Grief is hard to identify. Typically, the loss of another person, animal, or career can bring a stage of grief. The emptiness that fills the space where they once were and lived in your heart. The anger and resentment along with the judgment and analysis comes along to “help” you through this time of grief. Suddenly the life you envisioned is gone. A trial of acceptance and waking up each day to the reality that they are gone, and you have to keep going in their place and fill in the void of where they were.
Maybe depression takes over and consumes you to help you get through this time. Or you jump back into life and ignore the part of you that is missing, filling it with opportunities, material goods, food, excessive habits. Whichever way you grieve is your choice to make. There is no right or wrong answer when it comes to letting go of the identity that became heavily attached to life you built.
What if though, you are grieving the idea of who you were alongside of them? What if the emptiness and the longing you feel is towards yourself and the confusion of why you feel this way just doesn’t make sense? There comes a point in which life just isn’t worth waking up for anymore. The things that made you happy no longer carry the same high notes. The people you were desperately trying to please are now seen as enemies in your story of your life. Everything is upside down and backwards. Nothing makes you happy anymore. This is your life, and it feels wrong to you somehow. You wake up and the automatic tendencies of your day begin. Pee. Make coffee. Do the things you do to start your day preparing for what is next. Checking off your mental items. Continuing the normal day to day routine in which you have become used to for years.
There was a time, maybe long ago, when this day-to-day routine looked different somehow. Think back to the time before this new routine set in and you were living on autopilot in a different way. How many times have you changed your automatic day to day routine? With each new move you had to adapt to your new surroundings. With each new relationship you had to adapt to the way you saw your time to make space for them. With each new piece of your life puzzle there was a time that you made changes to your daily rituals and automatic living that made space for these once new things that you have built your life upon.
And now you are back at the beginning of rebuilding a new foundation. This feels different and empty because something or someone is missing from this new routine. You want the old routine back even if you stopped wanting it for a while. The comforts of the known can pull you under and make even your worst days seem like the best. Because within them you had a knowingness of nothing that was to come. Yet you are here in this empty space of grief and loss.
You are in the now and present moment wanting to return to the past. To the moments before as if they were your security blanket and you were safe within that cocoon. That sense of safety is what you built your life upon, and the inner knowingness is what you come to rely on. What are you truly grieving? The perfect moments? The arguments you want to take back? The frivolous fights and words said in anger? You go through your worst moments and blame yourself. Internally taking on the blame of everything that has ever went wrong and the things you wish went differently.
This is the moment to stop. Pause. Take a breath. This is the moment to realize your grief of loss is clouding your thoughts. The reality has become a fog and making those memories into something they were not. Giving you a false sense of reality and who you are. There was passion within you for those fights. Passion for the cause that made you stand up and speak your truth and mind. There was a part of you the was hidden and ready to be unleashed. That was your truth and the real you standing up for yourself, your beliefs, your values with confidence and conviction. Don’t turn your back on your true self because this present event has taken over your moment.
Refer to the earlier points in your life when things were new again. When curiosity and your imagination made your life the dream it was. Before the clutter, decisions, and day-to-day, there was you. Alone. Planning a life with endless possibilities. You may have even created a dream book of your perfect wedding, or perfect home. Your earliest start to your life's vision board before the rules of society and the pressures of your family and friends led you to where you are now. Do you still have that dream book? If so, take it out and look at it. See what ways you made those dreams for your younger self come true.
Allow the grief to be a guiding point in this new automatic you. Those different things you would have said or done, do them now. Those parts of you that were passionate enough to argue your case, hold true to them with that same conviction. Make the most of what you have learned and had to keep you going. That empty space will be there until you fill it up with something new. Sometimes, you need to allow that empty space to be empty for a while for something new to take its place. It has happened before. It will happen again. And quite possibly again.
This is the cycle of life. Change is the only thing that is consistent. Holding onto certainty is like trying to hold onto the wind. You can either take the grief you hold and make it a story of loss, the loss of your true self. Or you can pick up your grief and carry it with you writing a new chapter and keep going. Knowing that while this moment sucks you can take the best from what was gifted to you in your experiences and make them the catalyst for something even greater to come. Creating a new foundation for your life to be built on. Starting the cycle of change all over again once more.
Crystals to use during times of grief:
Rose Quartz is known as the stone of love and compassion. Carrying or placing Rose Quartz nearby can provide comfort and calm during times of grief.
Amethyst offers support in times of sorrow, aiding in the management of pain, emotions, and the mental aspects of grief.
Apache Tears are often used for protection and grounding while grieving. Holding one in your non-dominant hand to bring strength and facilitate healing.
Connect with something or someone greater than yourself during this time and allow the emotions that need to come up for you to be witnessed and acknowledged. Then ask yourself, "what did I learn that I can take with me from here?". Let go of what no longer serves you and reclaim your inner strength.
You got this!
