There are sometimes significant changes needed in our lives to be able to live well with the loss of a child. For example, the way that we earn a living might not feel possible any more. Where we live, how we socialise, who we socialise with, all kinds of areas of our lives might need us, or even require us, to make changes if we are to be OK.
Don't rush to make changes
It is received wisdom, that I would support, that we should not rush to make significant changes in our lives too soon after loss. However, at some point, there are likely to be some important decisions to make. These aren't just about jobs and houses, but about seemingly small but hugely important things, like: Shall I throw away my son's worn-out trainers that sit by the door in the kitchen?
What should I do? What if it goes wrong? What if I regret what I've done? Will it feel right?
All of these questions and more might go through your mind as you try to decide what to do. We can end up more and more confused and not making any decisions at all.
Thoughts, feelings and instincts
When we have a problem to solve or are trying to make an important decision we care influenced by our thoughts, our feelings and our instincts.
I have recently done some work with the fabulous Mindset Architect, Betty Hemingway and this really underlined the importance for me of including all three questions when exploring and solving problems. She talks about head, heart and gut thinking and a group of us did an exercise where we used all three of these areas to consider a situation or problem that we are cuurently engaged with. So what follows is closely related to Betty's work.
What do I think?
I do a lot of my problem solving in my head, writing lists is one of my favourite things to do. Researching, calculating, listing, drawing diagrams - I use these methods when investigating a problem like - where to live, how to earn my living, what to eat, where to go for a weekend away. However my head is pretty good at its job and all this working out can be utterly exhausting sometimes.
What do I know?
I do some of my problem solving in my gut. I trust my instincts and when my gut says, "Yes!" or "No!" that tells me what I know about this situation. I trust that message and pay close attention to what my gut is telling me. My gut tells me when I am safe or unsafe and literally feeds me the nutrients I need in my life and steers me away from poisons. I trusted my gut when I took my three children to live in Devon when they were little. I trusted my gut when I trained as a psychotherapist. There were plenty of calculations I could have done (and probably did) that might have told me these were not sensible or logical decisions, but I knew they were right for me at a fundamental level.
How do I feel?
Thirdly, I make decisions from the heart. How do I feel about this? The heart is about connection, about compassion, trust and love. I can see now that most of my decisions for a long time after my son died were made from the heart, some with little consulation with the head! My heart was cracked wide open and, whilst I still had my instinctual gut feelings to guide me, my head became a less used thinking centre for a while. I think there was also a stage when my heart closed again for protection and to avoid the disappointments and hurts of others' reactions and behaviour. This was effective but also a lonely place to be.
Bringing it all together
Many years have passed now and I have a sense that these three sorts of thinking are now usually pretty integrated for me. That means I can work some stuff out so that I know what I think, include the consideration of how I feel and continue to trust my gut to tell me what I know. There are times when I get too caught up in one or another and need to remind myself to include whichever is being missed out.
So, when you have decisions to make about your life I encourage you to remember to consider all three of these questions in order that you can find a clearer answer to your situation or problem:
What do I think about this?
How do I feel about this?
What do I know about this?
I would love to hear whether any of this makes sense or feels right to you.