Grief | Life Lessons | Life | Inspiration | Widows

My Life Is Back in Session!

How I Defeated Grief from the Jaws of Victory Once More.

Yesterday was a horrible day. As well as the night before.

The melancholy was back once again. Rearing its gloomy head.

I couldn’t shake the compulsion to cry. Tears would well up, then flow down my cheeks. Deep within, the sadness and grief wreaked havoc with my mindset and body. I was, once again, a despondent zombie. Not wanting to move or think. Everything was too much of an effort.

I’m not sure what triggered the onslaught of grief. I wasn’t prepared for it. I thought and felt that I had left the valley of grief for good. Yet, there it was coming back with a vengeance.

Why the sadness?

Part of my sadness may be due to threats of shutting down the world again because of a COVID19 “resurgence.” I’m fearful that this would be more disastrous than the first shutdown. And to me, it feels like my world is getting smaller and smaller. Options to enjoy and take part in all the world has to offer have been severely restricted.

I so want to spread my wings and fly. I want to experience as much as I can during the time I have left in my life. I don’t want to be on “hold” indefinitely. Jim and I have so many things we want to do, achieve, and enjoy. But the current world situation hinders our efforts.

Even going grocery shopping is becoming a stressful task. Staying away from people. Not going down the grocery aisles the “wrong way” — even though the item I want is a quarter of the way down. Normal foodstuffs constantly out-of-stock. Being afraid to cough or sneeze because someone may accuse you of having COVID. I’m almost to the point of ordering my groceries online, so I won’t have to deal with all the falderol.

Then I would be giving in to the hysteria. I also would be giving up a small pleasure that Jim and I have. Shopping. Together, we decide what to buy that would maintain our health, vibrancy, and well-being. Plus, we have so much fun shopping because it’s always an adventure filled with laughter and delight.

Another fearful thought running in my mind, fueling my sadness, was that having Jim in my life wouldn’t last. That all this wonderfulness would disappear forever. And I would be without love once again. I realized my psyche wasn’t as strong as I thought … I was sensing its fragility and vulnerability.

I didn’t want to feel this way anymore.

So, I tried my go-to trick to climb out of my depressive mood: Reading a random passage from a book.

From The Noticer Returns:

“Seriously stuck provides a clearly defined opportunity. When one is seriously stuck, there is an obvious choice that must be made. You can do one of two things. You can quit or you can break through to a new level of awareness and achievement. … The answer one seeks when seriously stuck is never far away.”

And from The Obstacle Is the Way:

“Perspective is everything.

Remember: We choose how we’ll look at things. We retain the ability to inject perspective into a situation. We can’t change the obstacles themselves — that part of the equation is set — but the power of perspective can change how the obstacles appear. How we approach an obstacle … and what we tell ourselves it means, determines how daunting it will be to overcome.

The right perspective has a strange way of cutting obstacles — and adversity — down to size.”

I’m not a quitter.

So, my choice is to break through to a new level of awareness and achievement. And to do that, I need to inject a different perspective into my mind and my thoughts. I can change their meaning and defeat the fear my thoughts have inflicted upon me.

I started asking myself what I could concentrate on that would be calming to me. What could I do that would bring a glimmer of hope back into my thoughts?

A solution in my bookcase?

As I looked around my office, my eyes rested upon my wall-to-wall bookcase. On a bottom shelf were binders filled with printed marketing material circa 2003. Mainly Internet information. As I gazed at the notebooks, I wondered why I was holding onto them. The information was outdated. It didn’t apply to what my life is about now.

A lightbulb — about the size of a night light — went off in my mind. Perhaps it’s time for me to throw all those papers away. No sense of holding onto the “old” any longer. Lingering, within the papers, were memories of when my husband and I pursued a business together. Now gone. It’s time to let go of them, too.

It was as if a spring underneath my chair pushed me up and out. There were five notebooks I could empty. And I did. For some reason, it was cathartic to unbind the contents within each notebook. Watching the three-hole-punched paper pile up was liberating (for me and it(?)). Storing away the empty binders and pitching the foot-high pile of paper into the recycle bin brought some relief.

I now had more space in my bookcase, my office, and my house. Then, I realized I made room for more new experiences and love to enter into my life. I started feeling better.

A new perspective.

The answer to stopping the grief invasion wasn’t too far away.

By looking at my bookcase with a new perspective, I saw I was holding onto past memories of life with my late husband. I don’t really know if those binders were the impetus for the bout of grief, sadness, and depression. Yet getting rid of their contents was an unexpected way to dissolve the engulfing grief during those heart-aching hours.

I was ready to re-start my journey to my new life of bodaciousness. I don’t want to lose another minute of it to sadness or depression.

My life is back in session!

Below is a link to Tim’s story about life is now in session. Enjoy!

I would t to thank Dr. Yildiz and the entire Illumination community for creating this platform to help each other have better lives filled with joy, love, and happiness. I also want to thank Tim Maudlin and Jeff Herring for their support and encouragement to publish what I’ve written.

PS I’m a widow who now refuses to live a life filled with grief but instead, I live a life filled with joy, happiness, and love.

I’ve written about my journey out of grief and into bodaciousness. If this story helped you to alleviate some sadness or grief, I invite you to read my other stories about life and the possibilities to experience joy once more.

This story is brought to you by Linda Kay Halladay. Find out more about my travels through grief in my introduction: