The past several months I have not given much if any time to writing as my schedule has been consumed with the process of prepping to sell a house including getting rid and transitioning to move furniture and years of memories to buying a condo, placing my dad in assisted living, finally moving into my condo and lastly my dad passing away.
This morning when I woke up in my new condo that is my home but does not completely feel like home, I was mentally feeling the choice to start the day or dwell in self-pity for a whole 10 to 30 seconds over the grief of losing my father and home where I grew up. I chose to start the day.
While grief certainly has its place, it is not healthy to feel that grief from a place of defeat but owning the sadness from a position of moving ahead. My first client was later in the day, so I decided to get onto my elliptical machine I had neglected for a few months.
The obstacle with the machine was that the screen was blank after turning it on. So, determined to get the machine to work, I called technical support. Waiting on hold thinking of many other ways I could spend the time I finally got a solution.
I exercised for a good 12 minutes but the feeling afterwards of my endorphins kicking in after a workout made the effort of getting up early and spending time on hold with technical support even more worth it. Plus, with a fixed elliptical machine I can now make morning exercise part of my routine.
Keeping momentum going, no matter what it is whether it’s a morning routine of getting ready to go to work to pushing past the temptation to skip out on exercise always pays dividends afterwards, never before.
When there has been a tragic loss, when is the proper time to process grief? One solution is to set aside a time of day or even deliberately schedule a point in the day to allow yourself that grief.
There is a TV show on Apple TV+ called Shrinking. The show is a comedy with Jason Segal and Harrison Ford… yes, that Harrison Ford. Since I had bought an iPhone in the previous six months, I had a free three months of access.
Watching the show, it is played for laughs but had some very poignant moments. One is where Harrison Ford’s character sets aside a 20-minute window daily to grieving having just received a serious medical diagnosis. And at the end of the 20 minutes, Paul, the name of the character lives life as he normally would.
What I liked about this bit is that the character did not let the grieving turn into self-pity. This is because the character is a psychiatrist and has an established schedule of seeing clients and maintaining his practice and the rest of his life where exercise is large priority.
I watched the whole season thinking there would be an explanation of why the grieving time was exactly 20-minutes at the same time each day. There was no explanation, so I can speculate. It is very tempting and easy to let genuine grief turn into self-pity.
The danger is that self-pity is slowly sabotaging and poisoning your body by way of deciding to dwell in that pit rather and defeat than experiencing grief with a purpose and plan.
My own father passed away on October 24th. While his death is sad, it was expected. He had had kidney failure and had been on dialysis for close to six years. Dad had become dependent on a wheelchair and an oxygen tank. To add to this my mother passed away five years ago from dementia.
Personally, I can write about the dangers of self-pity because I have gone down this path myself. The freedom from the pit of self-pity came when a friend of mine taught me about exercise and weight training.
Even with the proper tools to combat whether it is grief, self-pity, depression, or anxiety, even just trying helps. Over the years I have had to scale back my expectations and goals with fitness because of overtraining and injuries. A workout now is essentially more about form and a high number of repetitions rather than the goal of a heavy bench press.
What has worked for you when going through a trial but not letting yourself be consumed by it?
If you are looking for a therapist near you then a Google search is a great way of finding one. I happen to be a therapist in Charlotte, NC but am licensed to counsel anyone in the state of North Carolina. In Google, try looking for “psychotherapist,” “find therapist,” “therapy near me,” or even “counseling charlotte, nc.” If you feel like you have hit a wall you are not able to get past, call me at (704) 458-6298 or email me at jeffhelms@clearerthoughtspllc.com.
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