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Three Lessons on Loss and Grief
Three Lessons on Loss and Grief
There is no incorrect way to respond to loss.
Andrea Brandt Ph.D. M.F.T.
Posted August 3, 2020 | Reviewed by Gary Drevitch
For days, weeks, or even months after losing someone, you may wake up in the morning with an overwhelming sadness. It can feel like a heaviness pushing down on your chest, and it starts before your conscious mind has even kicked in to remind you of what you have lost. It wasn’t just a bad dream.
Deaths of family, friends, and partners can be so devastating that your whole orientation in life feels lost, and the way your brain and body initially react to the trauma may confuse you. But there is no incorrect way to respond to loss. Don’t judge yourself.
To help you grieve and heal after a loss, here are three things you should know.
1. Grief is a healthy and necessary process.
The first thing you need to understand about grief is that you can’t take it away, and you shouldn’t try. Love lost is painful. It just is. Grief is an essential part of realistic positivity—the mindset in which we accept what is and strive for what is possible—as acceptance and acknowledgment of “what is.” Trying to avoid grieving will not work and will only increase and prolong your suffering. Unless you process grief when the loss occurs, your emotions will become stuck in your system—both mind and body. Grief will stay with you as energy in your unconscious, affecting your life until discovering it and processing it out.
Allowing your feelings to wash over you and sitting with them for a while in this accepting and non-judgmental manner is a profound healing method. Though you might imagine the worst when considering what will happen if you allow yourself to feel your feelings—that they will last forever and might even cause you to go right off the deep end— this isn’t the case. Eventually, the feelings will subside, and you will move forward in the grieving process.
2. You build resiliency by honoring and replacing what you’ve lost.
Often when a loved one dies, you lose several things at once: the person, your relationship with them, your way of living if they were your helpmate, your plans with them, and so on. Replacing what you lost in a situation of this magnitude won’t happen right away and won’t be easy, but it’s necessary—because your own life is still worth being the best it can be, despite someone you love no longer being with you.
Replacing your loss doesn’t mean forgetting the person who has died; it means finding a new person or persons to fill the role of friend, lover, or mentor. It requires allowing yourself to grieve the death fully and to let go of expectations of filling the lost person’s shoes in the same way. Replacing loss requires an awareness of your needs and the willingness to reach out toward others to fulfill them. It requires self-compassion and patience as you find your new way forward.
Perhaps no event is more likely to trigger isolation than the trauma of losing a loved one, but you need to reach out to recover. Of course, if you’re reading this amid the COVID-19 pandemic, you know how logistically difficult this can be. Getting out of yourself and focusing on someone else’s needs instead of your own is a time-tested way to heal—volunteer to tutor students online or adopt a dog or cat that needs care and a loving home. And use Zoom or socially-distanced visits to stay connected with the friends and family who are grieving also. You can help each other heal.
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3. Through loss, you learn to value life.
Death teaches us that every moment counts, that we must live and love fully, knowing that we may not get another chance. This knowledge can help you make better choices and affect how you experience life. The loss of a loved one creates an opportunity to deepen existing connections or create new ones. It can push you to meet new people and explore new ways to achieve the affirmation and love that you need.
Many people say that they became more thoughtful, loving, and compassionate after losing someone they love. It’s often the fire of this type of experience that burns away what is false and not serving you, and in rising from the ashes, you can become your most authentic, best self.
Through your memories and your love and your life, the person you lost is never truly gone. They are still with you because of who you became by being with them; they truly are part of you and live on through you. You honor their memory by living your best possible life.
Accept the awkwardness: How to make friends (and keep them)
Accept the awkwardness: How to make friends (and keep them)
August 19, 201912:25 AM ET
Lindsey Balbierz for NPR
Craving connection and friendship with other people is a fundamental part of being human. But what does being a friend mean in a world where hackers are trying to be your "friend" on Facebook?
This story comes from Life Kit, NPR's podcast for making life better — everything from finances to exercise to raising kids. For more, sign up for the newsletter and follow @NPRLifeKit on Twitter.
The act of making and being a friend is as simple as it is difficult. We spoke with experts to help find ways to make new friends, as well as to take better care of the friendships you already have.
