Finding the courage to grieve

Feel your pain in order to heal your pain

I woke up the other day with a strong urge to call my mum. Then I remembered that she’d died. I would never hear her voice again.

I put my head back on the pillow, closed my eyes and cried. I stayed there for a while, ignoring the urge to kick-start my day with exercise or work.

Once the tears had dried, I wrote the following words:

It takes huge courage to grieve — to grieve the death of a loved one, the end of a relationship, the absence of children, the loss of our health or the loss of the life we thought we’d have.

It’s much easier to avoid our feelings, to sidestep our pain.

It’s much easier to stay busy, to rush and to push.

It’s much easier to fill our bodies and minds with stress, worry and adrenaline, so that we’re numb to our grief.

It’s much easier to change our emotional state by overeating on food, drinking too much, taking drugs, over-working and over-achieving, compulsively exercising, or seeking out the adoring attention or intimate touch of someone else, even though we know that relationship isn’t good for us.

Staying with the feelings is the road less travelled.

Feeling the feelings is the harder path.

But it’s the one that yields the greatest healing and growth.

So muster up all your courage, dear reader, and sink into yourself.

Allow yourself to travel into the depths of your heart and to feel your pain.

Yes, it may hurt, but it won’t topple you, because you are strong.

And by feeling and healing your feelings, you will grow taller and emerge stronger.

What’s the alternative? Surely there’s a less painful way?

The truth is that if you numb your sadness or avoid it in some way, your feelings will stay stuck inside. They’ll remain trapped until the day they catch up with you when you least expect it; until the day when they come out sideways, sabotaging your relationships and your happiness.

Take it from someone who knows.

For years, I ran from my feelings. I binged on food to numb them; I ran miles to get away from them; I over-worked incessantly to avoid them; I drank too much to anesthetise them; I had sex to escape them.

But no matter how much food I ate, how much booze I drank, how fast and far I ran, how hard I worked or how many bad relationships I had, the feelings stayed trapped inside.

My relationships failed. My health suffered. I burnt out and I broke down.

Finally, I found the courage to stop running and to face my feelings. I found the courage to grieve.

I am sending you this courage today.

Grief, as you know, isn’t a linear journey. It’s not something we can schedule into our day. But when it knocks on our door, we can let it in and sit with it for a while, because only in that way will we heal.

About Katherine Baldwin

I am a writer, dating and relationships coach, mid-life mentor and motivational speaker. I’m the author of How to Fall in Love — A 10-Step Journey to the Heart and I write for the national media on topics including love and dating, how to change unhelpful habits and have healthy relationships, and other aspects of personal growth. I coach people to create healthy, loving and authentic relationships with themselves and others, and lives they truly love. I lead workshops and run retreats. You can find out more about me at www.katherinebaldwin.com and www.howtofallinlove.co.uk or read my blog at www.fromfortywithlove.com

Originally published at http://fromfortywithlove.com on March 2, 2021.