Exploring one's mind can be an interesting and revealing adventure. It can be life altering; it can promote self-growth. Grief. I've been living with it since the loss of Preston. That grief, the mourning, the healing, it's helped me feel more in touch with my emotions, understand what triggers certain feelings, and nursed me into learning how to heal my heart and soul. I feel that I will grieve for the rest of my life, but I also feel that I will slowly heal, a little more every day. I'll suffer set-backs I'm sure. Over-all I see the rest of my life consisting of grief coupled with healing.
Grief, as I've discussed, consists of several stages with no set path. Stages of sadness, anger, guilt, acceptance, numbness, need to help others. Sometimes they inter-mingle. I often feel anger and guilt at the same time. Sometimes I feel numb yet peaceful. The most important thing I've learned thus far is that whatever I'm feeling, I should allow myself to feel it. If I need to be sad, it's okay to be sad. If I need to have a week long vacation where I don't think too much about my loss, that's okay too. Should I feel the need to reach out to someone, then I do. There's no more, "what will others think if" I say this, or do that. Let them think what they want. I need to do this for me.
It's a hard realization. I've always put other people's wants, needs and happiness ahead of my own. Or at least, I think I did. I still strive to do that, but I also know that sometimes, if I'm feeling a certain way, I need to put my needs first. That's really difficult to do. Not only because it's not something I'm used to doing, or want to do, but often times it means that I'm having a rough day. Being sad is not easy. It takes a lot of energy. It's draining. Thinking so deeply about what I have lost is heart-wrenching. Day to day, minute to minute, I "know" what I've lost. I feel it in my heart and in my empty arms. But stopping whatever I'm doing, abolishing all others thoughts from my mind, that can be so difficult. It sometimes feels like I'm realizing how monumental the loss is all over again. At the same time, it's really mending for my soul and my mind. It gives me a time to think about the happy times I had with my son. All those times we played "this little piggy", all the stories I read to him, all the kisses on his tummy to make him giggle. No one can ever take that away from me. No one else lived what exactly what I lived.
Going inside your mind can be scary. Exploring and understanding your thoughts and emotions on a whole other level though, can be so revealing, and can help you deal with certain situations more easily in the future. Do you ever stop to think why you are feeling a certain way? Like when you feel your blood boil over something that seems to menial a day later. Do you ever wonder why it made you so mad? Or when someone does something kind and you brush it off. Do you ever stop to think why you didn't take the time to savor the act of kindness? Why are we always such in a hurry? We didn't used to be.
Much like there is a lot to explore out in the world, like the beautiful flowers that were in the park by our house, or like the beaver dam we discovered last spring, there is a lot to explore in one's mind. It might be like a "mille-feuille". That's a Napoleon in French. It literally translates to "thousand sheets/layers". Your psyche can be just as deliciously complex. It can be just as interesting to travel as the world around us. The discoveries might just change your life.
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