It’s All About…Zooming Out! Taking A Bird’s-eye View Of Your Progress
Feeling Stuck In Grief?
I have worked with a lot of widows in the last few years. Something that comes up a lot in conversation is that it’s very common to feel stuck in your grief. We feel like we’re stuck because we are in the cycle of grieving where you feel okay one day and then terrible the next.
You have a good day, then a bad day.
You take one step forward and then two steps back.
You feel forward momentum, but then you get pulled back. We get triggered by an event, a conversation, or a memory and it can ruin our day in an instant.
You’ve heard me say this before, that grief isn’t a straight, linear path. It zigzags. It’s messy. It’s all over the place. It’s exactly how you feel, all over the place. And this is normal.
Widows will often say things like, “Am I going to feel this way forever?”
Or they say, “I thought I should be better by now. I thought things would be different by now. I don’t see how things are getting better for me.”
This is where we have to stop. We have to take a pause and do some digging in to get more of the story.
Because I know how this feels. I’ve been there. When you’re in survival mode and you’re struggling with the day to day, you don’t see your progress. You’re so in the thick of the push and pull, the highs and lows, that you just don’t see the forward progress at all.
Progress In Grief Is Deceitful
I heard this analogy recently and it was talking about a similar situation, but actually with the highs and the lows of the stock market. If you check your investments, if you look at the stock market every day, you will panic. You will freak out because of the inconsistency. But if you zoom out, if you go out to the 20,000 feet aerial view, you will see progress over time. You will see the line going upward. You will see your investments doing better and better over time. It compounds.
This is where your progress in grief can be so deceitful.
You don’t see the upward trajectory.
But you are, in fact, making those baby steps. They are happening.
You are evolving. You are changing.
Marcus Aurelius, emperor of the roman empire and master of Stoicism, would often practice an exercise that is referred to as “taking the view from above”, otherwise known as, “Plato’s view.” It invites us to take a step back, zoom out and see life from a higher vantage point than our own.
This exercise helps us not only focus on ourselves and our own journey and progress, but also helps us to envision our place amongst the billions of people around us, all walking their own unique path in life.
It changes our perspective on a micro-level and a macro-level.
Challenging Negative Thoughts and Self-Talk in Widowhood
There was a widow in one of my programs last year who was struggling with self-doubt and confidence. In the Finding Purpose and Meaning After Loss Program we talk a lot about growth and moving forward.
She said to me, “It’s been a year since my husband died and I haven’t grown at all.”
She was crying and I gently responded , “I think we could challenge that statement.”
I had her give an example of one new thing she had to learn how to do in the last year.
“Manage all of the household bills.” she said.
Hmmmm, I would say that’s growth.
I then asked her, “In this last year, what’s something really uncomfortable you did that you’d never done before, but you did it?”
She said she flew by herself for the first time to go visit her son in another state.
Hmmmm, I would say that’s growth as well.
Sometimes we’re too busy looking to validate our own negative thoughts, that we don’t see our own progress. We let the negative self-talk take the spotlight and not our amazing accomplishments.
Don’t brush those things under the rug!
Learning new things is progress, even if it’s something you never wanted to have to learn how to do.
Celebrate your accomplishments.
Celebrate the new wisdom you are gaining from learning new things.
Acknowledge those actions you’re taking to become more confident as you master your new life, your new normal.
Don’t forget, it’s all about zooming out!
How does the you of today compare to the you of a year ago?
Take a look at things from that perspective!
You’re doing so much better than you think you are!
Keep going!
You got this!
