Gary Roe's Blog, page 14

When Emotions Hijack Your Life

Life is full of surprises. Some are great. Some are good. Some are, well, not what we would want. Some are painful, even tragic.

When we get surprised by a hit – a death, betrayal, affair, divorce, financial disaster, job loss – our hearts shudder. Emotion surges forth. Life is no longer business as usual.

 

The Heart: A Unique Combo of Logic and Emotion

“I’m slow at this grief thing. I’m learning to express what I’m feeling. Sharing what I’m going through isn’t natural for me,” Art said.

“I’m not good at it, but I’m trying,” he continued, smiling.

Art lost his wife, Sylvia, several months previously. He was in new territory. He didn’t feel like himself. No wonder.

All of us live using a unique combo of logic and emotion. You may normally operate more in one realm than the other. When in shock or grief, however, emotion begins to take over. No matter who we are, logic tends to take a back seat.

 

When Feelings Hijack Us

When disaster strikes, emotions can hijack us. Suddenly we find ourselves underneath the wave, gasping for air, soaked with an unusual intensity of feelings.

Expressing emotion is important. Some keep a journal. Other speak it out loud. Others might write letters to a departed loved one.

It’s surprising how powerful a simple, “I feel sad,” or “I feel angry,” can be.

Pay attention to your feelings. Your heart is worth it.

Here’s an affirmation for today:

“I’ll learn to pay attention to what I’m feeling. This is part of honoring you.”

With practice, we can learn to ride the waves that once buried us. Emotions are real, but they are not necessarily reality. Feel them. Process them.

Over time, your heart will find balance again. But it will be different than before because you are not the same.

Adapted from Heartbroken: Healing from the Loss of a Spouse (Amazon Bestseller, USA Best Book Award Finalist, National Indie Excellence Book Award Finalist)

Question: What emotion seems to hijack you most frequently? 

How to Handle the Hits of Life

I once asked a hospice patient what his favorite season was. Without hesitation, he responded, “Football season!”

It’s that time of year. You can sense it. The atmosphere is permeated with that unique Friday-night-lights, Saturday-tailgating, Sunday-afternoon-couch-potato feeling that every Fall seems to bring.

 

Life is a lot like football

In some ways, life resembles football. It can be exciting, exhilarating, and thrilling. It can also be scary, unnerving, and painful. It demands discipline, hard work, and guts. Trusting our coaches, being a team player, and learning to excel at our positions are indispensable. Mastering the game plan is crucial, but making good adjustments along the way can be even more important.

Above all else, one fact remains: If you’re in the game, you’re going to get hit. How you respond to the hits will make a huge difference, not just for you, but for the entire team.

Life is wonderful – and tough. We’re going to take some hits. A few of them might be brutal. A mentor of mine once said, “Life is a series of losses. How we interpret and respond to those losses makes all the difference.”

We’ve heard this before, many times. I think of the old Timex commercials – “It takes a licking and keeps on ticking.” Here are some other well-used examples:

When the going gets tough, the tough get going.
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.
Quitters never win and winners never quit.
No pain, no gain.
What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.

The message is clear. Hits will come. Be ready. Persevere. Endure. Stay at it. Keep moving. Overcome.

 

As we age, the losses pile up

As we age, the losses pile up. Over time we lose abilities, memory, health, and even independence. We can do less. Body parts ache more. Our schedules become littered with medical visits. We’re slower. We wear down. Life gets more exhausting. As a friend of mine recently said, “I was just tired before. Now I’m re-tired!”

We also experience relational losses. People leave, move, or separate. Some distance themselves or disappear. Everyone is getting older. People die. Life and relationships are always in flux. Nothing stays the same for very long.

Over time, our accumulated losses can grow heavy. Like an aging football player, we feel the hits more. Pain from past injuries surfaces. We adjusted and healed at the time, but we didn’t walk away unaffected. How we responded to those hits powerfully shaped us.

Again, how we interpret and respond to the losses we experience will have a massive impact on our lives. This is truer now than ever before.

 

How do we handle the hits that come?

How do we handle the losses of life, past, present, and future? Here are a few suggestions.

First, be aware of your own personal history of loss.

We all have a history of loss. Our pasts are littered with disappointments, rejections, and conflicts.

