When I was faced with extreme grief, despair, dread, and anger, I responded in a way that I would never recommend – I went to school the next day.
On November 28th, 1999, my father lost a year-long battle with prostate cancer. He was just 49 It was, and in many ways still is, a defining moment in my life that shaped my character forever. But to start, I reacted poorly.
In the moment, on that very day, I told myself that I would not let his death affect me. So I called a friend, got a ride to school, and acted as if nothing happened.
Like me, your normalized instinct may be to react to pain, loss, and failure with anger, defeat, despair, and self-doubt. You may be responding to the loss of a family member, or simply not getting called for an interview after your 5th application.
Regardless of your situation, I’ve learned the steps to move forward in a healthy way. What we’re going to cover here has taken me literally 21 years to learn. So, I implore you to pay close attention to these three steps:
- Feel your feelings
- Express your feelings
- Act through a positive response
Feel Your Feelings
The clear first mistake I made in reaction to the loss of my father was not allowing myself to feel my feelings. If the phrase “feel your feelings” sounds funny to you, think about it from the opposite perspective.
We could describe what I did as “stuffing” my feelings, “ignoring” my feelings, or simply “hiding” from my feelings. Regardless of the verb we use, the truth remains that I did not give myself the ability or time to simply feel my emotions.
And for those of you who are with me and think “how the hell does one ‘feel’ feelings?” – I’ve found it to be deceptively simple: you acknowledge you’re not feeling good and you just name the emotions that seem accurate.
In practice, this thought process looks something like “Okay, I’m not feeling okay. Actually, I’m pretty upset. No, I’m mad. I’m in fact quite angry! Well, then what am I angry at? Oh, I’m angry that I was late because that’s embarrassing. Oh, that must mean I’m embarrassed! Yeah, I feel pretty ashamed over that. It makes me feel like I’m irresponsible.”
Through that exercise we can name upset, anger, embarassment, shame, and even self-accusation/name-calling. When you allow yourself to sit with that for a minute and think to yourself “yes, these are the things that I’m feeling and I’m allowed to feel angry right now.” – that’s what I mean by “feel your feelings”.
Nothing woo-woo, “ethereal”, or spiritual/meditative about it.
This is the first step to take, and it’s hard. It requires you to quit running, hiding, or “coping” and actually name what you’re feeling. While it’s scary as hell if you’re not used to it, I swear it pays incredible dividends. At this point, even if you’ve only succeeded a little bit, you can move onto expression.
Express Your Feelings
It’s not good enough to say “I’m feeling angry” to yourself. You actually have to express this feeling outwardly.
I do not mean by screaming at someone and “venting”, breaking things, being physically abusive, or any other negative outburst.
Whatever you do here – and this will be incredibly personal and subjective as to what is “right” – the result of your effort remains the same: physical and mental catharsis. Usually, you’ll find one of two reactions:
- You feel physically lighter as if a “weight” was lifted off your shoulders, you’ll appear happier outwardly, and you’ll feel emotionally positive and upbeat.
- You’ll absolutely exhausted and beat as if you went through a war. You’ll feel better, but you need to rest/sleep/do nothing for a while.
I used to encounter a lot of the latter when I wasn’t used to this. As I’ve become more practiced at emotional expression, I usually experience the former unless in a short period of extreme emotional distress.
Again, how you go about expressing your emotions is a personal choice. I either journal or literally talk out my thoughts. I’ve made agreements with a few individuals I deeply trust whereby I can verbally vomit a stream-of-consciousness in their direction so I can process my thoughts and emotions, and they withhold judgement on whatever comes out and correct me if I’m going down a poor path.
Others of you will turn to creating music, poetry, artworks, and even physical things like weightlifting or a contact sport. The options for this are limitless, as long as it’s allowing you to truly express and “work through” your emotions.
For me, after acknowledging what I’m feeling, I have to dig for and verbalize why I’m feeling those emotions. If I’m mad that I was late, I may realize that’s because being late was embarrassing, and I come to the conclusion that I believe being late means I’m irresponsible. Then I have to recon with that belief.
If you’re making music that’s screaming angry or sad and depressive but you’re not using it to discover why, you’re inevitably going to repeat the same patterns. I while that can be useful when you don’t know how to take the next step and grow, invariably you’re not actually working through your emotions at that point – thus you end up just wallowing.
