I’ve spent the last two weeks really deep diving into my grief, trying to figure out how to get out of this limbo stage of living in my past but embracing my present. Me and my feelings wheel put in some solid work. Dissecting each emotion and feeling and digging into the root of each feeling. It’s so much more than my husband died, my heart and soul are experiencing so many things at one time.
I came across something that talked about the difference between pain and suffering. Pain is inevitable, suffering is self-inflicted. Uhm, what? I didn’t agree with this statement at first. I thought, no way this is true, pain and suffering are pretty much the same and it’s not my fault that I’m feeling either of these emotions. However, the more I read, the more I realized I was so very wrong.
Pain is something that causes physical or mental discomfort. Suffering is emotional or psychological distress. Pain is felt in our bodies, where suffering is created in our mind. In grief, suffering is the result of not accepting the pain or reality of loss. Suffering can be avoided by allowing oneself to feel and process the pain.
As I read this, I sadly realized I have been torturing and making myself suffer for several months. Almost as if I was punishing myself for what happened. I hardly leave the house, heck, I hardly leave my bedroom a lot of the times. I don’t allow myself to feel joy when I’m surrounded by people that love me. I cry constantly at the sheer thought of the incident. I quit taking care of myself and allowed myself to fall into depression and poor habits. I was doing all of this to myself. I was creating my own suffering. Talk about a mind-blowing moment or break through. As I wrote about my pain and suffering, I told myself, ‘stop doing that shit’.
I will always carry the pain of losing Tim. I will always carry the trauma of finding him after he ended his life. I will always carry the loss of him from this earth. However, I don’t need to beat myself up about it every day and suffer. I suffer in silence a lot. I would say 90% of people would look at me and think I’m doing just fine, but in reality, it’s just a mask that I put on so that others don’t have to see how much I’m actually suffering inside. It’s kind of like a double edged sword. Let people think I’m fine, even though I’m not. But then they’ll never understand what is going on inside of me, when I continue to hide it.
Nonetheless, the life I have been living the last several months, isn’t even really living at all. Holding myself captive in my home, isolating from the world, the diet of a toddler, constantly replaying events in my mind (sometimes subconsciously), is absolutely, positively, NOT living.
It’s a weird feeling when you realize that you are the root cause of your suffering. That all these heavy things I carry, could be so much lighter if I could just accept what is and find a way to continue forward. Ending my suffering doesn’t mean I won’t still be in pain. It doesn’t mean that all my memories will go away and it certainly doesn’t mean that I love any less. It simply means that I need to allow myself to do the things and do them with a happy, healthy, heart and soul.
I used to get so angry when someone would say, ‘he wouldn’t want you living like this’, or ‘he would want you to be happy’. I always thought, yea no shit sherlock but this is how I’m feeling and this is how it is. Please don’t tell me how to feel.
Then reading about pain and suffering, I KNOW Tim would want me to get out of the house, he would want me to live happier and healthier. He would want me to take care of myself, just as much as I care for others. He would want me to move forward. I just needed to figure it out on my terms and not societies.
I remind myself that moving forward doesn’t mean you have to let go. You can still hold space for the pain of our loss, without the immense suffering.
So today, on October 26th, exactly 16 months since Tim departed this dimension... I make a promise to him to minimize my suffering. I make a promise to myself to start living more. To say yes to more things, to getting out more, to take better care of myself and to learn to live and be my best authentic self. I won’t be the same girl I was before his death, but I do have the ability and opportunity to rebuild who it is I really want to be.
Tim’s death forever changed me but I can’t stop living because he’s gone. I mean, he’s probably yelling at me to do something with myself LOL
So here is to new beginnings, here’s to trying to live more, here’s to saying ‘yes’ more, here’s to trying new things, here’s to new beginnings and here’s to allowing myself to be present in this very moment and not stuck and sulking in the past.
Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.
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