Is It Possible to Grieve and Grow at the Same Time?

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SPEAKER_00: Have you ever found yourself sitting in your car?

Maybe you're at the traffic light.

Maybe you're in the parking lot, waiting to go into the grocery store.

Or maybe it's first thing in the morning, getting ready to head into work.

And you have that one thought that eats you alive.

This is not at all where I thought my life would be.

I am nowhere in my life right now that I ever thought I would be.

Maybe it was because something happened, something changed, something ended sooner than you ever could have imagined.

Or maybe it was simply that something in life or a series of things didn't go like you planned.

And now you're at that point where you're trying to move forward while still holding on to what you had.

And the truth is, is that nobody really shows you how to do both.

How to grieve what you've lost while still building a life ahead of you.

So that, my friend, is what we're going to talk about today is how to grieve and grow.

How they don't have to be total opposites, but instead they can work together to help you move into your next chapter of life.

So inside of today's episode, I promise I'm going to share with you three simple yet effective mindset shifts that are going to have you realizing that you don't have to choose between grieving and growing.

They can work mutually with one another.

It's all inside of today's 443rd episode of Great Grace and its great.

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So for today, we're talking about this topic of learning how to grieve and grow at the same time.

When we speak specifically about grief, well, grief comes in many forms than we typically talk about.

Because it's not just losing someone you love.

It's maybe you losing a dream, a relationship, a version of your life that you thought you would be living.

And what makes grieving difficult in whatever form it comes in is that life doesn't just have a pause button.

Everything doesn't just stop and allow you time to fully grieve, to fully overcome, to get past whatever that's supposed to mean, the loss that you've experienced.

And again, I'm talking about grieving in a general sense.

I grieved the loss of my eyesight, but more so, maybe, is the fact that I had to grieve the loss of the life that I thought I was going to have.

And in my situation, just as yours, life doesn't take a break.

Everything doesn't stop.

It doesn't give you time to process it.

No, it keeps moving, it keeps going and expects you to somehow be able to keep up.

And with that, you tend to find yourself in a spot of tension where you're trying to grieve what you lost, yet you're trying to keep up with the world, with your life.

And to be honest, at some point in time, you want to move forward.

You're tired of being sad.

You're tired of grieving.

You want to grow.

You want to figure out the next thing to do.

And yet you find yourself in this trap of being stuck, torn between what you had, what you thought you were going to have, and what reality is.

And so today, what I want us to begin to understand is that grieving and growing, and we're going to use the term growing, but it's basically moving on, starting over, starting new, turning the page, beginning the new chapter, heck, writing the whole new book.

They don't have to work against each other, but instead, they can coexist and amongst one another.

Basically, think of grieving and growing as teammates.

But without first understanding how they work together, well, you're going to feel like you're constantly being pulled in two different directions.

Because there's a part of you that wants to grow, that wants to move forward.

And yet there's the other part of you that keeps holding on to what was or what was supposed to have been.

And to be honest, sometimes what happens is as we start to grow, as we start to love again, to live again, to dream again, that other side always finds a way of creeping in, of almost kind of like, hey, don't forget about me.

Remember what you lost?

You're supposed to still be sad.

You're supposed to be upset.

And we find ourselves almost feeling guilty for moving forward with our lives.

But we have to understand that that's not what life is.

That's not what it was meant to be.

It's meant to constantly evolve, constantly change.

And yeah, trust me, I wish things in life didn't happen.

I wish that you didn't have to lose that family member who you're grieving the loss of.

I wish that so many bad things didn't have to happen in this world, but they do.

Unfortunately, that's just the way this world is.

And so being the fact that it is, unfortunately, a part of life, we have to be willing to keep going, to keep growing, and to use what we've gone through not to hold us back, but to make us better.

Maybe it doesn't necessarily propel us forward, but I believe it can certainly help us grow in amongst ourselves of who we are, becoming bigger, better versions of us as we continue on with wherever we're headed in life.

So the question that we have to ask ourselves is how does this play out?

How do you actually move forward without ignoring what you've gone through, without forgetting what you've been through, without trying to pretend that everything is okay?

Basically, how do you grow without forgetting about what you've lost, what you've been grieving, the fact that you're still hurting?

Today, I'm gonna explore just three things that I believe help to make this possible.

What may feel completely impossible?

I hope that these can make it possible.

Now, truth is, there's many different ways to go about it.

I'm just sharing three things that have worked for me.

And I hope that maybe they can help you as well.

