• What happened?
• Weren’t we supposed to be together forever?
• Am I ever going to fall in love again?
• What am I going to do with my life?

Let’s face it, going through divorce can feel devastating.  You might feel like a failure. You might be doubting yourself.  But there are questions you might want to think about to help you grow past this relationship.

It is okay to go through a grieving period; after all, divorce is not what you signed up for when you took your wedding vows.

So, what ‘s next in your life?  Are you always going to grieve?  No, eventually when you aren’t expecting it, something will pique your interest. You will be walking along and see something, and you will stop thinking about your loss and feeling your pain, and you feel your interest in life revive.  How long will it last?  No one can predict that, but you will start to have longer and longer periods of time when you will be back in your life.

Grieving the loss of your marriage may feel like the end of your world.  It might be a hard place to be in, but, over time, you will gradually start to feel better.  Don’t rush your process.  Everyone does this differently.  There is no right or wrong.  Some people start dating pretty quickly, and some people need more time.

If you are at the  point where it is hard for you to get out of bed after 6 months to a year, you might want to think about getting professional help.

When someone dies and you are sad, it seems unfair that life keeps going on and there you are in your deep grief.  Over time you may feel a little less consumed by the grief and start to pick up some of your routines of your life — and here is the hard part.

At times, you may not want to get better or move forward because it feels like you are leaving your loved one behind — that you are betraying the memory of the relationship.  How can you laugh with someone else, eat good food, go dancing, make love, or anything else, when that person is not here?

Some people let the rhythm of life move them forward, and even though they are sad at times and miss the person not being here somehow, they seem to accept the death and continue on with their life.

Are you someone who feels stuck?  Are you living a life without color, meaning, feelings?  If you are, what can you do about it?  Do you truly want to change but don’t know what to do next?

Here are some suggestions:

• Talk to a counselor
• Join a group
• Talk to your organized religion leader
• Exercise
• Talk to a trusted friend or relative
• Keep a journal  and write how you are feeling, some of your confusion, and what you might want to do next.

Grieving is a process;  it is not done in a straight line.  You will have better days and worse days, productive times and non-productive times.  You might always miss that special person, but over time you can learn how to let others into your heart.

Life does not stand still for anyone. It keeps moving, and it is okay for a period of time to step aside.  When you are ready, you can jump back in.  You are not alone.

Here are some of my thoughts and tips for talking with people in grief.

1.  Be present.  What does that mean?  It means to pay attention to what the person needs in the moment.

2.  Check in.  That means periodically calling or dropping by. You are letting the person know that you care and are aware of their feelings.

3.  Ask questions that are appropriate and specific.   An example of this would be, instead of asking “What can I do for you?” ask, “Would it be ok if I dropped by on Saturday for a short visit?”  “Would it be ok if I dropped off dinner on Tuesday night?”  ”I want to help you with some of your chores, what day can I come over?’

4.  Be silent when your friend or family member needs quiet time.

5.  Don’t assume.  People assume how people are feeling or what they are needing, and you may be completely off course to what the person really wants and needs.

6.  Don’t give advice:  “You should do this” or “you should do that” or “I know someone that did this and it helped them.”  This is not really helpful when someone is grieving (really most times).

7.  Don’t push people to get better quickly.  Grieving has its own rhythms and timing.  Pushing people to participate or join in activities too soon, can backfire on the person, making them feel worse.

8.   Some cliches don’t help. Examples of this would be, “They are in a better place”, “There is a reason for this”, or “You are strong enough to deal with this.”  If you stick to “I am sorry” or “This must be hard for you,” that is more palatable for the person in grief.

9.  Grief is personal; everyone has their own way of handling it.  There is no specific timeline that works for everyone.

10.  Just let your love for the person in grief surround them.  They will know you are there and that you care about them.

10.  “This happened for a reason.”  This is not helpful when a person first experiences a loss; they are not ready to hear this — or to hear that the departed is in a better place.

9.  ”You need to be strong!”  When you are in grief, you need to be able to feel whatever comes up for you.  You might be surprised at the intensity of your emotions.

8.  ”Shouldn’t you be getting better already?”  Grief does not follow a time line.  When you love someone, it takes a long time to get used to living without him or her.

7.  ”I know exactly how you feel!”  No, you don’t.  Even if you have someone special that died, everyone’s experience is different.

6. “Do you need anything?”  This is not the dumbest thing to ask, but someone in grief may not be able to respond. They don’t have a lot of energy.  It would be better to just help with the simple everyday chores.

5.  ”Keep yourself busy. Don’t think about Herman.”   When you experience the death of someone, your mind will keep coming back to the loss.  It is appropriate to grieve the passing of someone in your life.  As time goes by, you will gradually not think about that person all day long.

4.  “I know someone who would be perfect for you!”  The person in grief will go out when they are ready.  It does not help to push them. This is an example for someone who lost a partner.  If you have lost someone else dear to you, and you are in grief, you many need time to be socially active.

3.  ”You should do…” (whatever someone else thinks you might do to feel better).  “Shoulds” are not helpful when the person in grief is trying to figure out what they do need.

2.  ”I don’t think it’s healthy to sleep so much.”  ”You need to get out.”  The person in grief will get out when they are ready.

1.  ”You will feel better soon.”  No one knows when the person in grief will feel better.  There is such a mix of sadness, loss — perhaps anger and guilt.  People feel guilty about returning to their “normal” life.  It takes time to integrate all of this.

1.  There is no way to get around the fact that when a family member or a dear friend die, you are in for a roller coaster ride.  Your emotions will be all over the place and you will not know in the beginning when the grief, the pain will hit you.