Here are a few of their insights:
Accept the awkwardness and assume that other people need new friends, too
It's weird and uncomfortable to make new friends. When you reach out to somebody you don't know well — whether that's sending the first text message or making small talk in the elevator — you often feel exposed. You have to accept that awkwardness and the vulnerability it stems from, because guess what? You can't have friends without getting vulnerable.
Remember that people will like you more than you think they will
When you are moving through the world, don't forget that human connection is yours for the taking. It's science: Gillian Sandstrom, a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Essex in the United Kingdom, has done research on something called the "liking gap," which says that the little voice in your head telling you that somebody didn't like you very much is wrong, so don't listen to it.
"When you talk to someone else, you're actually going to brighten their day," Sandstrom says.
If you're up for it, Gillian and her colleagues have developed a scavenger hunt challenge to help you talk to strangers.
Invest in activities that you love
Ask anyone about how to make friends and they will most likely tell you to try a new hobby. It might sound hollow, says Heather Havrilesky, the advice goddess behind the "Ask Polly" column on the website The Cut, but it works.
"Do the things you're passionate about and you will naturally draw people to you, and you'll naturally connect with other people because you'll be in the right place," Havrilesky says.
Don't forget to start with something you are actually interested in, and if it doesn't work out, remind yourself that you contain multitudes! You don't have to be interested in just one thing.
It's OK to treat friendship as seriously as you would dating
Having friends is one of the most nourishing parts of being alive, so it's not weird or bad or wrong to prioritize it. Get comfortable putting yourself out there a little bit. Carve the time and space you need to find and nourish your friendships. It's what all the cool kids are doing.*
Be present
The planet is warming, our news alerts are constant, and there's so much good television out there to watch. We get it. But if you want to prioritize and nourish your friendships, you have to show up for them. We have a few tips for being present and engaged with your friends:
Listen and notice things about your friend.
Take notes! It will help you remember your conversations and allow you points of connection later.
Remember the names of folks in your friends' lives. Another thing that can help: Ask to see a picture of the person they're talking about so it sticks better in your head.
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Habit vs. Addiction: What's The Difference?
Habit vs. Addiction: What’s the Difference?
Posted September 26, 2019
Alvernia University
From a mental health point of view, the difference between habit vs. addiction can be as perplexing as it is overwhelming. The line that separates the two can be unclear, and habit-forming and addictive behaviors can overlap in a lot of unexpected ways. Understanding the differences between the two can help us make better decisions and avoid losing control.
What Is a Habit?
A habit can be summed up as a routine or regular behavior that gets harder to give up the longer that behavior goes on. The best examples of habits can be seen in how people start the day. Morning rituals largely consist of a variety of habits, like brushing teeth, taking a shower, making coffee, etc. Over time, the sequence of these behaviors can become consistent for people.
An article in Forbes unpacked the ways people develop positive habits or “rational addictions.” These kinds of healthy habits can only arise, though, when people are more aware of their own behaviors. The article was based in the context of a study that found “as ‘rational addicts,’ people can weigh the costs and benefits of their current behavior taking into consideration its implications for the future, and still choose to engage.” When people know more about how their positive behaviors benefit their lives – and how their negative behaviors do the opposite – they’re much more likely to engage in healthy habits.
At the same time, though, it’s hard to shake habits as we engage with them over and over. Jasmine Bittar of Addiction Center offered tips on how to break bad habits and build new, healthy ones. Centrally, she suggested people exit their comfort zones. Comfort feeds into habits, which is why it’s important for people to try on unfamiliar behaviors to develop healthier, more constructive ones. She recommended four primary goals to develop new habits:
Take baby steps to develop new routines.
Avoid comfortable or enabling triggers that will tempt you to indulge your habit.
Attempt to exchange old behaviors with new, comparable habits.
Refrain from self-destructive, self-deprecating thoughts.
In order to understand how habits work, it’s necessary to look at how they affect decision making. Author and New York Times reporter Charles Duhigg, discussed the role of habits within the workplace in an interview with Harvard Business Review. He said, “About 40% to 45% of what we do every day sort of feels like a decision, but it’s actually habit.” This sentiment helps explain the sort of unconscious thought process we go through when making choices. Duhigg went on to say that as habits become more automatic and routine, they become harder to shake later. After people identifying an unhealthy habit, it’s important they “diagnose the cue and the reward.” Then, people can successfully work toward developing new habits.