So, starting off our list of three things, three mindset shifts that are going to allow grief and growth to coexist.

And so the first step, the first pillar, the first idea, whatever you want to call it, the first mindset shift is grace.

When it comes to grieving, there's no timeline, there's no finish line.

There's no moment when everything just suddenly makes sense again.

It's true.

Some days you'll feel okay.

Other days it will just be the smallest, most minute thing will just set you off and have you crying.

Will have you feeling like everything in life is spiraling out of control, that you can't possibly do it anymore.

When those moments happen, when those days occur, it doesn't mean that you're broken.

It doesn't mean that you've gone backwards.

Honestly, it just means that you're human.

Grace is giving yourself permission to feel what you feel.

Grace is you not judging yourself because of where you are, it's not judging yourself because you feel like you should be over it by now.

Grace is you giving yourself permission to not rush it, to understand that healing takes time and that everyone is different, every situation is unique.

And just because others may try to tell you that you should be over it, my friend, they have no business saying that at all.

They are not you, they have not gone through what you have gone through.

Every person is different, every situation is unique.

And the most important thing here is you are you.

And you are the only person who knows when you are indeed ready to begin growing.

But what I do want you to understand is this you don't have to be fully okay, fully over it, to be willing to take just the next step.

I'm not talking about crushing it, I'm not talking about making a giant leap.

I'm just saying a single step.

And yeah, sometimes when you take that step, you may regret it.

You may take a step back, and that's okay.

Because giving yourself grace gives yourself permission to test out the waters a little, to dip your toe in, to feel it out, to see if maybe you're ready to take the next step.

And once you give yourself grace, something inside begins to shift.

Because when you finally stop fighting what you feel, you finally create space to learn from it, to grow.

And that is where the next piece comes into play.

And that, my friend, is growth.

When we're talking about growth, I want to be real.

Nobody wants pain, nobody signs up for bad things to happen.

No, I don't care who you are, you don't want stuff to go wrong in life.

But you know what's crazy is that pain has a way of revealing things that you never would have seen otherwise.

It changes your perspective, it reshapes what matters, and it forces you to ask deeper questions of yourself.

Now, the secret is that growth doesn't mean that you move on like nothing ever happened.

Instead, growth is you carrying forward what you've learned, what you've experienced.

Because again, we can't always control what happens in this life.

I've said that statement more times than I can count on the podcast.

But we can always control how we respond, how we react.

And one of those ways is by taking what has happened to us and learning from it, not letting it beat us down, but instead allowing it to build upon ourselves, to grow, to become better versions of us.

And all of those lessons learned, as we grow, we carry them with us.

You bring them into the next chapter.

The next chapter isn't a brand new book.

No, it's the same story, just a new chapter.

One of the most powerful things that happens when we begin to enter into this growth stage is we stop asking the question, why did this happen to me?

And instead, you start beginning to look at it from a different perspective of what can I learn because of this?

What lessons can I take from it?

How can I use what happened to me not as a negative, but how can I use it as a positive?

What can I do because of it?

Inside of the hardest moments or some of the most pivotal lessons in life that are going to shape us moving forward.

We just have to be willing to ask ourselves different questions to expand, to grow.

And once we allow growth to take place, we can move into the third piece of the puzzle.

One of the most powerful pieces of all.

And that, my friend, is gratitude.

Now, when I say gratitude, I'm not talking about surface level positivity.

I'm not talking about toxic positivity.

No, I'm talking about something way deeper, way more meaningful than that.

This is not pretending that everything is just hunky dory.

No, this is not pretending.

I'm talking about the small little things, the glimmers of hope.

The little tiny things that remind you everything's gonna be okay.

The things that remind you there's still something good here.

There's still hope.

There's still a chance for me for tomorrow.

It might be something as simple as a conversation with a person in line at the grocery store.

It might be as simple as the sound of the birds outside your window, first thing in the morning.

Just as the sunlight's beginning to shine its light on the world, the birds start singing.

Or maybe it's just a sense of peace that you weren't expecting today.

And yet you all of a sudden realize, wow, you know what?

I don't feel so heavy.

I just feel lighter today.

You have that feeling of peace you weren't expecting.

This is gratitude.

Gratitude for the big things found in amongst the little things.

Now, the powerful thing about gratitude is the fact that gratitude doesn't cancel out grief.

Instead, it coexists with it.

And when you can begin to see the beauty in the little things, to experience the power of gratitude, and just the littlest things, even in the midst of the bad, you, my friend, begin to become the version of you that you're meant to be.