2.  Your grieving process will not be like anyone else’s.  You might feel intense feelings for longer or shorter than another family member or friend.

3  How you grieve is not wrong.  Some people need to be quiet, stay home.  Some people need to talk and be with others.  Some people will fall into grieve from the first minute, some people will start their process a year or so down the road.  But come it will.

4.  People will try to comfort you by saying things that might help or possibly annoy you greatly.  They want you to be ok but you are not.

5.  You need time and you need to be allowed to take whatever time you need  to get back on track.  You lost someone dear to your heart and it hurts.

6.  All people no matter how rich and famous, how lucky or unlucky, how rich or poor will suffer loss in their life time.  It is how life is set up.

7.  It is important not to make major changes in your life until you are thinking more clearly.

8.  If you have the energy tell people what you need.  Have them help you with chores, food, whatever you need in the moment.

9.  After a few weeks or months, people will go back to their lives and not be as available, perhaps then it will time to get extra support from a group or a grief counselor.

10.  Life will continue on and your feelings of guilt will come up, this is a normal part of the grieving process.

This I know to be true, love and connections are important and when they are disrupted by death,  the grieving process is intense.

The hare was flashy, the tortoise was plain spoken and kept moving at his own pace.  He was not thrown off by all of hare’s comments and the fact that the hare was running circles around him.

So how can we relate this story to our own lives?  There will be people out there who will try to distract us from our course.  They will be running circles around us and be jumping up and down, saying look at me, look at me, why are you being boring, let’s move and jump and keep moving fast.

You have a choice here, you can get distracted from what you are trying to create or you can keep moving and planning your course of action at your own speed and in your own way.

We all have our own journey to complete in this life of ours.  We can choose the easy flashy way or we can choose what works best for who we are.

We can be authentic or we can be false to ourselves in order to please others.  If we are authentic we will end up being happier with ourselves, having better relationships with family and friends, and perhaps we will end up having our professional lives count and matter in important ways to ourselves.

Remember, no one was sure how this race was going to end up.  It seemed as though the fast hare would win, but he didn’t stay the course and the tortoise did.

There are emotional issues that may come up for you and it might be helpful if you talk to someone.  There is possibilities of feeling grief about your body failing you and you being sick and then having to receive an organ transplant.

Then after waiting you have the surgery and you now have someone else’s organ in your body.  You can imagine that there may be different feelings that will pop up for you as you begin your recovery process.

What might come up for you?  One thing that may occur is feeling guilty.  You are alive and that someone who donated their organ is not alive and you are the recipient.  You might have questions about the donor.  Who were they, what kind of person are they, what happened to them?  All of these thoughts and feelings might just come surging up to the surface.

You feel different, you have someone else’s organ in your body and you are alive and they are not.  It might be helpful to talk to a licensed counselor and work through the many feelings and thoughts that are coming up for you. In order for you to heal you need to work on not only your physical body to ensure good health.  You might want to consider the emotions that may come up for you.

Guess what, you are not alone! It can definitely drive you a little nuts to keep guessing on what to do next. It can be a project, a dream, a paper, a friendship. How do you resolve the issue about if you are giving up too soon or when is it time to move on?

Here are some questions that you can ask yourself.

1. Are you truly interested in the project, the dream, the friendship?
2. Have you really put in real effort to get it off the ground?
3. Is it something that you think you “should” do or is it a vision or dream that you have a lot of passion about?
4. Did you get some consultation on how to move it forward?
5. and last what would happen if you gave up on it?

The reality is that all projects, dreams, and relationships take work.  They don’t happen in a vacuum.  They take time, energy and effort to build them.

There is a time when you should keep pushing and working on the project,  and sometimes you need to let it go.  Maybe you are too busy with other important things in your life that are keeping you from this particular piece of work.  It is ok then to let it go, knowing you can come back to it at a later time.

The main thing is to pay attention to what your emotions, intellect, body and spirit are trying to tell you.  At the end of the day you want to feel good that you gave what ever needed your attention, your best shot.

Perhaps it is time to slow your life down and focus on what is meaningful to you.  We are all different with a variety of needs and wants.  That is why no one can really tell you how to live your life or what makes the most sense for you.  When you lose your own compass, you  lose the direction you need so that you can make your life feel worthwhile.

When you are sad and you don’t know why it is time to cultivate your own garden.  Time to feed your garden and tend to it, so that you branch out and grow.

There are several things you can do to go inward.  I can make some suggestions but it is up to you to figure out what will work for you.

I suggest some type of walking, writing , meditating, gardening, where you have some time on a regular basis to go inward, to learn about yourself and what makes sense for you.

You will learn to hear your own voice, hear your own thoughts without any interruptions from any one else.

You say, but I am busy, I don’t have time to carve out this alone time.  I say you need the time to stay physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually healthy.  If you neglect the garden of your mind, body and spirit, you might end up paying a high price.  Take 20 minutes a day out for yourself.

You might find that if you do this, you may be more productive in the long run.

Now there is still winter to contend with. The days are still shorter and the nights long. In some areas of our country it will be cold for the next four months.

How do you keep your spirits up? It might feel like there is no way you can start new projects. You might not feel ready or able to start something new. But you can start planning. You can write, do research, talk to trusted friends and family members. You can get your creative juices going and add some excitement to your winter.

Maybe you have always wanted to learn something and you never thought you could, or you had limited time or resources. There are so many ways to go about this. But I will tell you this, if you don’t start somewhere, even if you fail, you will always have regrets.

Take a class at your community college, go online, find a way to learn how to write that short story, or journal or paint, or learn a musical instrument.

It will only add to your delight and to your spirit of adventure.

Don’t let the negative nay sayers in your mind or in your life, stop you.