What Is an Addiction?
Addictions, on the other hand, are much more powerful than habits. In these instances, for the most part, people will make sacrifices to their lives out of an obligation to pursue a substance or practice.
Defining addiction is difficult, but the American Psychiatric Association provides a simple explanation for what brings on certain addictive behaviors. The organization wrote, “People with addiction (severe substance use disorder) have an intense focus on using a certain substance(s), such as alcohol or drugs, to the point that it takes over their life.” As a result, people who are addicted to something experience different modes of thinking and altered brain functions. People who exhibit addictive qualities are sometimes aware of their mental health problem yet continue to engage in risky, problematic behaviors.
Addictions don’t have to be centered on consuming substances, though. Instead, as explored in the International Journal of Preventative Medicine, certain behaviors can be just as addicting. The researchers stated that “behaviorally addicted individuals have certain symptoms and will undergo the same consequences brought about by addiction to alcohol and drugs as well as other obsessive behaviors.”
The National Institute on Drug Abuse looks more thoroughly into the way the brain functions in people who are addicted to something. The organization stated that “surges of dopamine in the reward circuit cause the reinforcement of pleasurable but unhealthy behaviors like taking drugs, leading people to repeat the behavior again and again.” By indulging in the substance or behavior, over time the dopamine that triggers in the brain lessens and lessens. This ultimately reduces the “high” that people get from their addiction, which motivates them to seek out the substance or behavior more and more.
The Significance Between Habit vs. Addiction
Probably the most important distinction between habit vs. addiction is how choice, to an extent, is still possible with habit-forming behaviors. When it comes to addiction, people generally have a harder time making decisions because of their dependence on a substance or behavior. Typically, these factors are linked to the rewards systems in the brain, which helps explain their overarching power in stripping people from the ability to make rational decisions.
The debate between habit vs. addiction has become more intense for mental health experts. Adi Jaffe, Ph.D., of Psychology Today analyzed the ability for people to choose their habits or addictions. Mental health professionals fiercely debate this topic, but he found that both camps are right; habit formation is more choice-based while addictive behaviors can be more neurologically and biologically bound.
“In the end, it comes down to training,” Jaffe said. “If we want to end up with a different set of behaviors, we have to understand the mechanisms and processes that got us there and make a change.” Although this certainly isn’t a definitive end to the debate, it does add a layer of understanding to the difference between addiction vs. habit.
Developmental neuroscientist Marc Lewis, writing for the New York Times, explored how addictions and habits might not be as different as they seem at first. This controversial opinion is comes from the idea that as brain functions change, so do habits. He found that “addiction is brought about by the repeated pursuit of highly attractive goals and corresponding inattention to alternative goals.” This definition frames addictive behaviors as being similar to habit-based ones.
Alternatively, the research Barry J. Everitt, writing for the European Journal of Neuroscience, compared the starker difference between habit vs. addiction. He focused primarily on the treatment side of drug addiction, but he made a point to discuss how habits can lead to acute addictions. He wrote, addiction to drugs is “the endpoint of a series of transitions from initial voluntary, or recreational, drug taking through progressive loss of control over drug use.” In this context, a habit can be seen as the precursor to addiction.
Not all habits will lead to addictive behaviors in the end, but it’s still important to recognize the dependent nature of some substances and practices. It’s not often that people begin with full-blown addictions; instead, addictions develop over the course of time. During the early stages of habit formation, people may still have the power to mold their behaviors and practices.
The Power of Believing In Yourself
The Power of Believing in Yourself
8 insights on the psychology of self-efficacy.
Marianna Pogosyan Ph.D.
Posted July 22, 2022 | Reviewed by Tyler Woods
KEY POINTS
Self-efficacy is the confidence we have in our abilities in specific life domains.
Finely-grained self-efficacy beliefs are more useful in predicting outcomes than global self-confidence measures.
Self-efficacy is a key ingredient of self-regulation and achieving our goals.
Years ago, right before starting on a big new project, I bought a framed note that spelled with golden letters:
She believed she could so she did.
I didn’t know who she was and what she did, but somehow, the words offered encouragement for my own undertaking.