Gratitude, again, is something that honestly you can experience in the monst of the entire journey.

Because even when everything is going wrong, even when everything in your world seems like it's falling apart, if you can focus on finding those little glimmers of hope, those little pieces of things in life to be grateful for, my friend, it can help you dramatically.

And one of the easiest places to find it is in nature.

I spoke about the birds singing outside your window in the morning.

It can be found in those first rays of sunlight coming through your window.

It can also be found in a random pop-up afternoon thunderstorm.

When you're tucked away in your office, or maybe you're at home and it's storming outside, and it's gotten dark in the middle of the day, and the thunder's booming.

Just sit there and marvel at the magnificence of something as simple as the weather.

And be grateful for the opportunity of how you're feeling, the peace, the ease that you're experiencing.

Maybe it's a bad thunderstorm.

Maybe the power goes out.

Maybe your TV loses signal and you're just left to just sit.

Internet's not working, so you can't be on the computer.

Instead, you just have to sit and listen to the rain.

Fine gratitude in that.

So now with those three mindset shifts, those three principles in place to have you learning how to grieve and grow all at the same time.

Let's begin to put them into action.

So we're gonna round out today's episode with just three quick little action items for you to help you put this into practice.

First, if you're into journaling, why not journal?

And I want you to journal on these specific three prompts.

Today, I'm grieving.

Today, I'm grateful for.

And today, I'm learning.

Those three prompts, just journal about them.

Do it every day.

Do it once a week.

Do it once and forget about it.

Do it as many times as you feel it can benefit you.

Again, maybe you don't even have to write it down.

Instead, maybe you just think about it.

Ask yourself today, I'm grieving.

What are you upset about?

What are you missing?

What are you sad over?

Talk it out.

And then move to the next one.

Reminding yourself of what you're thankful for.

What gratitude do you have in your heart right now?

And then, of course, today I'm learning.

I'm expanding upon.

I'm excited about.

Frame it however you want.

Just get the thoughts out of your head.

Get them onto paper.

Talk them out onto the notes app of your iPhone.

Get them out of your head and let yourself then be able to see it, to read it, to hear it, to understand it.

Because that's going to help you to grow.

My second little action item is that safe person, the person who you can talk to, who you can tell the stuff that you don't tell anybody else.

I want you to tell them how you're feeling right now.

Don't keep it bottled up inside.

Let a friend be a friend.

They tell you constantly that they are there for you if you need them to reach out.

I'm right now reminding you to reach out to them.

Let them be a friend.

And my third action item is right now, I want you to focus on finding one little glimmer of hope, one little thing to be grateful for, one thing of beauty in nature, in the world around you.

Be grateful for it.

Maybe it's something that ordinarily you would think is an annoyance.

Maybe that bird outside your window actually drives you absolutely insane.

Instead, I encourage you to just pause and listen to it from a different perspective, a perspective of gratitude, of finding gratefulness in the normal, everyday little stuff.

And my hope is if you can do those three little things, those activities, you, my friend, are not just thinking about growing, but you're actually growing.

You're stepping forward.

You're dipping your toe in the water, and maybe you're ready to just go ahead and dive all the way in.

So, my friend, what I want to leave you with is this reminder.

It is possible to grieve and grow at the same time.

You can carry the pain and the possibility all at the same time.

You can honor what you've lost and still choose how you move forward.

You can grieve and you can grow.

My friend, this is Grace and Inspiration, a podcast that I hope, I pray does something more than just entertain you, but hopefully gives you a little bit of hope in something more, that gives you a little bit of inspiration, something better, and gives you the motivation to go chasing after it all.

Because, my friend, every day is a new opportunity for you, for me, to never give up on life.

This life is meant for us to live, meant for us to thrive.

So in spite of it all, let's just give it our wholehearted effort of doing just that.

My friend, if there's ever anything I can do for you, please reach out to me.

You can go to the website gritgraceinspiration.com, has an easy way to get in touch with me there.

You can also check out today's show notes, the episode description, find links for contacting me.

Listen, I'm here for you, just as a friend.

So reach out.

Please don't hesitate to fill out the contact form on the website, to send me an email.

Again, I'll leave my email address inside of today's show notes.

Reach out to me.

If I can be a help to you, just to offer you some encouragement, I would love to do so.

Until next time, I am your host, Kevin Lowe.

And this, again, was another episode of Grit Grace and It's Great.