The Only Thing Guaranteed to End is Time
In my experience, all we know for definite is that someday, our time will run out. When this will happen, we don’t know, nor will we ever find out.
My experience with grief is that we as humans become so fixated on things that in the end, don’t matter. We fixate on how we look, what others think of us and go out of our way to please others. We lose sight of what is truly important to us.
I have suffered multiple losses, suicides, death of old age, and tragic sudden deaths. One thing that has always stayed with me despite different types of grief, is time. Time I should have shared, time I wasted thinking I didn’t look good enough, time I could have done more, and most of all, how quickly that time was taken away from them.
The reason I sit here writing this is to share the lessons I have briefly learned through loss. We as humans fixate on things that have an impact on how we will be perceived by others. We have to look good, have perfect makeup, certain branded clothes, or behave in certain ways around others to be ‘deemed acceptable.’
Despite these thought processes possibly being engrained since childhood and previous experiences, we can still grow and learn how to appreciate the life in which we are living and how to make the best of it.
• Don’t wait — do your best to prioritize what you want. At times, we sacrifice for others but, at the end of the day, you are the only person in the driving seat of your life. Stop waiting for others to do what you want: you could be waiting forever if you are depending on others to do it with you.
• Learn to say no — although there will be exceptions at times, we need to learn to set boundaries. Normalize prioritizing your needs and wants.
• Be Mindful — I know you’re sick of hearing that too, when I say, ‘Be Mindful’, what I really mean is, be aware of how you feel. When you know that you need a break, don’t be afraid of saying so or cancelling plans to give yourself time. Understand your mind and body enough to know when things are too much and a break is needed.
• People aren’t always right, and neither are you — when something is said or happens that upsets you, communicate that. Not by shouting or crying, but by taking time to let your emotions wind down. When returning after (normally 24hrs), and saying “what was said hurt me, because of this reason.”, you communicate why that hurt and give the other person an opportunity to learn about you and why they had this reaction and learn from it. BUT, sometimes we are in the wrong too. Taking time away from the situation to think prevents us from responding in a way in which we will regret and it will give us time to understand where we lie in terms of the situation, we were put in.
• How we feel is valid — no matter what the circumstance, our emotions are valid and we have every right to feel them.
“What we need to remember, is to honor all griefs. Honor all losses, small, and not small. Life-changing and moment changing. And then, not to compare them. That all people experience pain and it is not medicine for anything” — Source: Book, Its OK not to be OK — Megan Divine.
I quote this because, in grief, we can try to comfort others but in fact sometimes this type of comfort can hurt them and make the grievers feel as if their grief is invalid. This is not the case.
Like grief, we honour all emotions, honour all things that have impacted someone, small, and not small. Whether it's losing a job or losing a person, yes, they are different but they are still both loses and upsetting to each individual. We honour both their emotions and experiences.
Just because you think yours ‘isn’t as bad as someone else's, does not mean it is invalid or doesn’t matter — it does matter and it is valid.
• Spend time with those around you — make memories, make time, do what makes you happy and spend time with family and friends, because you never know what tomorrow holds.
As grim as this may sound, many grievers have a fear of death after losing a loved one. Some of us make sure we say we love you; we make sure our last moment with everyone is happy because we know what it is to lose someone suddenly (sometimes not even suddenly but just loss).
• Live every day as if it is your last — I know people don’t like to think this way but enjoying every day to your best ability means that you live in the moment, you appreciate things as they are, learn to appreciate yourself as you are.
• Normalize talking about your mental health — “I was with my therapist”, “my anxiety is a bit bad today that’s why I was late”, if these were our physical health issues, it would be no issue if you were at the doctor or your headache was your reason for being late. Normalize talking about our emotions and feelings. Talk about how you feel.
In Tipperary, we have lost countless people to suicide. We always look back and wish we saw the signs or wish we had done more. In reality, we need to normalize mental health issues and being open to one another. Maybe by doing this, it can be a preventative of letting our emotions getting to that place, and have help sought out prior to getting to this point.
Be self-aware, learn to appreciate what we have, normalize talking about mental health, because someday, all of our time will run out, and we will only regret the things we didn’t do.
We will never regret living our lives to our fullest potential. Prioritize yourself and look after yourself. Learn to love yourself, because the only thing that we know for definite is that our time will run out, and no one is going to judge how we look or how we used our time to make ourselves happy because, in the end, it's about who we are as individuals.