Neglect, abandonment, domestic violence, sexual abuse, physical abuse, physical illness, mental illness, handicaps, learning disabilities, bullying, failures, moves, relational break-ups, separations, divorce, deployment, and deaths – these are hits we might experience in life. Some have more intense histories than others, but the key is not how much loss we’ve had but how we responded to the hits that came. The past never determines our future, but it does greatly influence it.

Being aware of your history of loss can be helpful in navigating current and future difficulties.

Second, be real and authentic.

Most of us try to put a good face on things. Nothing wrong with that. But sometimes we can also be guilty of stuffing our losses and denying the pain that comes from them.

What we shove inside doesn’t disappear, but gets stored away to be released later. Unresolved grief and loss can pop up as anxiety, depression, mental or physical illness, vocational trouble, and relational dysfunction. Not handling our losses well can eat us up from the inside out.

Wouldn’t it be nice if our baggage got lighter rather than heavier as time went on? I believe this is possible. We can offload some weight by becoming more real and authentic.

We all need someone – hopefully several people – that we can be ourselves with. We heal and grow as we are real with a few other people about what’s happening inside us.

Third, cultivate a thankful heart.

See the positives. Count your blessings. Keep the glass half full. Don’t deny the obstacles and difficulties, but cease to view them through “doom and gloom” lenses.

An old proverb states, “A thankful heart is good medicine.” Seeing the good and being thankful can become salve to painful wounds. Thankfulness leads to more healing than we realize.

Fourth, intentionally turn losses into gains.

I once read a book titled I Eat Problems for Breakfast. We wake up and boom – here come the challenges.

If hits are inevitable, why not make them count? No matter what happens, focus on growing and learning through it. Put the pain and grief to work. Seek to serve, assist, and love others. Live with purpose.

The heart tends to heal as we give and serve. As we turn losses into gains, others will benefit, and the ripple effect can be extraordinary.

Fifth, develop an “overcomer” mindset.

Life can be brutal. Don’t waste the pain, but make the most of it. Much of life is about overcoming.

This is hero-making stuff. We live for others, for the greater good – leaping, vaulting, and sometimes stumbling over speed bumps, potholes, and road closure signs along the way. We overcome – again, and again, and again.

We eat problems for breakfast.

 

How we do life matters

Every one of us is more important than we realize. How we do life – including how we interpret and respond to the hits along the way – matters.

Be yourself. Be real and authentic. Cultivate a thankful, appreciative heart. Seek to grow and serve. Turn those losses into gains. Develop an overcomer mindset.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s breakfast time. I have some problems to eat.

This article first appeared in the Bryan-College Station EAGLE, September Seasoned Magazine, 2017.

 

Question: Of the five suggestions in this article, which one resonates with you the most, and why?

Grieving Teens: How All of Us Can Help

Being a teen is tough. I remember. I know you do too.

Teens are hurting, and we can help. While trying to make sense of an increasingly confusing and troubled world, teens get hit, again and again, with moves, separations, divorces, rejections, substance abuse, domestic violence, sexual abuse, illness, disability, and death.

Edgy, fun-loving, tech-driven, and seemingly indestructible, their souls are shaking. Gnawing questions surface from deep inside:

“How did this happen?”
“Why me?”
“Is this my fault?”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Who’s next?”
“Am I going to make it?”

At 15, I was that kid. I had huge losses early and then got hit with more in my early teens. I became a functional orphan wondering if life was worth it. If it hadn’t been for the compassion of teachers, coaches, school administrators, a youth pastor, and the parents of my closest friends, who knows what might have happened.

Teen hearts are at stake. Each one is a priceless treasure. We can’t afford to allow pain and loss to get the better of them. That’s why I wrote Teen Grief: Caring for the Grieving Teenage Heart.

This book is not for teens, but for those of us who live and work with them – parents, grandparents, teachers, coaches, school administrators, counselors, clergy, youth workers, and anyone who cares about teens. My goal in this book is to take my own history and more than 30 years’ experience of interacting with grieving, hurting teens, and give readers a heartfelt, compassionate, written-in-plain-everyday-English practical handbook for guiding teens through the turbulent waters of loss.

Teens are our future. If we can help them discover how to turn losses into gains and transform hardship into something productive, positive, and good, the ripple effects could be extraordinary. As they heal and grow, these teens can become the difference-makers this world so desperately needs.

I invite you to check out Teen Grief today. Grab a copy on Amazon, or a free excerpt from my website.

Teens are hurting. They need us. It’s time to help them heal.

