If you read the previous posts, you know that I moved from MO to KY – 4 months ago. It was certainly challenging, but I did it.
Truth is, it’s been challenging and stressful for a year & a half. It was even more crazy stressful the last 4 months.
As an Air Force wife for 23 years, I learned to cope with change and whatever difficulties came along. I focused on what to do, and did it. Maybe that’s how you tend to deal with challenges too.
Well, I’ve realized that if the stress is prolonged, it can pile up……………snowball to levels hard to circumvent. And that’s where I found myself about a week ago.
I would like to say when I heard the doctor tell me I needed to apply some de-stressing tools and take a step back to rest, that it was the first time I had heard that. But it’s not.
Honestly, dear friends had either said I needed to rest just as plain as that, or they had sweetly said they couldn’t imagine all I had been through so relaxing was indeed earned. And I heard them, I really did. But I didn’t take it to heart. I just plugged on, resting here and there, but not really stopping the motion and engaging in an extended rest. Well…………..I am now.
I’ve started doing my yoga, which is amazingly helpful. Just 24 minutes and I am seriously a different woman. I’ve also stopped setting my alarm to get up in the morning, except for a day or two when I can’t. I’ve intentionally spent more time praying and in my quiet time in the morning. Days still have a list of a few things to do, but there’s no rush and I remind myself of that – – -often. There is book reading………….I’m working on 3 books currently. I’m going through a Griefshare workbook with DVDs and getting a view of that program. I’ve also been better at walking & exercising which is great for lowering cortisol levels & pumping up endorphins. Plus – and this one is so awesome – I have been sitting on the back porch in the evening sipping an ice cold drink listening to the night things in the woods, looking at the sky……………sometimes thinking……………sometimes not. Talk about unwinding!! Sometimes I hate going inside to go to bed.
This won’t be my life permanently, but my body was giving me clues that it had just about had enough. My mind. . . my heart. . . I needed peace. And maybe that’s where you find yourself too. If you have been eyeball deep in grief for an extended period of time, dealing with so many decisions alone, or going through a major change like me, try to figure out a way you can at least jump off the merry-go-round for portions of time.
I realize that not everyone can do this to the extent I’m able. Sometimes life just has to move on and you may have family members with you that prevent you from truly coming away, but somehow you need to steal away to completely relax and replenish. We were never meant to carry the loads given to us after our loved one’s death with no respite. We have the heavy responsibilities once carried by two, now carried by one. Most of the time we just roll, but don’t let yourself roll into a valley. Leave the heavy stuff in the valley and walk up the mountain where the air is clear and you can breathe. Come up out of the fog and contaminated air where you can get the oxygen you need to think clearly. . . . where you can stop doing and just be. We forget that who we are is more important than what we do. On the mountain you will remember.
That doctor has no idea how pivotal his comments were to me. It was the “ah-ha” moment that I needed. He gave me permission to rest……………..he gave me permission to be happy again – a different sort of happy than before my husband’s death, but happy. I’ve never lost my deep down joy, but I most definitely lost my happy – and I know you have too.
So I’m here as an outside voice, like my doctor was, telling you that I officially give you permission to rest – to really rest. I’m not a doctor, but I have stayed at a Holiday Inn Express – – – – hahahahaha. Anyway – as a pretend-doctor I prescribe a walk up the mountain for you. Get the heck outta the valley and breathe some cool clean air. Leave the to-do list behind, take a drink of your choice with you and just be………………….simply be. Enjoy the silence, voice positive self-talk, read, nap, breathe……………..oh yes, breathe.