy about and grateful for. My family gives me strength and my grandchildren make me smile every day. I have met new friends by joining support groups for others in similar situations. I am making decisions all by myself and they are good decisions. I will never stop loving Rick or missing him but life is becoming good again and I am content.