Even though my divorce is four and a half years behind me, what I have been going through these past days with my mom feels extremely similar. I went through the experience again after my wonderful 74-year-old mother lost to ovarian cancer.
Mom found out about her condition on the same day that I told my now ex-husband that I wanted a divorce. Talk about grief hitting me twice in one day with probably the two people that were my biggest rocks.
In the middle of grief, I find myself feeling completely numb and weak and yet the need to stand strong.
Key points covered in this episode:
✔️ Grief comes in waves and a myriad of different ways. As I am going through this again — the death of my marriage and now the death of my mother— the feelings feel very similar. It's never easy to say goodbye to somebody. The grief comes rushing in — whether it's the feeling of death like how divorce can be for so many of us or death in the family due to an accident or illness. There are moments where it feels debilitating.
✔️ Be present in the life that you have. Whatever you are going through right now: permit yourself to feel it all. Go through the motions to your healing. The only way to the other side is to be fully present now and hopeful of tomorrow's promises.
✔️ As we enter the new chapter of 2022, the good days will be amazing, and the bad days will be hard. But just staying present in what you will be feeling and the roller coaster of emotions that comes with it is OK.
It is OK to be authentic.
It is OK to express yourself,
and it's OK to take a break from life.
✔️ Life is now. If there's a significant thing that death and divorce taught me, life is truly short. We need to make a conscious decision if we continue to live in fear of what's to come or be present in the life that we have — because the only time that exists is now.
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