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5 Coping Steps To Move Towards Happiness
By AJ Coleman on March 27, 2023
How A Widower Faced The Loss Of His Wife, Became A Single Parent and Mastered 5 Coping Steps To Move Towards Happiness
As part of the senior year tradition, as a blurb for the high school yearbook, you’re often asked to speculate where you’ll be in 10 years. Years later, you read what you and other classmates wrote and laugh because the majority of the predictions weren’t even close. My prediction—to own a professional sports team at the age of twenty-eight. Yep, not even remotely close! I’m not really sure what I was thinking when I wrote that blurb. If, back then, someone was to have predicted that 15 years later, I’d be a widower and single parent, it would have been unthinkable. I mean, what kind of prediction is that? But the truth is, the unthinkable became my reality.
After supporting my wife in her fight against brain cancer, and inevitably losing her in that fight, I became a Widower at the age of thirty-three, raising a one-year old daughter on my own. Just starting out in life, what did I know about grief loss and being a single dad? Absolutely nothing… You can prepare, self-educate, or even foresee, but the reality is, until you actually experience it directly, you can’t fathom grief loss. Although I was devastated, I knew I needed to be strong for my daughter as she needed me as much as I needed her.
Many have asked me where I get my strength to cope and overcome grief loss to find happiness again. Much of it lies deep within me as I made a commitment to myself to rise higher with each setback, heartache, and challenge I’ve endured over the years as a widower and single dad. I taught myself to push forward and to keep those feet moving.
Through the years, I’ve learned some valuable tips to help to move towards happiness.
Here are my 5 coping steps:
1.Celebrate Life, Not Loss
Whether it was sudden or expected, anytime there’s a loss, the physical void is the most difficult part to comprehend. The loss of touch, voice, and the ability to create new experiences together is unsettling and deeply emotional, especially early on in the grief.
People—and animals too—who touch your life provide a great gift through joy and memories, leaving profound impressions that impacts your life forever. They capture your heart with their smiles and laughter. They become part of you as you become part of them.
In the end, it’s the stories you tell about them that enable them to live on. As the days, months, and years go by, you continue to go about your life. But there is a part of them that you’ll always carry with you, and no one can take that away. Rather than mourn the loss, celebrate their life as their legacy will continue to live through you.
2. Stay in your own marathon race
Mourning focuses on the “why” aspect. Celebrating the life focuses on the “where” aspect.
When it comes to coping with a loss, there really isn’t a definitive time period for mourning. Some may mourn for a short period; others may turn mourning into a lifetime. Remember, it’s not where you start but where you finish that matters. With that in mind, think of the mourning phase as a footrace. You’ve got to start at the beginning and find a way across the finish line. It doesn’t matter how fast or slow you move, or what the odds are against you—what’s important is that you focus your strength on getting to the finish line, which represents your loved one’s life’s celebration.
Many often equate joy and happiness as a result of someone or something. The truth is that joy and happiness come from within. You are your own power source. How you channel your energy and emotions is what enables you to propel forward. Whether you’re inspired to overcome grief loss, finding happiness, or just by doing the things you love, only you can control your power source. Each day you wake up, you do have a choice on how you want to find joy and happiness.
3. Seek strength from counseling, support groups, and loved ones
You’re never alone in your marathon race. There’s an entire industry dedicated to helping those directly or indirectly affected by loss. By leveraging independent counseling and support groups, you can learn valuable coping tools that give you strength to propel yourself across the finish line.
Your family and friends can be especially helpful in finding those recommended doses of humor and laughter, which often leads to happiness. Identify key people whom you can trust in sharing your emotions. You’ll need to lean on them from time to time.
Alternatively for some, family and friends may also add unintentional stress due to their own discomfort with a loss. This is where independent support groups and therapists enter the equation. Building a strong support network can help soften the landing as you cope.
4. Change your perspective, change your mindset
For years, I believed that strength comes from how you overcome challenges. But I was wrong. Strength comes from how you respond to adversity—how you rise up and stand tall and find your balance. And if you collapse under the pressure, how quickly can you rise up again? Adversity wants you to stay down and will consistently cheat to keep you grounded. Get knocked down enough times, and eventually you start to counterattack.
Next time are facing a situation where it might feel as if all hope is lost, remember that you can:
- Become so strong that no one can rise above you.
- Become so tough that no one can hurt you.
- Become so powerful that you become untouchable.
You have the power within you to inspire, persevere, empower, energize, achieve, and create. It all comes down to having the motivation to control your own destiny and mindset.
Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you are not good enough, that you can’t do it, that it’s impossible, that you don’t have the strength or skills, or worse, that there is nothing more that can be done. Although those words do get spoken, in the end, it’s not for anyone else to decide, dictate, or determine your path. There will be critics. There will be unfavorable outcomes. They are part of life.
How you respond makes all the difference. It begins with perception and the ability to move forward. Once you are able to separate the emotional aspects from the challenge presented, you can begin to see open pathways ahead. It may not be easy, and you may have stumbling blocks along the journey, but the reward at the end is far greater than imagined. Never be afraid to achieve success in life. Only you can make greatness happen. Only you can create those miracles you dream of. The greater the challenge, the harder you’ll have to work. If something isn’t working correctly, change it. Keep changing the formula until you get it right. Never stop to rest. One day you’ll look back and be proud of your accomplishments. You’ll see how far you’ve come. But don’t look backward too long—you still have more personal greatness to achieve ahead.
5. Solve your Rubik’s Cube
Have you ever noticed that life resembles a Rubik’s Cube? Each color represents different concerns of importance, such as happiness, faith, spirituality, health, relationships, and finances. No matter which way you turn the cube, colors become integrated, sometimes without any real logic. Just when you think you made all the right turns, you discover that the colors are further scrambled, but as you continue to turn the cube, you begin to notice how to bring those concerns together one by one.
Rubik’s Cubes come in different sizes, shapes, and forms, and—much like your life’s challenges—not all of them move in the same direction. You may have to improvise as you think about the direction of each turn. Despite the difficulty, you have to keep turning.
There are moments in life when it is just easier to toss the Rubik’s Cube away. The odds against you are overwhelming. The agony of continuing is too great, and the desire to continue on may be lost. But before you give up, ask yourself one question: “Have I truly done everything I could to overcome the challenges I face?”
You have the power to overcome the obstacles you face. You have the power to knock down barriers that stand in your way It all starts with your perception, but it won’t come easy. It’ll take time and patience. There will be moments of frustration and barriers that you encounter. But if you stay with it and keep turning, eventually you’ll see how all the colors come together. Fate doesn’t control that Rubik’s Cube—you do. The closer you are to solving your own Rubik’s Cube, the closer you are to happiness.
In the end, be true to who you are. Be honest with yourself. Remember that you’re special because of who you are, not what you are. Your life story, job, and accomplishments may be heartfelt, but those are really about what you are. Instead, think about how you want to be perceived by others and share those characteristics with the world. It may be difficult to distinguish between who and what at first, but if you stay true to yourself, you’ll have a better chance of recognizing the who. And… overcoming grief loss and finding true happiness!
Grief is an inevitable part of our lives, whether it’s a loss of a loved one, or something that affects you personally. Having a positive mindset can help you cope with challenges. Many times when grief arises, people stop in their tracks not knowing what to do next. They don’t know how to cope, find happiness, much less move on. My book, Keep Those Feet Moving: A Widower’s 8-Step Guide to Coping with Grief and Thriving Against All Odds, was written to inspire people to push forward no matter which obstacles life throws your way.
