Do you believe in life after loss?

This post dear reader is one of a more personal post. After all this little site is about sharing experiences. As people we don’t realize things until the storms of life have surrounded someone and as the old saying goes, “can’t see past the end of your nose.” I would like to make a disclaimer before proceeding in that 1. I am NOT a doctor, just sharing experiences in life. 2. My hope in sharing this will maybe help someone out there who may read it and find solace with whatever is going on with whoever is reading this and reach out to others to help themselves.

As the title states, “do you believe in life after loss?” This is question that I am going to answer for myself and you the reader. My answer is “Yes, I do.” I can say that comfortably because there was a time that with all the loss that was happening in life I wasn’t sure, the storm had built and there were times I didn’t know what to do. What I know is that I love life, I love the beautifulness that is in the world and I love the person that I have evolved in over the span of life on this beautiful planet. I have been shown throughout life that there is a lot of caring and support in the world. People do matter, however the one that matters the most is thyself.

As humans we all have challenges that sometimes we don’t see. Lord knows the things I have been hit with mentally came out of nowhere. It is hard to pin point the exact moment in time, however, in my recent discoveries it spans the course of my entire life. Which I am ok with. I intend to fully handle anything that life wants to present to me, work through it so I can just enjoy things. I think the realization that I came to started with something just feeling “off.” The thing is I am more aware of things being “off” now more than ever. It is a feeling I sense.

So with things being “off” how did I handle it? I have always thought if unfortunate things happen that one or two paths are presented and it is up to they’ll to choose which path works. As a person one can either make a choice of allowing the unfortunateness swallow you up or choose to stand up, pick your head up and march forward. I am sure at first it seems that the first option is what happens until we learn that something needs to change. This is an internal observation of mine of what my thought process is, it seems to be the first step that I take in situations. Some situations are simple, they don’t cause too much disturbance. Other situations like a great loss in life, could be a job, relationship, loss of a loved one as a few examples.

Grief is a very difficult thing and it affects everyone differently. Through this process I am currently going through, I have learned that there are 7 stages of grief that aren’t always processed in the order one can look up on the internet. There have been times I was in second by second mode, minute by minute mode and hour by hour wondering how would I make it through. I can tell you from my own personal experience that after spending three days in bed, body aches (more like manifested physical tension) all over and listening to the “Golden Girls”was about the bottom for me. That happened last October going into November. It was then that I realized I was clearly on the wrong path. It was around that time that I also realized that I would need to take a leave of absence from work to really start the work on “me.” What I know now is that during that time of leave of absence I made a decision that I didn’t want to hurt anymore (that was more of a recent discovery that I can reflect on looking at all this). I started reaching out to people a lot more and sought help to assist me with the storm that was going on around me and it seemed pretty vicious. I can see now from where I am sitting writing these words that a path that was opened up for me since making that decision to take care of “me,” and not hurt anymore.

The amount of hours I had spent on the phone trying to figure out what was wrong. Through my travels of this experience, I have learned that I was storing a lot of things. My nerves had reached a saturation point and there was nothing more they could take. I started having uncontrollable anxiety and panic attacks. These attacks would come out of nowhere. There was a time with the physical tension that I was experiencing that my left shoulder just felt tight and it seemed to traverse my left arm all the way to my left middle finger, which from time to time went numb. In my conversations with others, it was discussed that maybe it was a sugar thing, if it had been awhile since I had eaten, and I was eating on a regular schedule. It was ideally a process of elimination. Throughout my life I have always been pretty on myself about eating relatively alright, I mean I am guilty of a nice slice of cold chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and a tall glass of milk! However I have discovered that will all the trial and error, it wasn’t anything like that.

So what was this loss that turned my life upside down. I can tell you, dear reader, it was more than one loss. The initial loss was that of my father. Acceptance of his passing happened relatively quickly for me. He prepared me through my life for the day he wouldn’t be here. He was a realist on that subject. Unfortunately, his passing started to show me all of the things in life that I had to do alone, and the many other things in life that I hadn’t handled. Until now. Just about a year ago, August 2022, I had reached out to work for what is known as the Employee Assistance Program. For the first time in the nearly 24 years I had been employed here, I felt the need to speak to someone on a professional level (and it continues to this day as i am writing this). My father passed in 2021. The areas of grief that I hadn’t processed had a year to grow, and all this was without my realizing it. When he passed everything seemed rushed and had to get back to “life.” There’s bills to pay and everyone wants a piece of the pie. It seemed rush rush rush. However, it caught up with me.

It was early/late spring 2022 that I first start noticing panic attacks. I will be very honest, I thought I was having a heart attack. I was on the phone with a dear friend of mine and I was feeling this overwhelming feeling that the house was closing in on me and I needed to get out of the house like “NOW.” I was fortunate that I had that friend on the phone that day and I was talked to about what I was experiencing. I did have to sit down in the drive way and hope it would pass soon. I was instructed to breath deep, or take deep breaths. Now I am aware of what those deep breaths should have been from. The breaths should have been from the stomach or belly area. Something with the diaphragm. That particular day I was just breathing deep just from the chest area. There have been a few books (I will go into those book in a separate post) that I was introduced to through friends of mine, the one that resonates a lot with me that I was introduced to was titled “The Untethered Soul” by Michael A. Singer. Michael states in one of the chapters of the book, “now that you are aware that you are aware.” These words stay with me in this healing process and I would like to say where I am. Becoming aware and getting the storm to subside, is a difficult thing. From my experience, putting the time in to work on myself has now become my top priority. I don’t regret any decision that I had made then, however, it has made me more aware that if something has the potential to get bottled, that I stop, relax the shoulders and unclench the area around my heart.

For the longest time I said to myself, Phil, you know you want less stress, less drama and less of something that comes out of a bull. Does life happen? Absolutely and it always will. What I have learned from this portion is that I have to be more mindful of situations. Up until my father’s passing, that is exactly how it was. With my father’s passing, my mother passed away many years ago, and my experience with both of them have shown me that I didn’t fully grieve Mom. I saw that as I have been progressing through. It appears to have started with the most recent event and worked back in time. There was a time I felt like an orphan. When I was brought into this world, I was an only child. There is a feeling that cannot be explained and I know I am not the only person on the planet who has experienced that. Parts of me do feel that way, and I am sure there is some reason that is behind that that is yet to be discovered.

And with this dear reader is where I will cut the post. I am already having visions in my head on where all this will branch out. My hope with sharing this to the world is for someone (again) that could be in a storm with their mind, or events going on in life and maybe looking for an answer that can help get one by “for today.” There are a lot of things I did automatically without realizing it was life helping me along, that will be part of the focus in the next post. I understand completely that loss is apart of life, just the way life hands it to you it is up to you to decide how you want to handle it. When the continuing post is made I will attach this title with a part number.

I truly appreciate anyone who reads this and hopefully my story/ experience can help someone else. Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to share a few minutes with me and listen to what I have posted here. Have a safe and blessed day.

Until next time …