Question: Do you know anyone who lives and / or works with teens? Please consider passing this info along to them. Who knows what a difference one share or email might make? Thank you!

 

Finding Hope Again

“I’ll always grieve, but I’ll somehow learn to live again,” Will said.

Will’s son Adam had a complicated childhood. His mom left when he was three. He didn’t remember her, but he never got over it.

Though Will did a marvelous job as a single parent, Adam struggled. His angst and depression led him to drugs. Eventually, Adam took his own life. He was 17.

“The pain was terrible. People got me through it – great friends, a support group, a counselor, and a doctor,” Will shared. “I began to breathe again. Adam has become more a part of me than ever. I love him. I always will.”

 

Finding hope again

Finding hope is crucial. With some losses, it can seem to disappear. Our hearts are so wounded that we can’t even imagine it. Healing in any shape, form, or fashion seems impossible.

As we move through our grief, things begin to change over time. Our hearts begin to beat again. Our souls slowly wake, as if from a coma. Color gradually returns to the dull, gray world we’ve been living in.

And one day we sense something we haven’t felt for a long time. Hope.

The truth is that hope didn’t take a hiatus. It’s always been there, but our shattered hearts couldn’t see it, much less take it in. As we process our grief in responsible and healthy ways, more space opens up in our pain-riddled hearts. We sense hope’s presence again.

Our loved one has become more a part of us. They have settled into their always-place in our hearts, though they are no longer physically present in our daily lives. Hope, like a gentle breeze on a stagnant day, begins to blow through our souls again.

And suddenly we realize an important fact: we’re going to make it. We’re going to survive this. We will live on, honoring our loved one along the way.

Granted, at any given moment we may not feel hopeful at all. Many of us are still in the heat of the emotional battle, bouncing from sadness to anger to fear to anxiety to depression and back again. We may feel forlorn and empty. Exhaustion might be the current state of our existence. But it will not always be so.

Grief is a long and winding road. It meanders over many hills and through multiple valleys. As we travel, the landscape is forever changing, as do the people around us and our circumstances. We trudge on, one small step at a time, leaning forward as best we can. It is a journey through uncharted territory.

Eventually, calmer terrain greets us. The sun shines a bit more. The air grows lighter, fresher. Even some flowers begin to appear along the side of the road.

We carry our loved one with us, inside us, to greet the next portion of the journey. Which way the road will turn, we don’t know. But we do know we love them, and that we will live to honor them any way we can. We will walk on, telling their story, for it is our story too.

Love endures. It always has. It always will.

“Hope will return. I believe this. I love you. I always will.”

Adapted from the new bestseller, Shattered: Surviving the Loss of a Child. Watch the Shattered videos here: Gary, Michelle.

 

When You Miss Their Voice

There’s nothing quite like someone’s voice. It’s a signature of sorts.

Some voices are like music to our ears. They announce the presence of someone we love and delight in. Just the sound of their voice brings a smile of joy.

When someone exits, their voice goes silent. Yes, we might have recordings, videos, or DVDs to help us remember and feel connected. But their “live” voice is gone.

The ensuing silence can bring deep sadness.

 

“I Miss his Voice”

“There’s no one else like him. The intimacy we enjoyed was special. We were true partners,” Betty shared.

“I especially loved all the playful, verbal bantering. It was so much fun. I even made a list of the words we used in our everyday conversation.”

Betty paused and sighed.

“Goodness, I miss his voice,” she said.

 

The Power of the Human Voice

The power of the human voice is extraordinary. Like the eyes, the voice uniquely expresses our hearts and minds. It’s one of the first things many bereaved spouses, family members, and friends say they miss.

What loved ones and those close to you said, and how, is deeply embedded in your soul. Their words are weighty and powerful.

Their voice may be silent to your ear, but not to your heart. They can still speak through you.

Here’s a grief affirmation for today:

“I miss your voice, but I hear it deep inside. I’ll treasure your words.”

Adapted from Heartbroken: Healing from the Loss of a Spouse (Amazon Bestseller, USA Best Book Award Finalist, National Indie Excellence Book Award Finalist).

Question: What do you miss most today? 

Grief, Anxiety, and Panic Attacks

“What’s happening to me?” Maureen asked, her voice trembling.

“I’m nervous. I shake inside. I wake up panicky in the middle of the night. I can’t settle down. Yesterday, I had an anxiety attack in the grocery store,” she continued. “I seem to be anxious all the time, about everything.”

