This will be the first in a few installments about what it means to get real with where you are and where you are going.

The past few days I’ve been posting comments about the character of people on my Facebook page. Interestingly enough, I’ve gotten a lot of feedback on the topic. So I thought to myself that out of that there has to be a story that is related to grief. So here it goes.

Being real to who you are during your journey is the first step you really take to begin the healing process. Coming to own your emotions, your fears, your doubts, your pain – it all comes down to breaking those things all apart and picking up the pieces of your life. Then you begin to put it all back together to create a different picture. A different way of living.

That picture will not look like what you might have imagined in any scenario you dreamed up. The picture I had in my mind 3 years ago is the not picture I live today, and I imagine that the picture I will be living 3 years from now is one I can not see now.

Life works that way. But in order to put those pieces of your life together again, you must get real. See it for what it is. Embrace what has happened. Because it happened and you cannot wish it away, dream it away, sleep it away, eat it away or use substances to numb it away.

Getting real with your grief is a necessary truth that has to be revealed for the growth and healing to start to mold the new you. The exciting thing is that even through the midst of your grief, wherever you are, a vision of what can be is possible. You can believe it possible, you can dream it possible, but it’s in the everyday hard work at chipping away and getting real that creates that new version of who you will become.

until next time

m