From my own experience, it feels horrible to give with resentment. It feels horrible to do the actions I should do just because I know I should. I want to do the actions because I want to, because that’s what I truly want to do and show my love to my spouse or my kids that way. This doesn’t mean to nix the actions, sometimes it just means taking care of yourself, so you can take care of your family in the way that you want to.
So, if you’ve been numbing or trying to pretend everything is good for many years, it’s going to be a process to almost soften the ice on your body per say. To slowly allow your body to feel, notice sensations, and become comfortable with different sensations and intensities in your body.
When you are suddenly overwhelmed with emotions that you’ve never experienced and it almost forces itself on you, it can put you into shut down. You don’t even want to go there. You try to numb as much as possible. You don’t want to feel anything. It’s all too much.
Sometimes it’s hard to say things that need to be said, because I know the other person is going to go through the shame cycle. I guess I can’t completely know it, but I assume, because I know exactly what this feels like. I know exactly what it’s like to hear something, and immediately notice how I’m not doing those things in my life, and how bad of a mother I am and start beating myself up, and then I want to crawl into a deep dark hole and never come out.
If someone else is doing it a certain way, maybe I’m doing it the wrong way. Maybe I’m bad. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I need to do it differently.
Nancy Jensen shares her story with anticipatory grief with her daughter. For 22 years Nancy lived in a state of anxiety not knowing if her daughter was going to die. At any moment, and many times she almost did. Nancy shares her journey with a daughter who was very sick, and all the emotions that come with raising a daughter who was very sick.
So it can actually be more painful as you begin honestly taking a look at what’s going on, if you try to do this by yourself. Because our normal human reaction is to start judging and beating ourselves up. Instead of leading with curiosity, and taking things out gently from underneath the rug, and having a serious honest conversation about what you are thinking, feeling, and going through. It’s the easier thing, to just shove it under the rug and pretend those things don’t exist, like the anger you have inside of you, or that you just really want to break down and cry and crawl into a dark hole, but you keep pushing through.
When you can process and sit with the day that you are dreading, you get to release those emotions that are underneath instead of waiting on pins and needles for that day to come so you can finally know if you are going to feel those emotions. This helps to let the steam out of a pressure cooker. Don’t keep it all bottled ino. By practicing this it allows you to know that you can do anything. You can handle any emotion that comes up. Even though it’s not always fun and pretty painful sometimes, you can do this. You can experience and allow emotions to flow through you.
Michele Benyo is a Certified Grief Recovery Specialist®, early childhood educator and parent coach, and
the founder of Good Grief Parenting. After her 6-year-old son died of cancer, her 3-year-old daughter
said, “Mommy, half of me is gone.” This heartbreaking statement defined Michele’s life purpose. Her
mission is twofold: to help parents through the unimaginable challenges of parenting while grieving the
death of a child, and to equip parents to meet the unique needs of a child who has lost a sibling in the
early childhood years. The desire of Michele’s heart is to see families live forward after loss toward a
future bright with possibilities and even joy.
