I recently read this quote from author Robert Brumet: “We open the door to healing when we see our suffering as a steppingstone rather than a stumbling block.” This made me think of the grieving process. Often in early grief we don’t worry about rocks because we find ourselves just sitting or even in bed. Then comes the time that we must come back to life.
The first step is to convince ourselves where we want to go or what we want to do. If we have a job, that timing may be decided for us. Our stumbling block here may be other people who are concerned about how to talk to us, and they may say hurtful or thoughtless things unintentionally. Or they may not talk to us at all not knowing what to say. When this happened to me, I tended to work in my office with the door closed which didn’t help me or them.
When one of my husbands died, I was teaching an online summer writing class for the university. Most of my students were from Saudi Arabia. I was only able to take a couple of days off and I felt I needed to let my students know that I might need a little patience from them, so I wrote them an email explaining what happened. Each of my students wrote a kind email to me with the most beautiful writing they had done all summer.
I’ve heard sad stories of supervisors and bosses who have no tolerance for people dealing with grief. This can be so hard, and it can end with you quitting that job and moving forward to another job. That may be just the steppingstone you need at that time.
If you aren’t working, consider what you would really want to do. What could get you up in the morning with a smile? You get to choose what to do. Start by making a list of anything you would like to do or try. Make a big list with anything you want to include. Then choose your favorite thing on the list and do that first! Just relax and have fun!
You don’t need stumbling blocks to move forward. Know that no matter what you choose to do, as long as you make the choice to do whatever it is, you can find yourself skipping down the steppingstones with joy.