The contract that humans draft with their loftiest dreams is surprisingly straightforward. Yes, we need skills to accomplish our goals. Yes, we need effort, strategy, resources, creativity, character, and even luck. But before we set the world in motion, we need the blessing of an inner ally, who, whether with a coy wink or a full-blown orchestra, makes us believe that we can.
This confidence in our abilities in specific life domains is known as self-efficacy. After studying self-efficacy for decades, psychologist James Maddux concluded that believing that we can accomplish what we want to accomplish is one of the most important ingredients for success. Indeed, countless research studies have shown that having high self-efficacy can help us pursue our goals, cope effectively with stress, engage in health-promoting behaviors, and have better psychological well-being.
Why do our thoughts and convictions have such a consequential hold on us? Is it the courage they impart to dream in the first place? Is it the resolve they extend when we stumble? Or is it because when we believe in ourselves, we can “risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit,” as poet E.E. Cummings writes.
Here are 8 insights from Maddux on the key role self-efficacy plays in our lives.
Self-efficacy can be more adaptive than self-confidence
Traditionally, psychologists have defined and measured self-confidence as a global construct that is consistent over time and across situations. It’s almost like a personality trait that people tend to have to varying degrees. The trouble with thinking of ourselves in global terms, such as having high or low self-confidence, is that it’s very easy to mis-predict outcomes.
Research shows that when it comes to our ability to predict behavior, situation-specific measures (i.e., self-efficacy beliefs) outperform global measures such as self-confidence. Thus, if you are considering setting a new goal, you’ll be better off breaking down your general self-confidence into components and thinking about your abilities in various specific situations. This is particularly important for people with low self-confidence, which can often become a self-fulfilling prophecy. For example, in cognitive behavioral therapy, the client who complains of low self-confidence is invited to explore some areas in life where they actually do well. This exercise can help individuals think about their particular competencies in various situations that they feel good about and move away from self-defeating thinking patterns.
Self-efficacy is a key ingredient of self-regulation
Self-regulation refers to the way we guide our behaviors, thoughts, and emotions in the pursuit of our goals, desired outcomes, and values. It involves using our past experiences and knowledge about our skills as reference points to develop expectancies about future events and states. Consider self-regulation as a circular process where complex networks, factors, and predictions interact with each other and unfold over time.
Being a good self-regulator is an acquirable skill that includes learning how to generate better self-efficacy beliefs, setting and pursuing effective goals, incorporating feedback, and having adaptive self-evaluations of performance. Self-regulatory skills (as well as the belief that one is a good self-regulator) is fundamental for psychological well-being because they can usher a sense of agency over one’s life.
THE BASICS
Self-efficacy is not wishful thinking or a fake-it-till-you-make-it attitude
Self-efficacy is best viewed in terms of having confidence in your ability to apply your skills in particular situations. It is a much more nuanced concept than a blind belief of “I believe I can do it, and therefore I will succeed.” Notably, it entails having a clear understanding of your skills. Skills and beliefs about skills usually go hand-in-hand. This is why overconfidence without actual preparation (or lack of skills) can set people up for failure.
Self-efficacy can help in challenging and uncertain times
A powerful source of self-efficacy is actual performance—things you’ve done well in life. Often, when people encounter what appears to be a new problem, they see it as being entirely different from what they have experienced before. That’s rarely the case. Any challenge, if you live long enough, will have some similarity to other challenges you’ve faced and overcome before. If you stop and think about the ways in which a current challenge is similar to other challenges you successfully dealt with in the past, you can draw upon your experience and boost your sense of self-efficacy for managing this “unprecedented” circumstance. It can also attenuate the fear of uncertainty and of encountering something you have never encountered before.
Even the pandemic had elements that were not entirely new to us. Everyone, for example, has had times in their life when they felt isolated—perhaps they were separated from loved ones or felt alone in a foreign place. When we break things down to their components, most things can be considered a matter of degree of variance, as opposed to being a whole different kind of experience. This insight can help us deal with our circumstances more effectively, however uncertain and ambiguous they may appear.
Self-efficacy is important for resiliency
Resilience is often defined as the ability to bounce back from adversity and recover our equilibrium when we’ve been caught off balance. Resilience comes into play when we encounter barriers in our pursuit of desired goals. Research suggests that when facing a challenge, low-efficacy individuals might self-reflect in negative ways (“I knew I couldn’t do this…”) or disengage, while high-efficacy individuals will have more confidence in their abilities to find solutions to their problems, and thus be more resilient. A growth mindset (as opposed to a fixed mindset) promotes resilience and an acquirable view of skills, thus providing a better foundation for developing self-efficacy beliefs.