Maureen’s daughter Molly began having sudden vision problems. A visit to the eye doctor morphed into a trip to the ER. By the end of the day, Maureen had been told that Molly had an advanced, inoperable brain tumor.

Molly died two years later. She was eight years old.

Molly’s treatment was an intense, exhausting process. Those two years seemed like a lifetime. Her parents managed to hold it together through it all. Soon after the funeral, however, things changed. The intense activity came to a grinding halt, and all the anxiety stored up in them began to spurt out.

“I worry about everything. What’s going to happen next? Who’s next?” Maureen asked, hands shaking, her eyes pleading for relief.

 

Anxiety is common in grief

When loss shatters our world, anxiety is usually one of the results.

Our sense of control is gone. We feel helpless. We wonder what will happen next.

Our loved one’s death calls many things into question. The world and life are not as fair as we imagined. We’re not as powerful as we thought. We’re have far less control than we dreamed.

Anything can happen at any time to ourselves or to anyone we love and care about.

Anxiety is the natural result.

We are limited beings. We can only handle so much stress, loss, and tragedy. The anxiety builds. Sooner or later, we begin to feel it. It slowly leaks, spurts out, or bursts forth in a flood.

Our lives have been forcefully altered. Anxiety and panic attacks are common.

Anxiety is a natural expression of our grief.

“I’m anxious. That’s natural. Losing you is traumatic.”

An exercise to try:

“Just breathe,” is a common phrase in grief recovery circles. Breathing deeply can be one of the best practices to implement when anxiety hits.

Take some time now, and breathe.

Close your eyes and breathe in deeply and slowly through your nose.
Then let it out slowly through your mouth.
Repeat, again and again.
Do this for several minutes, focusing on your own breathing as much as possible.

Do this simple breathing exercise at least once each day. Practicing it when you’re not anxious is important. Once deep breathing becomes a habit, you can apply it much more easily when anxiety or panic strikes.

Over time, a well-practiced habit of breathing deeply can make a huge difference.

Adapted from the recently released bestseller SHATTERED: Surviving the Loss of a Child. View the Shattered videos here: Gary , Michelle

 

When the past complicates our grief…

In grief, we sometimes carry extra baggage we’re unaware of. Wounds from the past can exert their influence and complicate the present. Grief is tough enough, without this extra weight.

 

A mountain of regret

Years ago, I had a serious conversation with a gentleman named Sam. He told me his life history. It wasn’t pretty.

Sam grew up in an abusive, violent home. He ran to drugs, alcohol, and crime at an early age. His life was riddled with pain, frustration, and anger.

Sam summed up his life philosophy this way: “Do to others as they’ve done to you.’”

Sam grew up surrounded by the don’t-get-mad-get-even mindset, so he naturally saw life through those lenses. Exact your own form of justice. Get them before they get you.

As a result, Sam had accumulated a massive pile of regrets.  The mountain was so high he couldn’t imagine being able to climb it. Now, his closest friend had died, and this sent him over the emotional edge. The pain hijacked his heart.

 

When the past drives the present

If we’re not careful, the pain of the past can secretly drive the present, creating all kinds of havoc. Our grieving hearts can’t afford that, and neither can our relationships.

Most of us have unresolved stuff out there:

A deep wound like abuse, abandonment, or neglect
A relationship gone wrong and never put right
Things said and done we wish we could delete
Things not said or done we believe should have been
Losses with no closure, where we had no chance to say goodbye

I picture regrets and unfinished business as a filing cabinet in my heart. The more that’s in there, the more it weighs me down. Then more hurt occurs. Perhaps another loss hits. I open a drawer and file away another wound. Soon, the cabinet is overflowing.

Unfinished business exerts constant pressure.  Grudges and regret leak out all over the place. They create anxiety and can lead to depression and all sorts of mental health concerns. That heavy old filing cabinet can raise our blood pressure and create all manner of physical health issues.

 

The secret to handling unfinished business

If we want to grieve well, recover and heal, we need to unload whatever excess baggage we can. The big key to doing that is forgiveness.

