I'd feared feeling things I'd lost for years. Regret seemed so much more powerful to me at the time.
In one year, I'd face all of the things that I thought defined who I was - my husband and my grandmother, who I loved dearly. Prior to my divorce and the death of my grandmother, I personally didn't know what true grief was. I saw people lose loved ones and as a military member I saw death happen all the time, but I had no idea what it was like to experience grief in my own life.
In the beginning of that year and some of the previous year, I begin to grieve that I was divorcing. Even though we both decided this was the best decision and I was ready to move on, the stigma of divorce weighed heavy on me and grieving the loss of a life and family that I thought would be permanent, until death, was intense. As I began to grieve my divorce and go through all of the different stages, I realized there were so many other areas of my life that I had never grieved.
I never grieved things I wish I'd done in high school, old relationships, projects I never finished, opportunities I didn't take advantage of. Instead of actually feeling some of the things I was going through, I was just ignoring them and they were manifesting in my life in all kinds of ways - health, emotionally, physically. I was burnt out and anxiety began to take a huge place in my life.
Prior to my grandmother's death, I began to go through therapy and work on really grieving all of the different losses that I'd experienced, including my marriage, and began to give myself space to feel. Grief is difficult, it hurts and brings so many things to light. I like to think of grief as a mirror, it reflects back to you what is actually real - no photoshop, no filters, no gimmicks. Whatever you wish you'd said or done is visible and can't be changed. You're forced to look at it all exactly as it is and accept it and hopefully let it go.
10 months after the finalizing of my divorce, my grandmother passed. Losing someone who I considered to be a rock in my life was like having a rug pulled from under my feet. It was hard to imagine not having her with me anymore, but interestingly enough; the grief muscle that I began to develop while grieving my divorce, kicked in once the shock of it all wore off. I began to allow myself to go through this process - all of the "shoulda, coulda, wouldas." I bargained, I felt the disbelief, I ignored, I prayed for miracles, and then I slowly began to accept.
The thing with grief is, once you let it go and release the attachment, that is when you really are able to hold on to the good in what you had as opposed to feeling what you wish it could be. There is so much power in allowing yourself to feel the loss. You can no longer be jailed by your emotions and you can instead be free from them.
Although these were both very hard things to process and grieve, and it was not something that was overnight, it helped me to grow and begin to learn one of the most important things that I would ever discover. I learned that by not allowing myself to grieve, I was suffering and I didn't deserve to live a life where I constantly suffered. I could have happiness but I would need to grieve what I'd lost - all of it.
After going through these experiences, I embarked on a path to get my life back and grieve all that I had lost, and here is what I learned:
- Life is not as short as people say when you're living in the moment. Be Present.
These were some of the hardest times in my life, but through it, I being a stronger, loving, and more empathetic person. Become curious about what you need to grieve and began to be free.
Click here to learn more about working through grief: Be Free From Grief