Experience fosters self-efficacy
What helps most in gaining self-efficacy is experience—trying something new and working at it, usually by breaking down goals and skills into manageable pieces and practicing them separately, again and again. When we think of a big goal simply as a series of small goals one after the other, it can give us the courage to dive in. Over time, as people acquire a sense of mastery over various skills, they will also accumulate self-efficacy beliefs. Once you realize the principle of these learnable self-regulatory skills, you can apply them to different situations.
Believe in yourself, but let your actions speak for you
It’s difficult to accomplish great things without believing in oneself. However, watch out for people who are constantly telling others how good they are at things. I would argue that a person who truly believes they are good at something is not going to feel the need to broadcast it. They will let their actions speak for them. In fact, someone who is constantly boasting about their greatness is probably trying to give themselves a pep talk, because their self-efficacy is not high after all.
Advice from a self-efficacy researcher for leading a happier life
For me, it goes back to trying not to think of ourselves in global, all-or-nothing terms or even fixed personality traits and aptitudes (“I’m not good at math—that’s just the way I am.”) Instead, it could be more helpful to see ourselves as complex individuals, with different skills and abilities that are not fixed and pre-determined, but rather are subject to change and growth.
Success, whichever way you define it, includes becoming better self-regulators by continuously honing our skills and engaging them in the right way. If people pay attention to the anatomy of their successes, they will likely realize that the skills they use to accomplish their goals can be generalized to accomplishing other goals. This is how self-efficacy beliefs are formed and a growth mindset is established.
When You're Scared of Change
What is body image?
What is body image?
Medical News Today
Body image refers to how an individual sees their own body and how attractive they feel themselves to be.
Many people have concerns about their body image. These concerns often focus on weight, skin, hair, or the shape or size of a certain body part.
However, body image does not only stem from what we see in the mirror. According to the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA), a range of beliefs, experiences, and generalizations also contribute.
Throughout history, people have given importance to the beauty of the human body. Society, media, social media, and popular culture often shape these views, and this can affect how a person sees their own body.
However, popular standards are not always helpful.
Constant bombardment by media images can cause people to feel uncomfortable about their body, leading to distress and ill health. It can also affect work, social life, and other aspects of life.
This article will look at positive and negative body image and provide some tips on how to improve body image.
What does body image mean?
Body image refers to a person’s emotional attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions of their own body. Experts describeTrusted Source it as a complex emotional experience.
Body image relates to:
what a person believes about their appearance
how they feel about their body, height, weight, and shape
how they sense and control their body as they move
A person’s body image will range from positive, or satisfaction with their body, to negative, or dissatisfaction with their body.
A negative body image can contribute to body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), eating disorders, and other conditions.
What is a positive body image?
When a person has a positive body image, they understand that their sense of self-worth does not depend on their appearance.
Having a positive body image includes:
accepting and appreciating the whole of one’s body, including how it looks and what it can do
having a broad concept of beauty
having a body image that is stable
having inner positivity
The body positive movement aims to help people manage the pressure that media messages impose on their body image. According to The Body Positive organization, “Beauty is not a single image, but the active embodiment and celebration of the self.”
Some have asked whether accepting a larger body may deter people from taking action to be healthy. However, body positivity is not just about the size or appearance of the body. Confidence and control are also key factors.
ResearchTrusted Source suggests that focusing on building self-confidence and a positive body image may help reduce obesity and achieve wider health goals.
What is a negative body image?
A person with a negative body image feels dissatisfied with their body and their appearance.
The person may:
compare themselves with others and feel inadequate when doing so
feel ashamed or embarrassed
lack confidence
feel uncomfortable or awkward in their body
see parts of their body, such as their nose, in a distorted way
In some cases, having a negative body image can lead to the development of mental health issues, such as depression.
A person may also pursue unnecessary surgery, unsafe weight loss habits — such as crash dieting — or an inappropriate use of hormones to build muscles. There is a strong link between eating disorders and negative body image, according to the NEDA.
