2020 was a year of many personal wins for me, namely in that I ticked off everything I manifested throughout the year.
I completed my LPC with an integrated masters, I completed the Aleto Foundation leadership programme and was a member of the team that came first place in the hackathon. I built a website with no coding experience. I consistently set aside one day of rest a week (which for me is probably my biggest achievement but I'll write about the false ideology of striving for burnout another day). There were many other mini achievements that I am proud of, but in the midst of all of that I also had many L's.
The biggest and hardest L for me to swallow was dealing with four deaths during the year. I've never been amazing at dealing with grief, so in the midst of being slapped in the face with injustice to Black people everywhere, the death of notable Black real models across the world, and an actual world pandemic, dealing with my personal grief was the last thing I wanted to do.
So my prayer for the watchnight service that I attended from home on 31 December 2020, was to just be spared from grief this year. I didn't need anything else, I just didn't want to have to deal with any more deaths.
Sadly, today on 11 January 2021, I received news that my Grandfather passed away in the middle of the night. It was unexpected and a serious blow to my usual Monday morning mindset.
I don't write this to cause sadness. I write this because I'm cautious of the fact that for many of us, we are at a stage in life where we are focused on grinding now to set ourselves up for the future. Whether that be studying hard in school or university, working hard to rise the ranks in the workplace, or building our own brands and businesses. And sometimes, other things have to come before the grind.
Grief is an inevitable part of the process of life, but it's one that we rarely ever talk about; especially on personal development pages such as this one.
You may not be grieving the loss of a loved one, but as I mentioned before, I write this in the middle of a pandemic, and grief comes in many forms for many things. You may be grieving the loss of life as we have previously known it to be. And that's okay.
Whilst these may not all float your boat, I've included six things below that I have personally used to help me with grief in the midst of the grind in 2020, and will continue to use in 2021:
- Communicate as much as you can to those around you: People are generally fairly compassionate, but they cannot help if they don't know what's wrong. You don't have to say any more than you don't feel comfortable with, but try to say enough so you can be supported in the right way.
- Don't blame yourself: It's easy when grieving to think of all the things you should have done differently before the situation you are grieving for occurred. Whilst this is a natural reaction, we haven't yet reached a point in science where we can turn back time. Don't beat yourself up about it.
- Set boundaries: Everyone deals with grief differently. For me, I like to work or continue with some form of structure to keep me going. However, it's still important to set boundaries so that you don't take on too much whilst you are going through the grieving process.
- Breathe: Dealing with grief doesn't occur in a linear way like the 5 stages of grief can sometimes suggest. But whenever you do feel overwhelmed, remember to breathe.
- Stay mindful of your emotions: The grieving process in particular is a time where you can be working at 10:01 and crying at 10:01:30. Personally, when I feel a wave of sadness coming on I stop whatever I'm doing and allow myself to cry. Then I pick up my diary and journal what triggered me, how long I cried for, and what I did to make myself feel better.
- Remember that is is okay to grieve in the midst of the grind: There is often this hippo in our lives (I say hippo because I recently found out that hippos are faster than humans) that leads us to believe that we need to have everything figured out by 30. That's really not the case, but even if you have set yourself a deadline to achieve your goals, remember that it is still okay to be human and grieve.
I don't have a success metric for todays post, but I do hope that if anyone out there having a hard time during the "grind" is kind to themselves today and always.