In last week’s “EXISTENCE can be hard” I wrote about healing being like a snowball. It starts off quite small and may take time and persistence to grow any bigger. Then it reaches a “tipping point” and the momentum takes on a speed and force of its own.
Here are my first five suggestions for starting the healing process and reaching that “tipping point”.
Accept your situation: By this I don’t mean ACCEPT and be HAPPY with your situation. That form of acceptance comes after healing and this is the first step not the last. What I mean is not denying that anything is wrong or ignoring your feelings. Accept where you are at the moment and decided that you can move forward. Why life may be unfair, and life may stink, avoided focusing on those thoughts as this will keep you trapped. We are what we eat, and we are what we think. By always focusing on the negatives we attract more of the negatives. Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying be positive at all costs and ignore that anything is wrong, because that is denying the reality of the situation. All I am saying is don’t make “life sucks” be your sole focus because it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. However, only take this first step when you are ready because doing this too soon because this can be harmful too. You should have reached the stage of hoping that life can be better even if you don’t fully believe 100% yet that it WILL be better. Too soon and you could be suppressing emotions that need to be acknowledged and worked through.
Appreciate that healing is a process: Whilst I don’t believe that the traditional Kubler-Ross grief curve reflects the complexity of infertility/childless not by choice grief, it is a starting point. It does illustrate that grieving and the resulting healing is a process. It will be a long progress and there will be times when you think are not making any progress at all: remember that those pesky slippery snakes have a habit of moving to catch you unawares. Be kind to yourself when you think you have taken a backward step, because it may not be backwards at all. It could be an opportunity for you to realise how far you have come. Being self-aware about the process and your journey through the process can help you to identify when your bad times aren’t as bad, aren’t as black and don’t hang around for as long as they used to. Above all remember to celebrate the successes, even if you think they are such small successes that they don’t warrant a celebration. If we don’t celebrate the small “wins” there is a chance that we won’t celebrate the huge ones either. The celebrations don’t have to be huge either: an extra ten minutes to soak in the bath or using luxury bubbles instead of Lidl’s finest are great celebrations as long as you identify them as such.
Seek support carefully: No man or woman is an island. We are social beings and need the company/support of others. Chose that support wisely though: if your close family or friends aren’t supportive or understanding then don’t seek support from them. Get your emotional support from people who empathise and won’t judge. Feeling let down by someone close is incredibly hard to deal with: however, don’t let it eat away at your soul. If it was an aberration from someone normal more supportive then, when you feel strong enough, challenge them. Explain that their behaviour is unacceptable from someone who is a friend and that you are mentioning this because you want to protect a friendship that you value. If they are frequent “offenders” you have two options: accept that they won’t give you the support you deserve so you don’t seek it from them or expect it from them OR you walk away from the relationship. Compartmentalising your social and support networks can help: emotional support from here, exercise/hobby support from there, spiritual/personal growth support from somewhere else. Warning though: when you do this don’t cut yourself off totally from people who have children. If you never have any meaningful contact with children, you won’t see any progress that you are making in that area. Be sensible though, and only attend social gathering with children when you feel strong enough to handle the triggers and decline invitations when you are not.
Don’t be afraid to grieve: When we are feeling overwhelmed by our emotions we can become scared to allow ourselves to feel the pain. We believe that we are standing on the edge of an abys and if we start to explore or acknowledge our emotions the flood gates will open, and we will never stop crying. We worry that is we let our guard down we will be in free-fall for the rest of our lives. However, ignoring or suppressing our feelings is stops us from healing: you cannot heal until you feel. Grieving is an act of love: the love that you have for yourself and the love that you have for the children you never got to hold. If our unborn children were able to talk to us they would beg us not to feel so overwhelmed by the loss of the life that we dreamed of that we walk through the live that we were given zombie-like, not really alive, and certainly not enjoying the good bits that are to be found. Grieving for our unborn children, and eventually “letting them go” is not an indication that we didn’t love them enough, it’s an indication of how much we do love them. It will be hard, especially at the beginning, which is why you need to have the right support network in place. However, if you push through this stage things will get better. Think of grieving as cleaning out a cupboard: it always looks far worse before it gets better.
Don’t be afraid of triggers: Unfortunately, triggers are part and parcel of our situation. They can come in many shapes and sizes as something that is a huge trigger for you could be something that another person isn’t affected by at all. So, the first thing to remember about triggers is that you shouldn’t compare your response to anyone else’s. Secondly, tweaking your mindset about triggers could make them easier to deal with. Most of us are terrified of them and avoid them at all costs. Changing your mindset so you look at triggers as a way of assessing your healing progress can make all the difference. As you become more self-aware you start responding different and the triggers have less power to overwhelm you. You get upset by a trigger and you recognise that it is part of the healing process. You are gentle on yourself and don’t add bucket loads of guilt and failure to the other emotions you are feeling: they are upsetting enough as it is without adding any more to them. You don’t respond to a trigger as badly as you anticipated. Your self-awareness takes this as a sign that you have made progress. You didn’t cry when previously you had. You did cry for an hour, when previously you would have cried for days. These are all signs of progress and, as such, need to be celebrated! If you consciously avoid every potential trigger you may never realise how much progress that you have actually made.
I’ll be sharing more thoughts on healing and building that momentum next week.
Be kind to yourself …
In CANBACE friendship!
If anything I have written resonates I’d love to hear from you in the comments. I appreciate that this can be a difficult subject to speak openly about. If you don’t want me to publish your comment on the website please let me know. I will keep your words private.
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