Some people develop BDD. A person with BDD sees a part or all of their body in a negative way. They may ask for cosmetic surgery to “correct” their nose size, for example, when to everyone else, it appears normal.
Where does a negative body image come from?
A body image does not develop in isolation. Culture, family, and friends all convey positive and negative messages about the body.
The media, peers, and family members can all influence a person’s body image. They can encourage people, even from a young age, to believe that there is an ideal body. The image is often an unnatural one.
The fashion industry also sets an unhealthy example when they employ underweight models to display their products.
Discrimination based on race, size, ability, gender orientation, and age also plays a role. Exposure to daily microaggressions at work and in society can cause people to feel that they do not measure up or that they are somehow lacking.
Illness and accidents can also have an impact. Skin conditions, a mastectomy for breast cancer, or a limb amputation can cause people to rethink how they appear to themselves and to others.
All of these factors can impact a person’s mental and physical well-being.
Studies have suggested that females who have greater resilience — linked to family support, gender role satisfaction, coping strategies, fitness, and well-being — are more likely to have a positive body image. This suggests that emotional insecurity may also contribute to a negative body image.
Body disparaging conversations include “fat talk,” which refers to when people talk about how “fat” they look or feel. These conversations can lead to further negative feelings, low mood, or negative eating patterns.
Body image and gender
Although some people may believe that body dissatisfaction is more common among females, one review reports that female and male adolescents experience similar degrees of body dissatisfaction.
Overall, body dissatisfaction appears to persist throughout a person’s life, according to one review. That said, a study mentioned in the review found that older females were more likely to be satisfied with their bodies than younger females.
Researchers have found many similarities between a negative body image in females and males. However, males seem to be less likelyTrusted Source to talk about it or seek help.
Considerations for LGBTQIA+ communities
LGBTQIA+ communities face additional stressors when it comes to body image. Discrimination and bullying, discordance between a person’s body and their gender, and confusing images of the ideal body can all contribute.
These pressures can increase the risk of eating disorders, depression, and suicidal thoughts.
In one study, over half of the participants who were gay, bisexual, or lesbian felt anxious or depressed about their bodies, compared with around one-third of the heterosexual respondents. Furthermore, 33% had considered suicide due to body image issues, compared with 11% of the heterosexual people surveyed.
Trans people often face additional challenges. That said, a person’s body image can become more positive over time as they make and follow up on choices about transition, such as opting for medical or surgical intervention. However, this course of action is by no means necessary for a person to develop a more positive body image.
Tips for improving body image
Here are some tips that may help a person feel more positive about their body:
Spend time with people who have a positive outlook.
Practice positive self-talk. Say, “My arms are strong” rather than, “My arms are flabby.”
Wear comfortable clothes that look good on you.
Avoid comparing yourself with other people.
Remember that beauty is not just about appearance.
Appreciate what your body can do, such as laughing, dancing, and creating.
Be actively critical of media messages and images that make you feel as if you should be different.
Make a list of 10 things you like about yourself.
See yourself as a whole person, not an imperfect body part.
Do something nice for your body, such as getting a massage or a haircut.
Instead of spending time thinking about your body, start a hobby, become a volunteer, or do something else that makes you feel good about yourself.
Aim for a healthful lifestyle, which might include eating a varied and nutritious diet.
Body image and physical activity
Exercise can boost a person’s confidence in their strength and agility and contribute to their mental and physical well-being. It can also reduce feelings of anxiety and depression.
However, people exercise for different reasons.
In 2015, researchers found that people who exercise for functional reasons, such as for fitness, tend to have a more positive body image. Those who exercise to improve their appearance feel less positive about their bodies.
The study authors suggest that exercising for functional purposes rather than to improve appearance may help people foster a more positive body image.
The Power Of Positive Thinking
The Power of Positive Thinking
Our thoughts have a lot of power over how we feel, and ultimately how we act.
Robert Puff Ph.D.
Posted March 26, 2021 | Reviewed by Devon Frye
Have you ever had a really intense dream that felt so real, even after you woke up? For example, I’ve had dreams where someone important to me passes away and it takes several minutes for me to realize that this didn’t actually happen.