Here are some truths about forgiveness:

Forgiveness isn’t saying it didn’t matter.
Forgiveness is saying it did matter, it hurt, and I choose to release my heart from being controlled by it any longer.
Lack of forgiveness keeps past pain alive and gives it power in the present.
Lack of forgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die.
Forgiveness is not weakness or being a doormat. It takes courage and strength.
Forgiveness releases us to go on living and grieving in healthy ways.
Forgiveness is a choice. We don’t need permission to forgive.

Unfinished business also includes the hurt we’ve caused. In order to unload our filing cabinet, we have to begin to take responsibility for what we did and said. Perhaps we need to ask forgiveness. Maybe we need to attempt to make things right.

And we certainly need for forgive ourselves. This can be the toughest of all.

 

“Forgive them, and yourself, and do it now.”

I met with Sam several times over a period of months. He was able to resolve many wounds from his past. He began to see how the past had invaded and fueled his anger about the recent death of his friend. He grieved heavily, and in healthy ways. He unpacked his filing cabinet and experienced significant peace of mind and heart.

When I asked him what advice he would give others, he said, “Forgive them, and yourself, and do it now.”

Open your filing cabinet.

Begin to clean out what you find there.

Keep the cabinet as light as possible by making forgiveness a continual priority.

Yes, grief is heavy enough, without the extra weight of unfinished business. It would be nice to be able to grieve our current loss, without being distracted or crushed by what happened or didn’t happen along the way.

Here’s to lighter filing cabinets.

Quick, pass the shredder.

Are there “extras” from the past complicating your grief process? Is there a “next step” you sense you need to take in dealing with them?

We speak their name…

Recently, I had the honor of speaking at Hospice Brazos Valley’s Celebration of Life service. Over 200 people came, some with pictures in hand, to pay tribute to and honor loved ones who died over the last year. As I looked out at this sea of faces, I could see the grief on their shoulders and in their eyes. As one attendee put it, “I’m alive, but heartbroken. I’ll never be the same.”

No, we’ll never be the same.

I began with, “I’m so glad you’re here. And I’m so sorry. Tonight we’re here to remember, to love, and to honor those we’ve lost. You’re here because you loved them, and you love them still.”

I went on to share five things they could do to remember, honor, and celebrate their loved one. I would like to share these with you today in the hope that it will be comforting and encouraging to you.

 

“We will speak their name.” 

Names are powerful. Just a few letters can mean so much.

Say their name out loud. See their face. Picture their smile. Speak their name.

 

“We will tell their stories.”

We tell the stories – precious memories no one and nothing can take from us. We might cry, smile, laugh, perhaps sob, or go silent,  but we tell the stories. And as we tell the stories, we see them. We remember. Telling their story is part of loving them, and part of taking our own broken hearts seriously.

 

“We will live their legacy.”

What was important to them? What was their life about? Don’t be fooled, for in many ways, they are not gone. They are a part of you. Their interactions with you, influence upon you, and their love for you deeply affected you and contributed to who you have become. They may not be here physically, but they are far from gone.

Let something that was important to them be important to you. Continue the cause. Serve in their stead. Give. Live their legacy.

 

“We will honor them on special days.”

Our calendars are littered with special times – birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and many more. How can you remember and express love for them on these days? Light a candle. Gather and share memories. Write them a letter or card. Set up an empty chair. Be creative.

Don’t simply dread these times and let them hijack you. Make a simple plan. Honor them on special days.

 

“We will love them by taking care of ourselves.”

A wonderful way to honor your loved one and love those around you is to take the best care of yourself possible. Let this rise to number one on your priority list.

Grief is draining and demanding. Honor them by taking care of you.

 

We speak their name. We tell their stories. We live their legacy. We honor them on special days. We love them by taking care of ourselves.

We do this because we loved them. We love them still.

What about you? Of the five suggestions above, which one resonates with you the most? Why?

 

 

What To Do When You Feel Like Screaming…

©unsplash.com

Ever feel like screaming? With all the losses we get hit with, and all that happens to us and around us, it’s hard to believe we aren’t screaming most of the time.

Perhaps we are – silently, in the deep recesses of our hearts.

Maybe it’s time we let a little of that pain out.

 

Betty went a little nuts – on purpose

Betty lived in a nursing home and spent her waking hours in a wheelchair. She suffered from an assortment of ailments, but none of them could touch her mind. She was sharp.

“Hello, Betty. How are you today?” I asked.

“Well, to be honest, I feel kind of stupid,” Betty said, cocking an eyebrow. “I don’t know which end is up and I can’t see well enough to find it anyway. And if I could find it I wouldn’t know what to do with it.”

