How do you handle sadness & grief?

My heart has been struggling with sadness & grief from a number of events in my life. Two deaths in my family, and a lost of my pastor who recently resigned. It’s been really hard on my emotions “ups and downs” and a lot of tears. I was curious how others handle their sadness. I am a Christian and use my faith to help me, and sometimes my emotions overwhelm me. I don’t like the ups & downs of emotions.

Hi Jerehiahgirl,

I'm terribly sorry for your losses. I know how painful it can be to lose those close to you. It's understandable that your emotions are all over the place but I know that can be exhausting.

Something that has helped me is try to get into the present moment and stay there as much as possible. During the times when my brain needed a break or I was at work etc, just focusing on what I was doing in each moment helped me to stay grounded. When my emotions would inevitably bubble up, I acknowledged the feeling and reminded myself I would take the time to feel them later, and I gently guided myself back into the moment.

Something else that's helped me is to buy a book/workbook to help me with my pain-either one based on faith or grief etc. It helps me feel like I'm going to be okay. There are people who've been through what I have and there are tools that I can learn to help me.

I'm glad to hear that you have your faith to find some solace in and I hope you feel His love all around you. He is in our suffering and He's right there with you. It's also okay to cry and feel however you do. There is no shame in struggling and if you need to it's okay to reach out for help. My prayers are with you.

Sorry to ask, but, I've heard this advice before, and I don't understand it. If I'm distracted away from the present moment, that's when I'm able to tune out painful feelings. If I focus into the real world is when I get emotional pain. How come that this works the opposite way for me?

I'm sorry about your losses... usually it takes time to get over them. Hang on, and try to keep yourself busy.

I'm sorry about your losses as well. ((((Hugs)))))

Cry it out, lean on others for support, write in a journal, talk to a therapist, take walks and/or exercise, and most importantly, take good care of yourself during this time. Tend to your basic needs such as showering, eating and exercising, and take time for yourself to pamper yourself a bit. The sun WILL shine again.

Naturally, the more you think about a certain event, the more it affects you. If it is a negative event, you will feel worse. So in cases where thinking about it cannot possibly lead to any new insights or solutions, the only thing to make it feel less bad is to try to move on. How? By looking forward and filling your life with new positive things.

That said, I'd feel terrible if terrible things happened to me and I was just able to move on. There is some pride and romance in experiencing sadness and grief.

Thank You very much

I've started meditating a bit and I think I understand it a little. It's not that you should be in the present moment as in focusing on your current state and all the details of your current state. It's a state that's divorced from all the details of your life right now. You forget your sex (i.e. gender), your name, your race, age, etc., and your life situation, and you sort of just experience being. Try just sitting in a chair staring at a wall and just experience your breath and the feeling that at this moment you're a consciousness that exists, nothing more. Sometimes to ground myself, I remind myself that everything is passing, and that this is just a very small part of existence, and that not only will my feelings eventually pass, but one day I'll be gone too. In that moment of feeling very small and insignificant, I have some glimmer of a bigger picture, and the things that are causing me pain are also diminished.

J.G. - when I was going through the process of grieving my mother's passing, at some point I found myself increasingly connecting with memories and thoughts of her that evoked feelings of appreciation and gratitude. More specifically, I was increasing connecting with the ways in which that person had a positive influence/impact on my life, and increasingly finding myself feeling thankful and grateful. I felt/experienced these emotions in my heart center. What I noticed, over time - was that evoking these heart-based emotions surrounding the individual who passed on was transmuting the hurting/pain, and it was contributing to my healing. Eventually it reached a point where consciously connecting with my memory of this individual would conjure up less and less pain/hurting - and more and more thankfulness/appreciation/gratitude (positive/healing emotional response). I'm now (thankfully) in a place where I no longer experience any hurting/pain when I connect with thoughts/memories of this person...

So maybe, when you are ready to do so, you can encourage yourself to increasingly focus on and connect with the positive attributes/memories/influences that you associate with those individuals who passed (crossed over). Try to be aware how this affects how you're feeling, over time...

Thanks for the reply. I have never seen such a good detailed description of this!

I still don't understand how viewing myself as a "consciousness" is grounding. Or feeling this "big universe"/"bigger picture" thing. All that to me just seems overly detached and deeply mentally tuned out of the physical surroundings. It just would have me remain unable to get up and go out in the world and face challenges and do things. To get up and go and push through the hard stuff of life, the exact opposite attitude is required IMO. An attitude that's toughened up for the actual world and that isn't really mentally focused actually unlike this "bigger picture/consciousness" thing.

As for the rest with being divorced from all the details of my life right now, that just seems like the type of distraction that I am already too good at. That is how I'm able to keep putting off resolution of issues/problems. Failing to move forward and missing out on living life fully. It's not good for me.

I mean, it for sure is an unemotional and calm state, it's absolutely good for not having to experience stress, because it disconnects all emotional reactions for the blocked out part of life/world, but it takes me nowhere. Because unfortunately it also disconnects all involvement in life, too. (The big part of life/world anyway that I block out in this fashion.) And yeah, again, it sure avoids the negative emotions, but that comes at too high a price.

Especially if one (like me) defaults to this state too easily. To this "compartmentalizing". I do default to it too easily and then it's hard to get motivated and moving again to get certain things I want if I block out a big part of the world/my life.

P.S. I never practiced meditation, this compartmentalizing was always natural to me. Especially after I experienced a big part of the world (well, people mainly, really) as impossible to exist in. My goal is to not have to rely on this distraction so much anymore, and ability to tolerate all the pain instead. (But god, it's a LOT of pain and I don't see the solution. The thread title is actually pretty relevant to me too...)

I can't really say too much more, as I've only just begun meditating. But it's easy to get distracted when you meditate and you're always supposed to sort of pull yourself out of the thoughts you get stuck on and return your attention to your breath. So with regular practice, it does teach you how to break away from intrusive or cyclical thoughts and just let them go without getting emotionally involved or trapped. Maybe that would be helpful--certainly for me it's critical. But I'm not trying to push meditation or mindfulness on anyone. I was just trying to clarify something in general for jeremiahgirl.

Ok but I have pain with an empty head. I don't need to think to have pain. What I call distraction sounds like this meditation practice, because it's the same with blocking out the painful world. It is not helpful to me because it just makes me stay in a vegetating state (=not doing anything useful, just peacefully distracted).

I guess maybe I just have too much pain to block out so that's why I end up doing nothing for too long in the calm distracted state. So sure, it that sense it works... it works to not have to feel the pain. It doesn't work to solve anything. It doesn't work to allow me to be able to live life in this world.

But I'm sure it's good practice for those who just need to get rid of a bit of stress. I'm not saying it's entirely useless for everyone! (For me either, I'd probably have already died without this ability to block out the pain.) I hope your posts helped OP.