Have you ever wondered why that is? Why is it so hard for our thoughts to catch up to our emotions? It’s because our emotions are very powerful. Sometimes the only way we can bring ourselves out of the emotions attached to our dreams is to adjust our thinking. Meaning, we’ll have to tell ourselves it was only a dream, that it didn’t actually happen.
The power our thoughts have over our feelings bleeds into our everyday lives, too. Life is not always consistent. There are times when it’s easy to make life go well for ourselves, while other times it can feel really difficult.
You’ve maybe even found yourself in the same situation at different points in your life and each time you handled it differently. This is because our thoughts have a lot of power over how we feel, and ultimately how we act.
In fact, oftentimes our thoughts shape the way we feel. Our happiness is dependent on the quality of our thoughts. We’re not happy because we’re happy, we’re happy because we interpret the things that happen to us as good. On the flip side, if we interpret the things that happen to us as bad, we tend to feel unhappy. Our thoughts interpret the things that happen in our lives and as a result, they have a strong influence over our happiness.
This is where things can get a little tricky. When reality happens, we think that there is only one way of interpreting it and there is little room for negotiation. It feels black and white to us—X happened and as a result, I feel Y. But, as we move through life and collect experiences, we may find holes in this way of thinking.
In life, there are lots of bumps and things don’t always go the way we envisioned. Sometimes we handle these bumps with grace and we do what we can to find a resolution. Other times, it’s much harder to find a solution because our anger overwhelms our ability to problem-solve. When the latter happens, it’s usually because our thoughts are telling us “this shouldn’t be happening—this wasn’t in the plan!” But when we handle unexpected situations with ease, it’s because our thoughts are in solution mode. The situation may be the same, but our thoughts make us experience it differently.
Let’s look at an example. You wake up with a headache one morning. The average person will most likely try to make their headache go away. They may try drinking water, taking an Advil, or stretching their body. The key here is that this person is searching for a solution rather than fixating on why they’ve found themselves in this situation.
Another person who is more prone to negative thoughts may say “This is so annoying, I wish it would go away! Why did this have to happen to me?”
An even darker and more problematic train of thought may be “I wonder if something is wrong? What if I have a brain tumor and die? I should make a doctor’s appointment immediately to get this looked at. This must be something really serious.” This train of thought is the most dangerous because it jumps to the worst possible conclusion versus looking at the situation with objectivity.
If you’re someone who relates most with the person in the first example, it can be hard to picture experiencing it any other way. However, each situation is true for the person experiencing it. Ideally, we’d always like to handle it as the person did in the first example, and the first step to achieving that is recognizing that our happiness is dependent on our positive thinking.
I want to take this one step further, and this thinking may be controversial—it doesn’t matter what happens to us; what matters is how we interpret those things. In life, things will go wrong. But we only deem these things as “wrong” because we had expectations for them to go a certain way in the first place.
For example, if we get in our car to drive somewhere, we are hopeful we will get from point A to point B safely. So when our car breaks down, we may feel angry or annoyed. But instead, we could choose to view it as something that happens and we’ll just have to get it fixed. The way we view situations has a lot of power over our reactions to them.
Another minor situation you may experience is getting stuck in traffic. Most drivers in this situation may not be thrilled, but they are still polite to their surrounding drivers. But there are always a few people who are angry and filled with rage, beeping their horns incessantly even though no one can move. We may have even been these people at one point! But, we must remember that they are the exception, not the rule. Those who get upset over the little bumps usually have challenging lives because their thoughts are focused on being upset rather than finding solutions and letting things go.
When big things happen, we tend to think “I have a right to be upset.” And it’s true—terrible things that happen to us will most likely make us upset—but at the same time our thoughts create our reality. If we associate experiencing something upsetting with needing to feel unhappy now, perhaps for longer, then this is going to be our reality. No matter the situation, I can almost guarantee you that someone else has gone through the same thing and they are doing absolutely fine. They may not have liked what they were going through, but they adjusted and are still living a good life.
Let’s look at divorce as an example. There’s a 50 percent chance of getting divorced when you marry someone. This doesn’t mean we should automatically assume we’re going to divorce the person we choose to marry, but we shouldn’t assume that recovering and moving on is impossible if a divorce was to happen. If you and your partner divorce, it’s important to make space to grieve and mourn. But we should also make space for recovery and positive thoughts, too. The most helpful thing we can do is take a step back and ask if our thoughts are helping us move on or keeping us stuck.
