Don’t Fear the Feelings, Embrace Them
June 19, 2008 by Anna Farmery
Filed under Affirmations of Life
Grief causes all kind of emotional stress and all sorts of different emotions to flow through your body – anger, sadness, depression, crying, apathy, numbness, loneliness….
I asked yesterday to Let’s Support a Military Widow who is struggling with her emotions. A oouple of comments made me think
- Feelings are what separates us from machine. Feelings make us human.
- Feelings should be cherished and not feared….it is a sign that we are a living human being.
- Feelings are negative only when we see them as negative. If we believe we are depressed then we are…if we see our depression as part of the grief process and learn to start seeing what we can do and what we have rather than what we can’t and what we have lost…then we can start moving forward.
- Feelings are universal…we all feel….we should never feel ashamed of crying in public as it is a sign of our strength not a weakness. I say a strength because we recognise our feelings and are not ashamed to show our pain
I am not going to fear the feelings any more, I will embrace them as part of me. I want to be a whole human being that feels all the range of emotions – that will make me stronger and a better human being.
After all if we embrace the fear doesn’t the fear go away?
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This is directed at Lulu (Mary), who left a comment on my blog recently. I tried to leave a comment on your Myspace page, but since I do not “do” that Myspace stuff, it kept flipping me to some other weird stuff. But thank you for the “hug”. Yes, I guess we do have something in common – both of our husbands died unexpectedly at home. I have family (relatives – cousins) who live in the U.P. of Michigan. Where do you live? I am planning on relocating back to MN (somewhere in the Mpls. area, probably) next year. Who knows? We may bump into each other.
I had to laugh at the “Dead Husbands Society” and I know that Greg would have enjoyed that, too. His sense of humor was what attracted me to him, first.
It has been just over a month now, and I am moving forward. Not always liking it, but moving, nonetheless.
Thanks to folks like Anna and you, I don’t feel so all alone. Have not yet met anyone else in my area (suburb of Houston, TX) who is in my situation. Have either of you – Anna or Lulu -gone to a grief support group or anything similar? So far, I don’t feel like I need that. There is so much to do right now that I don’t know how I would squeeze in any meetings, any way.
Hi Jessica,
I stumbled upon a grief support group about a month after Michael died. It ran for 10 weeks. It did help somewhat, and the facilitator kept in touch with cards and phone calls throughout the year. Most of my neighbors are widows, and they’ve taken me under their wings. I didn’t expect to join the sorority as soon as I did.
I live in mid-Michigan, so that’s quite far from the U.P. Michael and I were in Duluth a few years ago for a Splitrock writers workshop. He decided to drive back nonstop. It took us 13 hours!
You’ve got a great sense of humor (I’ve read some of your blog). I know it’s underground right now, but I have faith that it will return in time.
Hugs,
Mary