Grieving is Breathing

You may not understand what it means what Grieving is Breathing means, but allow me to explain what it means from my eyes.

Today, the relationship between grieving and daily life is strained. For those who have not lost someone close to them, they may not understand the toll it takes on you. Mentally, emotionally and physically. Grieving just doesn’t take on the form of death. Grieving is losing anything that holds a special place in your heart. But today, we’re going to focus on just grieving your loved ones.

The burden this heaps upon your shoulders is akin to being in a strongman competition. It feels like like every muscle fiber, every brain cell, and every organ is pushed to exhaustion. You compete, you fight and it still feels like you came in last place. We have to realize that we still competed.

When it comes to the workplace, we know that even though our jobs may give us one week grievance pay, do we really believe that after a week of losing our spouse, sibling, or our grandparents that we are ready to re-enter the work-force? Better yet, go back to our daily lives? The answer is no, but we feel that losing our jobs is more important than making sure we are fine mentally. We believe that staying busy will keep us from thinking about it, and there-in lies the problem. We runaway.

So often, we mistake an individuals coping mechanism with healing. We don’t realize these are at opposite end of the spectrum. Coping has its limits and eventually that person will explode, burn out, or feel like giving up. They haven’t addressed their problems head on, whereas healing takes on a lasting effect. Healing takes times just like grieving does. I’d venture to say most people haven’t addressed these problems which is why we all still endure so much pain.

It can take years for someone to heal or to properly grieve and we can’t tell them they’re wrong for doing so. Have I properly grieved my mother? I haven’t. Why? Because I was busy giving my energy to others and helping them deal with the loss of their friend, sister, aunt, etc. Was that their fault? Not at all. It was my fault for believing I could heal others and myself at the same time.

We’ve see all too often a hurt person giving out all of their energy until they no longer have any for themselves. They can’t say no because they haven’t set those boundaries. Personally speaking, I never got to properly process how I felt and come to grips with the death of my mother. That will be a post for another day.

But instead of addressing our feelings we push them to the side. We ignore these feelings, until can’t. Once we can no longer deal with our emotions, our emotions transform and take on another form: aggression, attitude, anger, explosive speech, isolation or depression.

More people are realizing that being mentally healthy leads to being healthy physically and emotionally. They realize they have to take their mental health into their own hands, because no one else will.

So many people are struggling with their feelings right now. They haven’t gotten over past losses but slowly they are rebuilding their life. It’s hard. It’s DIFFICULT. Through it all, we see it reveal details about us as individuals but the payoff is worth it.

It’s why I started a podcast called Grieve Until You Breathe which focuses on how to grieve, how to heal and what goes into the process. I’d be lying if I said I was an expert. I’ll be growing and healing along with you but my hope is to normalize the grieving process because we will all go through it at one point or another in our lives.

Grieving is part of life. When you grieve, when you heal, you’re breathing. It’s keeping you alive. Grieving is breathing out the negativity and dark emotions and allowing yourself time and energy for healing. Grieving is letting the forest of your life regrow. The soil is healthy. It’s time for you to breath, plant and heal.