Grief Has No Rules.
This week I attended a board retreat at the resort my now ex-husband and I spent our honeymoon at and I found myself affected by it more than I anticipated. I thought I was prepared for it. I knew for months the board retreat would be there, it had been on my calendar. But I was unprepared for how I would actually feel once I arrived on property. There are a number of reasons grief may pop up again just when you think you’ve moved on. Emotional triggers. Things like a song on the radio, a place you visited together, a show you watched, a restaurant you frequented, your favorite beers. Sometimes silly things that you wouldn’t think would bother you suddenly do. As time goes by in the grief process you begin to recognize these triggers sooner, anticipate them, and subsequently deal with them. But how? Here are a few ways for you to identify and manage emotional triggers as they come up.
My Emotional Trigger.
As I drove into the parking lot I started to cry. The last time I was there, I was a newlywed. We were happy and celebrating a brand new marriage. I composed myself in the bathroom before I entered the board meeting. Later after a couple glasses of wine, sitting in a room listening to other women talk marriage and divorce, I found myself overwhelmed with grief. As I ducked out to return to the solitude of my room to grieve in private I found myself midway down the hall mid panic attack. I shared my situation with a few ladies who are on the board with me who offered kind words, a few hugs, and a sedative. I retreated to my room to cry myself to sleep. After my video, I received an outpouring of support and some questions about dealing with triggers. So I decided to share a post about managing those emotional triggers. The only way out is through. So keep going.
Learn to Recognize and Identify the Triggers.
We can’t always avoid the things that may trigger us. We have to go to the board meeting. We are in someone else’s car and unable to change the radio station. Someone brings up your ex or a mutual friend. A casual conversation reminds you of something you once did together, or never got to do but he does now with someone else. We can’t control all of the external stimuli. We can learn to recognize it, anticipate it, and prepare for it.
Notice when your feeling went from good to bad and what caused it. What is this trigger trying to tell you? What are you really feeling and why? The sooner you recognize your feelings, the sooner you will be able to work on changing them. Once you recognize that something is an emotional trigger for you, you can make an active choice to work on changing how you feel about it when faced by it next time. People bring things up that vaguely remind me of him like it’s a fucking reach to get where my mind goes. But where I used to message him, cry, or spiral, instead I made a note of what I felt, what I was thinking, and told myself that fucking sucks that he never took you there but took her there. Then I moved on.
Share It with Those Close to You.
Just being aware doesn’t always help. I was aware that being there might affect me, but I didn’t really think it would. I thought I was prepared to show up at that hotel. I wasn’t. I should have told my close friends on the board sooner. Everyone didn’t need to know but a little support would have helped me prepare better. Once I did share it I received the support I needed.
The next morning a friend and fellow board member came to check on me. She said wanted to share something with me about her divorce. She filled me in on the fact that there’s a hotel that she will never go to again regardless that it’s an amazing property. She told me that if the board retreat had been there she would have opted out because of what it meant to her.
I felt silly and ashamed for my mini meltdown but when she shared her experiences and the messages from all of you poured in sharing your own experiences, I realized I’m not the only one who feels emotional triggers. Support is necessary. It is not helpful to keep it to yourself and suffer in silence. Don’t feel silly, more people have felt his way then you think. It helps to share it with others.
Don’t Avoid It or Shut It Out.
Don’t fear your feelings, they are there to tell you something about yourself. Plus, the more you avoid something or shut it out of your mind the more you will think about it. I feel bad sometimes because I still think about my ex every day. Thoughts of him, our relationship, and what I could have done to change it still fill my mind, not all day every day anymore, but every day still. I know not to shut it out, but instead allow the thoughts and feelings to come and go.
I allow myself to feel the feelings and cry the tears. Then I allow it to then pass. I started watching the shows I couldn’t watch for a year because we watched them together. I’ve gone to the places we went together and drank the beers we drank together. I faced the honeymoon location and won…. well I cried a lot the first day so maybe it’s a draw. But I faced it day one and spent two more days there without issue. After the retreat, I went to a brewery we went to on our honeymoon and ordered our favorite beers alone. And I didn’t cry. #smallwins
Grief Is a Process and It Has No Rules.
All of us are vulnerable to emotional triggers of any kind. You just have to adapt to the ebbs and flows of the process as if you move through it. Some people aren’t affected as much and we can’t gauge ourselves by them. I believe I will be better in the long run by allowing myself the time I need to process the grief and learn from our failed marriage. Shutting the thoughts, feelings, and grief out will only allow it to come back with a vengeance. We repeat what we don’t repair, so heal yourself first. The X may be haunted by this in the future or maybe he won’t. I don’t have to be though. So I’m not worried that it has taken me a little longer to bounce back.
All Progress Is Progress.
I make a little forward progress every day. That’s all you have to do. Keep making progress. My grief process after the divorce has been long and hard. He moved on, I haven’t. But I have moved into the final acceptance phase, even with my occasional setbacks into other phases. It’s a personal process that moves forward a little at a time. Eventually, I will move on. I will be ready to date again. Someday I will be ready to fall in love again and really move on. When I get there I will be ready. I will not jump into anything too soon and I
definitely will not be fucking my ex behind my new boyfriends back before his birthday. I won’t be blocking people on social media and avoiding them because I didn’t deal with the conversations we needed to have sooner. That’s all him and all my other ex-friends.
I can move forward knowing that I’ve done anything and everything to face my past, learn my emotional triggers, process, and handle them before they are too much for me. You can too.
#triggered
XOXO – J
How do you process your emotional triggers?
