This week has been very strange. My husband’s high school friend passed away, and watching everyone’s grief process has been a real eye-opener. There have been many conversations repeating, “I am shocked!” and people seem to keep feeding off one another’s grief and pain.
There has also been a lot of talk of self-medication, using sleeping pills and drugs, and drinking to get through this event. More talk of the tragedy, and more spiraling down the rabbit hole, and on and on it goes. Everyone feels worse.
This is very different than a few months ago, when a friend of a friend’s daughter (who was only in her early 20’s) passed away very suddenly and unexpected from a heart attack. This group of friends chose to acknowledge her passing and support one another from a sense of expansiveness. There was acknowledgement of grief and shock, and a place to allow people to get their pain out. And then there was something different – space. There was space to allow people to move on from the grief and the pain, space to explore their own mortality, and space to acknowledge the fullness of life, including death.
In the river of life, which way are you pointing your boat? As Esther and Jerry Hicks explain in “The Astonishing Power of Emotions,” it is your job to find relief by pointing your boat downstream. “Nothing you want is upstream anyway.”
By spiraling down the rabbit hole of negative emotions, you are pointing your boat upstream, fighting against the current. But when trying to find relief, you can turn your boat downstream and travel faster and easier through life. The next time you are caught up in negative emotions try this 5-step process:
1. Take a deep breath.
2. Acknowledge your emotions.
3. Become an observer of your emotions – get curious about them. “Oh, isn’t it interesting that I am feeling so much pain and grief?”
4. Assess the situation. Is this event directly affecting your life? Is it something that you’ve heard about from a friend of a friend or on the news? How much is it actually affecting your situation?
5. Decide what to do about your situation. Do you need to get the emotions out, or is it time to turn towards a better feeling place? (Remember, you MUST deal with your emotions first. If you try to jump straight to a happy place, you will only suppress them and end up feeling even worse.)
We all want to connect with one another, and sharing grief around tragic events is a very easy way to feel as though you are connecting. However, in many cases spiraling down the rabbit hole only leaves you exhausted, depressed, and angry. Finding a better feeling place and connecting to others from there may be more difficult at first, but it just takes practice. It will be so much better for your mind, body, and soul.
So which way will you point your boat?
