Embrace Your Pace - When You Feel Like You’re Not Grieving Fast Enough!
EPISODE 158
Last week in the WidowSquad weekly meeting, we were doing a group exercise and choosing our Word Of The Year. Are you familiar with this exercise? It's a very powerful tool to help us stay motivated and focused throughout the year.
One of our lovely WidowSquad members chose the word PATIENCE. Great word, right?!
She felt like she needed to have more patience with herself. She noticed she was being really hard on herself for "not feeling better by now". This sparked a whole conversation about how this healing process takes time. Grieving takes time. Healing a broken heart takes time.
I hope you enjoy this episode and please share it with a friend! Also leave a rating and review on the podcast and I'll read it on air!
Don't forget to grab your seat in the Finding Purpose And Meaning After Loss Program For Widows starting soon! You know you are meant for more! You know you want to make an impact on the world! You know you want to make some big changes in your life! Let's do this together!
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
Hello and good morning! I Just want to share this miniepisode with you, which I do every now and then when a topic comes up or something we talked about in the WidowSquad community comes up, because I want to be there for you, I want to there to encourage you. I want to be there to help you see things to help make you feel like life is doable after losing your partner. You are making progress every day. You are taking brave steps every day to be a part of life again and I want to show you what’s possible. So, today is one of those bonus mini episodes. And today we’re talking about how to embrace your pace.
What do I even mean by that?
Well, this WAS a topic that came up last week in the widowsquad on our weekly call. And if you’re not already in this group, you really should be. If you’re a widow, no matter what stage you’re in, if you just lost your husband or you’re even a few years into widowhood, this is where you want to be. The conversations that we have every week, I gain so much and I learn so much from these amazing women.
Anyway, last week we did an exercise together and it was the Word Of the Year exercise. Many of you are familiar with choosing a Word Of the Year and how this is a really valuable tool to help us stay focused and on track with our goals for the year. And It’s different for everyone, right?
Some people want to stay very aligned with a feeling that they choose. Their word might be “confidence”, which is a good one. So, throughout this year, I will make all of my choices and choose my actions based on this word “confidence”. So, when I do feel scared, when I do feel uncertain, I can go back to my word, CONFIDENCE and focus on that feeling. It’s pretty powerful.
So, last week, we were going around talking about our word of the year and why they chose that word and what it means to them. And one of the ladies in our group chose the word PATIENCE. Great word, right?! Because across the board, we can put this into practice in so many areas of our life. More patience with our kids. More patience with the people we work with. More patience with our extended family. But in particular, this wonderful WidowSquad member was saying that she needed to have more patience with herself.
She lost her husband about 6 months ago and she said that she noticed she’s being really hard on herself for not feeling “better by now”. I mean, we all do this, right?! We feel like we should be farther ahead on this path. We feel like something is wrong with us because we should be doing better at this point. And she was asking “Am I ok where I’m at right now?” because I don’t know if this is normal. And the thing is, this path of grief has no mile markers. It doesn’t have a sign that says at 5 miles you should feel like X and at 10 miles, you’ll feel like Y. It just doesn’t work that way!
And we sooooo want it to work that way! We want to know that we are making progress. And we don’t always see the creeping forward progress that we’re making when we take 2 steps forward then 3 steps back, but then the next day you take 8 steps further and only 1 back. I promise you. I promise you, those baby steps are happening. PATIENCE. Let’s go back to that word. Patience.
We hang on to phrases like “When is this going to be over?”
When will this pain stop?”
“When will I stop crying every day?”
“When will I start to feel normal again?”
We want it to be over. You’re so over it, right? You’re so over feeling the way you do!
It’s like what are the steps? Where’s the checklist? Where’s the blueprint? I’m ready to make my plan to get out of this feeling.
And what we said to her, was “we can’t be so hard on ourselves. What you’re going through right now is healing. It’s slow. It doesn’t happen overnight. Broken bones heal. Broken hearts heal. Everything takes time when you’re talking about healing. So, Patience is such a beautiful word to carry with you for the year. Have patience, with yourself. Be kind to yourself.” That’s the process.
I hope this helps. I hope this serves as a reminder to be kind to yourself through this. You’re doing things and feeling things you’ve never done or felt before. But you’re gonna be ok.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend and please leave a review for the podcast!
Also, we’re starting the Finding Purpose And meaning after loss program on Monday January 23, 2023. If you would like to join me and other like-minded widows on this 4 week group coaching journey, where we are all asking the question “What’s next? What is my purpose?” I absolutely love working with you guys and getting to know you and seeing your unique path open up for you as we go through the program! I love watching this process of seeing YOUR dreams come true and seeing you rediscover yourself and what lights you up!
Join us today at www.widow180.com/purpose! That’s www.widow180.com/purpose! Ok, I’ll see you back here next week. Until then, believe in the possibilities!
