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Overcoming Grief, Anger, Stress, Etc.
By Fred Colby on November 2, 2024
Living a good life in today’s world is no small accomplishment. It is easy to succumb to anger and stress given the many challenges in our everyday lives, and so often others are trying to amplify those negative feelings so they can sell “their” solution to us.
Unfortunately, we cannot stop the world and get off when our wife passes. So, we end up just adding this humongous load of grief on top of everything else going on. While grief usually becomes the dominant issue you are dealing with, the other problems (financial, family relationships, housing, political, legal, health, etc.) often interject themselves into our lives. And you know what, we often will allow them to dominate our thoughts to avoid thinking about the loss of our wives!
If we continue down this path, we can easily become so fixated on these problems that our grief becomes sublimated… that is, not dealt with or pushed aside. This allows the grief to fester like an untreated wound which over time can become infected and even more difficult to deal with.
All these other problems/issues become excuses to avoid healing your grief. While we may need to confront and deal with all of them at some point, the reality is that you will be in a much better position to do so if you address your grief first.
The first thing to do is to recognize what is going on, and commit to addressing the most important issue first, and then the other issues in the order of importance. There are several first steps that you can take to get you moving in the right direction:
1. Create a gratitude list of what is most important to you, such as your:
a. wife and all the good that you had together,
b. family, friends, and neighbors,
c. neighborhood and community,
d. employment (past or current)
e. adventures and trips in your past or upcoming
f. opportunities to do good in your community, to help others, and
g. lessons learned that helped you to get to where you are today.
2. Visit with a Grief Therapist who can help you to:
a. understand what you are going through,
b. overcome feelings of doubt, regret, and anger,
c. deal with the emotional ups and downs of the grieving process,
d. prioritize how you can address the challenges you are facing,
e. find resources that can help you find solutions tailored to your needs, and
f. help you set new goals for the future.
3. Join a Men’s Grief Group where you can:
a. find out that what you are going through is normal,
b. meet and bond with other widowers in the same situation,
c. ask for help from those who best understand the issues you are facing,
d. learn skills, tips, and ideas on how to deal with various issues, and
e. receive peer and professional support and encouragement.
And finally, in this era where anger, frustration, and stress are being constantly held up in the mirror of our lives, it might behoove us to turn away from all of that and focus on the good that still exists and still surrounds us. It is way too easy to become sucked into the trap of negativity, and so much harder to preserve a sense of gratitude for all of the love and goodness that has been in our lives, and which can still be in our lives going forward.
The choice is ours to make. Good luck my friends.
©2024 Fred Colby, All rights reserved.
