How Making Assumptions Disrupts Our Grieving Process! - A Tip For Widows
Episode 162
If you haven't read the book The Four Agreements: A Toltec Wisdom Book by Don Miguel Ruiz, I highly suggest it! We just finished reading it in the Widow Squad book club. I love its simplicity and reminders to us about what's important in life!
And Agreement Number 3, Don't Make Assumptions really struck a chord with me. As widows, we assume things about ourselves and about the people around us, resulting in needless suffering!
Check out this week’s podcast episode to learn how making assumptions disrupts our grieving process!
LISTEN TO THE EPISODE HERE:
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EPISODE 162 TRANSCRIPT:
On episode 152 of the podcast, I had the pleasure of interviewing Anita Coyle. If you haven’t listened to it, you can pause this one and come back to it if you want to. But anyway, I asked anita a question that I ask so many widows because it’s a question that I always wanted answered as a new widow, and that was “what did you turn to to help you get through those first few months after your husband passed away?” That’s really one of the main focuses of widow 180 the podcast. How do people get through that pain and how do they cope with the loss of their loved one? I want to know! Because maybe it’s something I could try too! Maybe what they’re doing can help me as well. I’m always searching for that answer and passing it on to you guys.
Well, I asked anita that very questions “What did you do to help you cope those first few months?” and she said, for her it was physical exercise. Moving her body. It was running and swimming and cycling and being outside, moving the grief out of her body. This I love , of course. Then she went on to tell me that she had to ask for help with the kids sometimes so that she could have that time to herself. She had signed up for some races and 10k’s and she sometimes needed babysitters. But she said that she also felt like people would look at her as being selfish for asking for that help.
Has this happened to you?
She, like so many of us, worried about what other people would think of her!
Was she being selfish?
Did she REALLY NEED to spend that time away from her kids? Is she avoiding things at home if she leaves to go out for some exercise? This is ssooooooo common! Our minds go directly to these negative thoughts, right?
We assume that people are judging us. And we assume that people are thinking certain things about us.
We also assume that people should know what we need. Because if they loved us, if they know us, then we assume they know exactly what we need!
This whole conversation with anita coincided with our book club reading in the widow squad. Right now we’re reading the book, The 4 agreements : A Toltec wisdom book , by Don Miguel ruiz. Have you read this book? So, in this book, the 4 agreements, it talks about the source of our limiting beliefs and how they rob us of joy and create needless suffering. The 4 agreements are basically a code of conduct that we can follow to end this needless suffering and help us experience more happiness and more freedom from our limiting thoughts. Well, The third agreement in this book is called “Don’t Make Assumptions”, Don’t make assumptions. Naturally, I read this and I start thinking about how this applies to widows. And this does apply to widows in sooooo many different ways.
We assume things about ourselves all the time. We assume that we “should be feeling better by now”. We assume that we shouldn’t be feeling so sad at this point, if say, it’s been a year that your spouse passed away. We assume that we can handle everything on our own, that we can work full time and raise the kids, and shop and cook and clean and be freakin wonder woman and be the emotional support/counselor for everyone in the family too. We assume we can do it all, but we’re really fooling ourselves.
But most of what we assume, revolves around the people in our lives.
An Example of this is the conversation that I had just had with Anita Coyle on the podcast. In that episode, it was epsidoe 152 of the podcast, we talked about how we assume that people should know what we need or what we need help with! We assume that they will know what we’re feeling or going through.
And let me just tell you, even if they know you well, even if they love you, if it’s your mom or your sister or your best friend or whatever, even if they’ve been through loss themselves, they still don’t know exactly what you need! Because everyone’s situation is different. And we all grieve differently. Some people may crave solitude and isolation so they can process their thoughts. Other people may crave being surrounded by a lot of people because they don’t want to be alone. You don’t know how you’re going to feel until you’re going through it. You’ve never done this before. So, it’s a mistake for us to assume that our loved ones should know what to do with us because sometimes, we don’t even know what to do with us! That’s why it’s so important that when you do find something that helps you, you do find a healthy way of coping, let others know what you need and if you need any help. Tell them.
In the book, the 4 agreements, it says “we make assumptions about what others are doing (or not doing) or thinking - we take it personally – then we blame them, we misunderstand, and react by sending emotional poison and creating a whole big drama for nothing.
And this can happen with our family relationships, our relationships with our kids, with our friends especially. Here are another couple of examples:
Let’s say your friends got together and planned a special “girls night out” for you guys. They want to take you out and buy you a million drinks and do shots and go dancing and leave all of your cares behind, right? Now, this is super thoughtful. This is coming from the heart. BUT what if what you really needed and wanted desperately was a “girls spa day” instead. You don’t feel like getting drunk or dancing the night away. You just want a relaxing afternoon with massages and facials.
Another scenario is when your friends just leave you alone because they don’t know how they can help, and maybe they see you around and you look “totally fine” like you got this and you’re doing so well now! Look at her, she’s smiling! She’s fine. She doesn’t need anything or she would ask, right? So they don’t offer because you look fine. And you don’t ask because you assume several things…and the thoughts start swirling in your head. Like “they think I’m weak if I do that.” or “they’ll think I’m not a good mom if I do that” or “they’ll think I’m incapable of handling life if I do that.” you don’t want people to think bad things about you. Nobody does. But you see, these are MADE UP assumptions. NONE of these thoughts are true. The suffering that you are feeling is because of the made up thoughts in your own head. It’s so interesting, isn’t it?? How the human mind works! How the human mind manipulates things AGAINST ourselves, not FOR ourselves but against us! How dare it do that??!! I mean, Haven’t we been through enough, for God’s sake??!!
If our loved ones tell us something or do something, we make assumptions.
If they don’t tell us something or don’t do something, we STILL make assumptions to fill in those gaps.
Let’s say your best friend doesn’t call you for a whole week to check in on you. You assume a MILLION and one things. She doesn’t care about you. She doesn’t think what you’re going through is important. She doesn’t want to hear you complain. She thinks you should be OVER IT by now. When really, she was just sick and not feeling well. And it had nothing to do with you.
In the 4 agreements book, it talks about the way to not make assumptions is to ask questions, right?! It’s pretty easy, make sure you communicate with the people in your life. And if you don’t understand something, ask. That’s all. Just ask.
Also, find your voice to ask for what you want or need. I talked to Anita about this. And I told her that was very brave of her to ask for help because a lot of people don’t. and if we don’t ask for help, then our mental state suffers. Find your voice to ask for what you want. And they may tell you YES or they may tell you NO, in which case STILL don’t make assumptions. Just move on.
That was the main message of this chapter of the book. With clear communication, your relationships will change. Things will be better with other people, but don’t forget to check in with yourself now and then too! Catching ourselves making those assumptions about what we can or can’t handle, is vital.
So, pay attention to this! This is a habit we are all guilty of! Ok, everybody does this! It’s not terrible, it’s just part of being human. But our lives would be so much less complicated if we can change it! and if you start to pay attention to it, you can change it!
Don’t make assumptions.
Like is said before, this is from the book the Four Agreements written by Don Miguel Ruiz. We just finished reading this in the Widow Squad book club and we had some awesome discussions on this book. I hope you can join us next time in our book club! We would love to have you! I’ve never done a book club before this one and it was great! Such great insights and deep conversations came out of this group! It was awesome. I loved it. And I know you would love it too. You can join us at widowsquad.com.
