What To Do When the Worst Happens

Hey to all.

Hope this post finds you moderately well….I get how at times staying ‘on’ and feeling awesome is hard. Moderately well includes those who are just showing up as best as they’re able to their right now moments. And I applaud your courage and your willingness to press on.

Today I’m writing about how to handle it when the worst happens.

There’s a few reasons–and in no particular order, and probably least to most important:

1. Life often feels very hard.

2. Toughies and how to handle them aren’t talked about enough.

3. I haven’t written much on how to handle things when the worst happens.

4. Something that’s a definite ‘worst’ has recently happened to me and I need a place to collect my thoughts.

Okay. What some of you are thinking: ‘what’s she mean by the worst?”

So lemme call it: when something tragic happens to someone you love.

I had some tough news this past weekend.

And it hit me like a ton of bricks. I wasn’t expecting this at all and it just hit me completely hard.

I sobbed a good 24 hours or more pining over and over what I could have done — as if anything — to impact a different outcome. I hit that black hole emptiness that feels lost, afraid, alone, desperately depressed and scared.

While this is surely no formula, I’m offering here simply what helps me when the worst happens, if simply to offer comfort to you.

Allow yourself to FEEL and express these feelings in a healthful, safe way: Cry as much as you need to. You need a way to react to shock and crying is at least not destructive to yourself. Crying far outweighs any day getting drunk, getting high, binging, whatever you’ve been tempted to dive into in the past to numb the pain. Just cry. For hours on end. Give yourself permission.

Nurture yourself: When you have nothing left to cry, wrap yourself into a ball and rock yourself. Yes, as if you were a baby being rocked by a mother. This tender gesture TO YOURSELF has the most amazing healing impact. It makes you feel surrounded by a comforting presence. Love IS everywhere, surrounding you, comforting you, holding you, sustaining you. This act of rocking yourself back and forth helps you feel Love’s constant, perpetual, nurturing embrace.

Release the pull to claim personal responsibility: Start making gentle affirmations about your life and about your role at this moment.  You are not the reason for the tragedy.  You are not the source of another’s pain and you are not the origin of whatever tragedy has occurred. This is something you must convince yourself of.

Trust your loved one to the constant care of the universe: Lean with your whole heart and sense of faith on the truth that each and every one of us is governed and cared for at every moment…here and hereafter. Entrust your loved one to that care and release all sense that he or she has been neglected or lost. No one falls out of the care of Divine Love. Ever. Whether or not we see this evidence.

Wrap your arms around faith: Whatever sense of faith you have, lean on it. Stand on it. It is your rock. Take however much time you need to cultivate this prevailing sense. But whatever is going on right now in your life needs your full attention and that is why trusting your loved one to the care of universal intelligence is vital. It releases the burden seeming feel from your thoughts and it frees you up to focus on the immediate needs of your own experience.

Be open to growing your sense of what is love: I’ve often felt like every hardship is an occasion for yet another lesson in how to love more…how to grow in unselved love, how to forgive, how to let go and love and trust. Strive to cultivate a willingness to grow.

Hard news sometimes takes time to work through.

There’s no rush. You take all the time you need to feel all that you need to feel. But ultimately, strive to open yourself to a sense of love that entrusts the care of all to the universe, which for me is to that sense of Divine, Mothering Love. It is a rudder in everyone’s life. It absolutely maintains our identities here and here after and nudges all of our life’s lessons.

If you’re going through something hard and need to talk about it, leave a comment. If you’ve found ideas such as the above helpful, let’s hear about your experience. If you have any questions, please leave them below.

Thank you for reading and sharing….

Til next post, take care of that heart of yours…and be well.

Tre ~