Powerful and overwhelming emotions such as grief can be a lot for you to take. If not handled appropriately, it can lead to a winding spiral of depression, anxiety, and physical health conditions. This is where practicing mindfulness can be helpful. Through mindfulness, you can process the flood of emotions healthy and lead you in the right direction to ensure your healing. So, what mindful habits should you cultivate in your daily routine to encourage healing during your grief? Below are a few tips to consider.
- Meditate
Meditation has been practiced over centuries to overcome overwhelming emotions and refocus. When you’re grieving, taking time off to meditate helps you acknowledge and accept your feelings. Although this can be challenging, it is an important step to heal. By allowing yourself to feel these emotions, you are not only preventing yourself from feeling the truth of the matter but also finding the best ways to deal with it. Additionally, you learn to appreciate the grieving process and understand that it is not a clear-cut road.
To ensure that your meditation session is effective, you should consider finding a quiet space to sit or lie in. You should also ensure the space is comfortable to encourage you to stay. Therefore, you should consider including warm rugs, blankets, and throw pillows. You can also include memorial candles to remember your departed loved one during meditation sessions.
- Find a healthy outlet
Acknowledging and accepting your emotions is one thing; expressing these emotions is another. Expressing your emotions helps you manage the emotions you’ve acknowledged better. If these emotions aren’t expressed, they could lead to unresolved grief or prolong the process, leading to various mental and physical health issues. Talking about it is a common medium many people use to express their emotions. However, this is not so easy for everyone. Fortunately, you can use several other healthy outlets to express your emotions. A study showed that writing is a great outlet for grieving persons. Therefore, consider keeping an expressive or gratitude journal to document your feelings. Other outlets you can consider include cooking or baking, gardening, listening to music, or painting.
- Create boundaries
While you are grieving, well-meaning friends and family would want to offer their support, love, and comfort in any way they can. They may do so by offering words of encouragement, coming over to visit, or calling regularly. However, this can be overwhelming for many grieving people, making it more difficult to heal. If you think some space alone would help you overcome the pain of your loss, you should create healthy boundaries. This doesn’t mean you should isolate yourself. Instead, communicate your needs with your well-meaning friends and family to ask that they respect them. Additionally, you should occasionally indulge them to prevent them from getting worried.
Grief can be a challenging journey to go through. However, by taking the right steps, you will be on the path to learning to endure and control it. These mindful tips are a great place to start.
