Finding Joy Again
How to reclaim your Life after loss
Who are you?
Sometimes, you look at yourself in the mirror and barely recognize the person staring back at you.
What do you want?
Sometimes, you lose touch with yourself, and you don't even know what you want anymore.
What are you feeling?
Tough question.
When you experience a loss of any kind, those questions may grow even louder in your mind.
So, how do you reclaim your life after loss and find joy again?
A Source of Growth
While you're processing your loss, there are truths to reckon with. As much pain as you're going through, there are ways to walk through that pain, to heal, and to grow in ways that would not be possible absent the loss. What’s the purpose? you ask: Reclaiming and Rediscovering your joy.
Adversity builds resilience, and if you look at the grieving process as adversity, you can see the first skill you're going to develop as a result of loss. The stronger your resilience, the easier you can navigate pain without falling down every time a wave of grief or emotions comes down on you.
Viewing your loss as a potential source of growth does not negate the loss itself or what you lost. It's simply something for you to hold onto as you try to reclaim your joy and move forward with your life.
The Three P's
There are three big P's that can hold back healing.
Personalization
Believing that this is your fault.
Pervasiveness
Believing that it will impact every part of your life.
Permanence
Believing that the trauma and pain are forever.
The loss is not your fault, it won't impact every part of your life, and the trauma and pain won't last forever. You don't have to avoid your emotions just because they're overwhelming, when you address them, you can process them and relieve their intensity.
Opener
There's always someone in your life who will talk about everything going on in their life, happy to talk about absolutely anything and everything, but never think to say hey, how are you?
Sometimes it's because they're self-absorbed, but a lot of times, they are afraid to invite you to share your painful, intimate thoughts in case it upsets you. The end result is the same – you feel invisible.
What you need is validation, your feelings are valid, and you aren't wrong to feel the way you do.
That's where openers come into play. These are the people who ask a lot of questions and sit and listen patiently without judgment. These are the people you need to talk to to process your pain, gain perspective, and find your joy. Believe it or not, these people aren't often the people closest to you, they just tend to be more empathetic people and recognize pain in others.
Self-Compassion
Everyone makes mistakes, but experiencing loss doesn't mean you made a mistake. So, don't beat yourself up over anything, instead, you need to practice self-compassion. Nobody is a perfect person, so no matter how you may struggle with grief and loss, don't put yourself down. You're on a journey and it will take time to process.
Self-compassion has to be a daily part of your life, so do something nice for yourself every day. A simple way is to write down three wins from your day every day.
Joyful Moments
Humans naturally look at negative experiences and hold onto them tightly while the positives pass by unnoticed. Slow down and start actively looking for the positive moments. Savor tiny moments of joy, the hot stream of water from your rain-head shower on a cold, winter's morning, or the perfectly cooked steak you made for dinner. There's joy everywhere if you look hard enough. The harder you look, the easier it becomes and suddenly, you don't need to look so hard, you naturally notice all the joy in your life.
When you slow down, look, and listen you’ll recognize and/or realize things that bring you joy which will act as a pathway to reclaim your life after loss.
dhf
If you liked this content, check out my article entitled, “What Does Starting Over Really Mean?”
Feel free to leave a comment.