Our thoughts create our happiness or unhappiness. When we stop creating expectations around experiences, it may become easier to feel more positive. You know the saying “bad things happen to good people”? We cannot assume that bad things won’t happen to us, but it’s helpful to remind ourselves that we have control over our response to those bad things.
It’s inevitable that we will experience tough situations, both minor and big, during our lives. It’s essential that we carve out space to feel our feelings and grieve our losses before we consider moving on. But once we do that, it’s important that we do move on and adjust our lives to live in our new reality. This is how people overcome adversity and ultimately live a beautiful life. Those who are able to do this understand the deep power that thoughts have over our emotions. And once we can control our thoughts, we are capable of overcoming anything.
How Embracing Grief Can Help Us Heal and Grow
A Personal Perspective: Changing our perception of grief can help us through it.
Kerry Tobin M.A.
Posted July 17, 2022 | Reviewed by Jessica Schrader
KEY POINTS
To grieve is an act of love for those that died and for ourselves.
Appreciating grief can help us move past it.
The death of a loved one can be a time for redefining our relationship to them.
"Grief is itself a medicine." –William Cowper
"Grief develops the powers of the mind." –Marcel Proust
The Irish wake is quite the cultural phenomenon. Literature and poems have referenced it for ages. It is the plight of the Irish and one of my earliest memories. I attended the funerals of so many relatives at such an early age. Death was regarded as usual and customary. It is what we did and oh so well. It was weaved into our tapestry as family and part of our cultural story.
We greeted the dead, each other, and were brave and filled with sentimental longing. Stories were told, songs were sung, and sadness embraced. Local bars would fill with loved ones and if it were really a fun time sometimes even a fight broke out. It was extremely exciting for a little girl to witness. I learned to show up with pride and a certain grace.
So, in 2021 in the wake of my father’s death, I thought I was well prepared to also begin to say goodbye to my brother, for he was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer four days after burying my father. He passed shortly after my dad and my world went dark. It was deafeningly quiet. There was a piercing silence. It was what struck me the most about this horrible time.
What is this concept we call grief? It is mostly associated with being sad and carrying a burden of loss and pain. It is seldom examined and rarely discussed in any depth by philosophers and in general. It is a frightening reality of life and can be daunting to really confront its complexity. But face it we must if we are to really heal.
Grief struck me as so much more than being sad. It is a stripping and a preparing, it is a revealing and a rendering of who you truly are and who those were that passed. Grief humbles you and calls you to action. It invites you to venture forth and make sense of it all, process and reshape your world and find new habits and ways of being. Loss profoundly awakens you to your own sense of humanity and creates a space that is livelier in the very void in which it leaves. Things become clearer, more vivid.
Grief grounds us and can stop us in our tracks as the familiar is lost and our sense of self missed too. It is in this grounding that we return to ourselves and a reshaping of our world and self begins. It is tragic but so empowering. To be forced to restructure your world and self is immensely challenging and with any challenge comes great reward.
But do we lose? We do in the sense that the person is no longer physically here. But the change is just a shift in perception. My friend remarked when her grandmother had passed, "I have a seat for her at the table." I thought it was a beautiful metaphor, but I learned she had a physical seat saved for her. It was a lovely surprise. What an homage to her and their relationship, a relationship that continued after her death.
It is precisely what we are called to do in grief. To honor the relationship and find ways to keep the connection active and real. How can we do anything else? The memories, love, and bond are still all too present. They are never absent. They only grow stronger. It is in the death of a loved one that who they are becomes more alive. How does the ultimate ending reveal the essence, core, and fundamental aspects of the person? It is known when they are alive but not the focus. That shifts though and in death we hone in on the true nature of who they were. It was in the viewing of images of them, the celebrating of their passions, and the endless discussion of their funny quirks, and ways of being in this world, that my connection to them stayed alive but more than that it deepened.
As a poem I wrote cements the fact that my brother loved music, more precisely King Crimson, jazz, and blues: I knew your love of music right from the start, eyes closed tight to feel it in your heart. Air guitar in hand we ate white castles in the sand.
To grieve is an act of love for those that died and for ourselves. Grief is the last gift we give to the departed but the grace we gain is the lifelong reward they continually give to us.
