When we talk about grief and recovery, we often focus exclusively on feeling better. We want to feel better right away and the world does too. Very little time is afforded before we're asked if we're "still" grieving, or why we aren't quite yet back to ourselves.
But why don't we treat major physical illness the same way?
The mind-body connection is strong and parallels between physical and emotional healing are too. Think about it: if someone has major surgery on, say, their knee, we don't expect them to be running laps within a week, do we? If someone has open heart surgery, we don't suggest they should be back to "normal" in a few days. To even think about it seems absurd. Instead, we allow the wound to slowly heal. We understand not to put strain or weight on the area. We know it will be tender for a long time. And then, maybe after some physical therapy, can we begin to resume our normal activities - only after we've rebuilt the strength in the area.
Emotional healing is similar. I think of it this way: major loss feels like a spiritual heart attack. It can feel, quite literally, like our chests have exploded. Our emotional hearts are in thousands of tiny pieces. When we manage to sweep them all up again, it's going to take a long time for the shards to come together to form the whole - and when the whole does form, it's going to be very fragile for a while. We need to build our strength back up and, similar to post-surgery, we really can't take any extra stress or baggage placed on the wound. It's too tender.
I personally am very impatient so this process was incredibly frustrating and disheartening to me. I couldn't understand why a schmaltzy commercial would send me into breakdown mode. I was annoyed with myself that I wasn't stronger and couldn't carry more. But the truth was that I was simply in healing mode and my emotional organ was warning me: no more, we're too fragile, we need time to heal.
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