Packing Your Backpack After a Loss
When you find yourself on the receiving end of a loss, is there any way you can prepare for the journey ahead or is it simply a matter of reacting to what comes at you? Reacting is one way to deal with the fall out of loss but I want to suggest a more proactive way to respond to your loss.
This proactive approach to loss is about seeing in your possession a backpack you can fill with the tools, ideas, and activities that will help you on your journey.
This metaphor (not a real backpack) it intended to give you a picture of what it looks and feels like to take hold of the various pieces and items you can pull out when you need them.
We rebuild our lives after a loss one activity, one thought, one interaction at a time.
Grief isn’t linear and does not happen in a predictable way or pattern. There are similarities between grieving people but it’s not a series of “tasks to accomplish” or “stages to get through.”
Grief is more a series of options to consider.
Below is a laundry list of options. These are listed as actions you can take as well a mindset you can embrace. If you are grieving or helping someone who is, the point of this list is to provide ideas to help you create your own list of actions, ideas and activities that will fit the journey you are on.
This list is not exhaustive but ever changing and one you can add your own ideas to.
You will not resonate with all these actions or choose to think all these thoughts and beliefs. See this as a process of discovery, reflection, and experimentation.
Fill up your backpack but don’t stop there, pull out the items you need when you need them along the way.
Hold an open hand to this journey you are on. It’s important to embrace the parts of your life that are alive as well as the darkest and most broken parts.
The Items in Your Backpack Can Bring Joy or Grief
A key principle that undergirds this idea is that we need to intentionally welcome both grief and life to coexist while on the grief journey. The backpack model will help you do that.
The longer we have been grieving a loss, the harder it is to start living again…we must invite LIFE and GRIEF to walk hand in hand. — Christina Rasmussen
If life doesn’t escort grief back to joy, then it takes us must longer to get there, if we ever do! — Christina Rasmussen
Actions to Take — Thoughts to Think — Activities to Engage In
Be kind to yourself
Lean in — then lean out
Form rituals
Tell others what you need
Exercise — walk, run, cycle, dance
Do a grief cleanse
Listen and watch encouraging messages — podcasts, inspiring movies, uplifting or soul stirring music
Reduce your workload
Go back to work
Cultivate soul enriching habits — prayer, spiritual reading, solitude, meditation
Journal your thoughts and feelings
Connect with empathetic witnesses
Breathe
Help others
Sleep
Take time for short term distractions
Read books on grief and loss
Eat healthy
Take a road trip
Learn a new skill
Focus on what’s left, not what’s lost
See suffering and loss as part of life
Be aware of limiting beliefs
Reframe your perspective
Renew your purpose
Embrace tears as healing
Find and learn from role models
Focus on who you are becoming
Find a new identity
Believe life will get better
Believe you will survive
Identify and dispel grief myths
Let grief be your friend
Be a stress buster
Reflection Question
What would you add to your backpack?
Who in your life needs your support to fill their own backpack?
What action, thoughts, or activity have you found helpful?
