5 Ways to Handle Life’s Sucker Punches
Life has its blows. You see the fist coming and you brace for impact, knowing it will hurt but that you can take the punch. But when you find yourself coming to on the floor, having fallen the other way, you are left wondering how you got there.
The death of my father-in-law was one of these blows. He was quite old and his death was expected. So, I braced for the punch, knowing it would be okay. But it wasn’t. It triggered a wave of grief in me. I couldn’t believe how upset I was about his death. But wait, it wasn’t about him at all.
Memories of my own father’s death kept playing on a loop in my mind. I was both sad and panicked. I was struck over and over by waves of loss, of not being enough, of not doing things right, of not being able to fix anything. My dad died eight years ago, how could these emotions still be so fresh? But as I took a closer look at these memories I realized I wasn’t thinking of my father at all.
I was thinking about my mom, who could not handle my dad’s death and both relied on me too much and was never really satisfied by what I offered. These kinds of problems with my mom persist to this day. I’ve always struggled with my relationship with her but when my dad died all of her problems and all of my problems with her just became magnified. Recently I have had to take a break from contact with her. This grief is fresh. There is something there to work out and it goes back pretty far.
When something terrible happens, trauma, grief, and memory band together creating a mind fuck that brings on confusion. When the deep recesses of our memory and emotions are triggered, how can we cope? How can we even identify what it is we need to cope with? How can we begin to make sense of it? I wish I knew. I can share with you some of the things I do which helped me figure out how my feelings around the death of my father-in-law were really about unresolved stuff with my mom:
Create. For me, writing unlocks my creativity which seems to at the same time unlock some of those doors to memories I try to protect myself from. Writing a few sentences, a journal, a poem, just anything really helps.
Walk. This always clears my head. Walking causes compensating eye movements much like those used in EMDR therapy. This calms our amygdala which is our fear center, which makes troubling things less troubling.
Talk to someone. If you have someone to be vulnerable with, just getting your words out to kind ears can be a big start.
Therapy. If you have the ability seek out a therapist. Talking to someone who is trained to help you access these painful places can be life-changing.
Feel your feelings. It is so tempting to numb ourselves when we feel uncomfortable. Alcohol and drugs are big numbers for our society and I get it. But by not numbing we allow ourselves to sit a little longer in our bad moments which gives us a chance to really be curious about what really got us there.
Those are my ideas for figuring out the stuff that blindsides you. I’d love to hear yours. We can’t protect ourselves from the 2 of the 1–2 punches, we can get back up. And with a little intentional effort, maybe the next round won’t hurt so much.