Again, true expression results with you feeling better. And once you start to feel better, you can move onto the final major step – acting.
Act Through a Positive Response
Where expression is great for you personally, the true end to dealing with grief and self-accusation ends with outward action. I won’t say you’re failing if you don’t do this – I’ll just tell you that you’re not feeling the full extent of joy that you could be feeling if you did.
Coming to a final mental “grip” on your situation results in asking yourself “what can I do to help others?” – and this isn’t out of duty or obligation, but out of a “I never want anyone to ever have to go through what I did or learn the hard way“ type of attitude.
And by acting, you begin giving back, sharing what you’ve learned, and helping others. This could look like donating money, teaching, sharing your experience through content, mentoring, and many, many other opportunities.
What this doesn’t look like is an outward expression towards others or yourself of anger, rage, vengeance, or self-victimization. Again, remember, none of the results we’re looking for end in negativity, depression, or destruction – quite the opposite.
While you may feel stuck and think that you have to do something extremely special to give back, step back for a minute and look at what I’m writing here. This simple act of sending you an email, for me, is sharing my experience, teaching from it, and potentially mentoring.
I have the sincere hope that reading this gives you the freedom and permission to not feel okay if you don’t feel okay, acknowledge that, and begin to work through it. I know that I certainly needed a lot of help with that, and it’s okay.
“But Adaaam” you say “That’s all really hard! It hurts!”
You’re absolutely right, it does. Every bit of this process, when you don’t know it or you’ve never done it – well – it really really sucks. It seems like it would just be a hell of a lot easier to curl up in a ball and wait for the pain to go away.
But, it doesn’t. It just waits for you, and maybe grows more scary in your mind over time (it did to me).
However, I’ve got really fantastic news for you. You’re a badass who can totally face the hardest stuff. Yep, I said it, and I mean it. Maybe you and I have never met before – but I’ve got zero doubts of you. If you’re the type of person who would read this article all the way through and be following my content – you have the inner makings of a complete badass who is ready to face big, hard, scary, impossible things.
You can do it, and you will do it. I believe in you. You’ll take it one step at a time, and you’ll end up better than okay.
How to Deal with Grief in 3 Steps
- Feel your feelings
- Express your feelings
- Act through a positive response
This only took 21 years
But I think every bit of it is worth sharing with you. Hopefully, it’s obvious to some of you. While I may have made mistakes in coming to terms with the loss of my father, I’ve put the subsequent years and trials involved to good use for our mutual benefit.
Today, I have no doubt, the man would be proud of me. And yes, the thought of that turns me into a big emotional mess 🙂
He’d also be proud of this
Not only am I giving back via an article – for the next 48 hours we’re going to practice some crazy generosity together.
From now until Tuesday night (December 1st) at the stroke of midnight, all of my paid content is going onsale and I’m taking zero dollars of profit from it.
Pay super close attention to this next part or else you won’t get the deal.
To take part:
- Go to this link (or https://zerocancer.org and click “DONATE” – it’s the same place)
- For a copy of Quit Aspiring, Like Magic, or Begin Audio Scripting with Reaper – donate $10 or more
- For access to C# Implementation with Wwise and Unity (Premium Edition) – donate $100 or more (I’ve literally never put this on sale before)
- Make the donation a gift “In Memory Of” Ken Croft – this helps ZERO track things
- Forward a copy of the donation receipt to me@adamtcroft.com with your preferred product
- You must make the donation before Wednesday December 2nd Pacific Time
- You must also be patient as I’ll be fulfilling orders by hand 🙂
ZERO: The End of Prostate Cancer is a small, non-profit cancer charity I’ve been fundraising for ever since we raised over $2,000 together two years ago. Your donations will go directly to prostate cancer programs and research and I won’t see a dollar of it, which warms my heart. In return, you’ll get to learn and grow through the content I have to share, which also warms my heart.
So, win-win-win for everybody. See? ACT, my friends!
Again,
- Go to this link (or https://zerocancer.org and click “DONATE”
- $10 or more gets you a book, $100 or more gets you access to C# Implementation with Wwise and Unity
- Just forward the donation receipt to me@adamtcroft.com and I’ll take care of the rest
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