I smiled. Betty began to giggle.

“So, you know what I’m thinking about doing?” she continued. “I’m thinking about having a nervous breakdown. I’ve never had one of those. Wonder how you do that. Do I begin by screaming?”

Now I began to giggle.

Betty looked at me, her eyes growing larger by the second. Suddenly she threw her head back and began waving her arms and screaming.

The staff at the nursing station looked up, startled. I took a quick step forward. Betty abruptly stopped screaming and shouted, “Stay where you are! I’m not done yet!” Then she smiled and started screaming again. The staff giggled and returned to their work. I rolled my eyes, crossed my arms, and waited.

After a few more seconds, she stopped.

“Are you done now?” I asked.

“Yes, quite. That was fun. Let’s do it again sometime,” she said.

 

Screaming therapy?

Life does get a little crazy at times. Sometimes, it hurts. Deeply. We miss loved ones. Our hearts are broken. Maybe some screaming therapy is in order.

I’m serious. Screaming can be therapeutic. At least it was for me.

When I experienced intense grief as a result of flashbacks about childhood sexual abuse, I often screamed into a pillow. Other times, I would make my way to the car, drive a few miles from the house, and let it rip.

It was so effective, I’ve screamed many times sense (not in public, of course). Intense grief is powerful – and it deserves healthy, powerful expression.

 

Healthy release, is, well, healthy

There is so much inside us needing release:

Sadness
Frustration
Anger
Depression
Anxiety
Despair

The pressure builds over time. If we don’t let it out, it leaks – or explodes – usually in unhealthy ways.

What if we were proactive? What if, when we felt things building, we excused ourselves and had some screaming therapy (privately, of course)?

It’s definitely better than a nervous breakdown.

Thanks Betty.

Question: Have you ever engaged in some screaming therapy? What was that like for you?

Weird Symptoms: When Grief Gets Physical

©photodune.net

Grief often gets physical.

“I have headaches. My back hurts. My stomach bothers me almost every day. I have dizzy spells. I think my body is falling apart,” Shirley shared.

Seemingly out of the blue, Shirley’s daughter Corinne was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer. The treatment was severe enough that Corrine finally opted to go on hospice care. After six months with a good quality of life, Corinne died at home surrounded by her husband, her two daughters, and the rest of her loving family. She was 44.

“After Corinne’s death, I’ve been getting hit with one thing after another. I had tests done. Nothing. Then I wondered, could this be grief?” Shirley asked.

 

When grief gets physical

Many people experience new, exacerbated, or strange physical symptoms following the death of a loved one. When grief hits, it smacks our bodies too.

Grief is form of stress. As such, it naturally taxes our immune system and causes our bodies to work harder to maintain health. In the short term, we might be able to manage without too much distress. Over the long haul, however, grief can wear us down. All kinds of health issues can surface.

We can experience headaches, muscle aches, tightness in the chest, and neck pain. Some report chest pain, palpitations, or rapid heartbeat. Others complain of stomach pain, intestinal distress, bowel changes, heartburn, or nausea. Many experience air hunger (the feeling of not being able to get enough air), frequent colds, or persistent respiratory infections. The list goes on and on.

Our immune systems are suppressed. Our bodies are feeling our distress. We are more vulnerable physically.

Grief is not an illness like the common cold, where we can expect to recover and be as good as new in a few days. Grief is more like an extended battle or a demanding marathon. We must learn to pace ourselves and appreciate that our entire system is under duress.

Weathering this physically challenging storm is a long-term adventure. Taking ourselves and our bodies seriously is a key to grieving in a healing and healthy way.

The death of a loved one affects our whole person. Experiencing some grief-related physical symptoms is natural and common.

“I miss you so much it hurts, literally. Grief pounds me, body and soul.”

 

Some important reminders:

These almost go without saying, but making sure the following three things are in place in your life can make a radical difference in your ability to weather the grieving process well.

Good nutrition (eating healthy and hydrating well)
Adequate sleep (since grief is exhausting, you might need more than usual)
Regular exercise (burns off emotion, releases endorphins, and bolsters the immune system)

Taking good care of yourself is one powerful way to love your loved one and honor his or her memory.

 

Adapted from the newly released bestseller, Shattered: Surviving the Loss of a Child. You can watch the Shattered videos here: Gary, Michelle