Just a couple of thoughts for the weekend on the need for hope, the thought of falling in love again and the risk that love brings for your heart - however, for all that pain I would not swap that feeling of real love that I was lucky enough to have,  for anything, would you?

“May the love hidden deep inside your heart find the love waiting in your dreams. May the laughter that you find in your tomorrow wipe away the pain you find in your yesterdays”

and

“Love comes to those who still hope even though they’ve been disappointed, to those who still believe even though they’ve been betrayed, to those who still love even though they’ve been hurt before.”

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Grief affects in so many ways, it shakes your self confidence to the core. I find that I get scared about the future, of loneliness, of never feeling happy again. I find that social situations scare me, I don’t want to be around people that I don’t know.

I wonder why someone who used to be so strong and indeed so sociable can feel this way? Me, as a person has not changed or have I? My personality is bound to be different by losing someone I love. He helped give me strength, helped give me confidence. But you know, it was there before I fell in love. When we feel scared we need to look at who we were before falling in love…that person is still deep inside and we  just have to find that person again. When you are in a couple, you merge, you play to each others  strengths…now we need to find that whole person again.

Being scared is natural, emotions are natural. Maybe being scared is a sign that the numbness is subsiding and that our capacity of feeling is returning….

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Happiness for widows sometimes feel so far apart. Then you see the stories of how people have gone on to have a fulfilling life and you can see that a death of a loved one is hard - no doubt - but it really doesn’t have to remove any chance of happiness from our lives.

I read this quote from David Myers who is the Professor of Psychology at Hope College in a new book which is about bouncing back from failure

“Happiness seems less a matter of getting what we want than wanting what we have”

When you think of how that relates to bereavement, it is so true.

• We have lost someone special however we have gained through falling in love.
• We have lost a partner, a friend, a family member but we have the memories.
• We have lost the chance of doing things together, and gained the chance to put our own dreams and aims at the forefront.
•  We have felt huge pain, but gained a great humanity through that pain.

What do you miss….and what have you gained? Which do you concentrate your thoughts upon?

It is a question that often comes up in my mind. Firstly, I feel guilty about even thinking about falling in love again, I feel I don’t want to love again as though that would somehow be wrong and yet I know that there is nothing I can do to bring him back. I am still alive and still have a life to live.

Life in reality is about love. We learn to love in our young lives through our families. Love is something that as humans we need, that we seek as a basic need of living happily.

Love is a wonderful feeling, a feeling that I would want every person to feel during their lives. So should we feel that we can love again?

For all the guilt we feel…I still think that the answer is yes. Whether we are ready, is another question and one that will be different to each person. But falling in love in the future is not something we should feel guilty about….it will never take away our previous loves, it will never take away the memories that we have and hold forever.

The world needs love, the world is better when people show love and for that reason I think we should allow ourselves to love again. We are still capable of giving love to this world and I think it would be wrong to shut those emotions down. If we shut them down we lose a part of us, a part of us that our spouse fell in love with….I see that when the time is right, I will share my future life with someone else…it will be different I know, but different means that I will never forget him.

…you can feel like there really is nothing left to live for, that is both a common and understandable feeling. No matter what the loss  -your job, your company, your money or indeed the death of a loved one..part of you dies, but do you know the most important part of that sentence…”part of”

When you fall in love, you give a part of yourself over to that other person, when they leave your world that part leaves with them. However, I would like you to think about the rest of you…you gave a PART of your heart, your life…there is still something very important left…the essence of you. We need to learn to fall in love with ourselves again…being in love is fantastic but sometimes   we can be so in love that we forget to love ourselves. Here is a couple of thoughts on how to start

• Write down your best 3 characteristics
• Write down what YOU alone have achieved that you are proud about
• Write down what a happy life will look like, feel like…
• Write down what steps you will take to build on your strengths and make that dream come true

My wise old Nana said to me one day that I should never NOT want to have “heart hurt” - I couldn’t believe what she was saying. I think I understand what she meant now…

Nana said to me that you only hurt when you have loved. People who don’t hurt have not had the very special feeling of love. Love is such a special feeling, it is in many ways the strongest feeling - be it the love for a child, the love of a partner etc.

She said to me that I should feel very lucky to have had the experience of love, the experience of finding someone who is so special that it almost consumes you. Imagine how life would have been dull if I hadn’t had that sense of wonder. Yes, when we lose someone our natural reaction is to feel unlucky, to feel hurt, pain but never lose sight of the greatness of having had the chance to love in the first place. We indeed have had a chance of true love…not everybody has had that oppportunity.