www.HoneyIShrunkTheGrief.com
© 2012 Eric Vaiksnoras

“One little spark of imagination, is at the heart of all creation”
 ~Figment (Walt Disney World / Epcot character)
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ADDRESSING CONTROLLABLE FACTORS IN A HOPEFUL WAY:
Sometimes when I feel stuck, I find it helpful to stop and think about what I have control over. I’m usually successful at finding something hopeful to direct my energy towards. If nothing else, I at least always have my attitude that I can work on. That in itself brings me great feelings of hope — because that means I’m never without choices.

Attitude is a powerful force that can provide lots of grief relief. I notice that when I keep a hopeful attitude, it opens doors inside me, creating an environment in which my thought processes have greater access to all the resources that surround me. This typically puts my creative energy into high gear and gives me the strength to enjoy the challenge of figuring out a way to bring some light to a dark situation.

An example of this that comes to mind took place just a few short months after Julie died. I remember I was sitting alone in a parking lot late one night after class. The campus was dark, quiet, and still; I was feeling very alone and lost. Out of habit I pulled out my cell phone to call Julie, like I had done on so many occasions in the past. This familiar routine was quickly interrupted when I remembered my new reality. I felt grief laughing at me because Julie was no longer reachable by phone. I felt sad, helpless, and defeated.

Then I had an idea. I opened my phone and looked at the numbers that corresponded to the letters in her name — and dialed “J-U-L-I-E”. I also said a prayer. I then put the phone to my ear and proceeded to talk to her. She was unable to respond in the way she did when she was physically on the other end of the line, but, oddly enough, I felt her response in my heart. And while throughout the majority of the “conversation” it felt like she was just listening, that was ok, because that happened to be exactly what I needed.

I’ve called Julie in this way on a few other occasions now, and it has felt healing each time. It’s surprisingly easy to get over the fact that she’s not physically there. One reason I think this is the case is because when I talk with someone in person I’m used to a physical communication and connection, but whenever I talk with someone over the phone, they are not physically present, which changes communication styles. I think these differences help to make these special phone conversations with Julie feel relatively natural (except for the time when someone actually called and startled me when I was in the middle of one of my calls to Julie; you should have seen me jump when the phone rang next to my ear! I laughed so hard at myself and made a mental note to turn off my phone first next time!).

Can I bring Julie back? No. But are there things that I can do to connect with her love, if and when I need to? Yes.

It all boils down to my ability to find hope. Like with anything else, with practice, this has gotten easier and easier to do. Searching for hope/opportunity, regularly, becomes a health enhancing habit. There are controllable factors in any situation, and I see it as a huge benefit for me to search out these pieces of hope and to use them as needed.

 

POSITIVE SELF-TALK:
Am I talking to myself in a loving way? Am I talking to myself in the same way I would talk to a best friend who was in trouble? I’m convinced that a lot of my health maintenance is directly related to positive self-talk. Having constructive internal conversations is an incredibly powerful thing. I think it’s critical to make friends with myself, if I ever expect to make friends with my situation. And one of the best ways I’ve found to do this is to frequently monitor my internal dialog and make every effort to talk to myself in a loving and respectful way.

 

APPLYING MY GIFTS/STRENGTHS TO MY CHALLENGE:
My passions are typically rooted in things I perceive myself to be good at. Why does this occur? I imagine it has everything to do with probability. I feel much more confidant when I can draw from something I’ve had success with in the past. It makes a challenge less scary because I don’t have to start from scratch, from a completely unknown place. I can start with a game plan that already includes the framework of a past success. This helps me to feel capable. It helps me to believe, which is an invaluable resource. Having something to believe in makes all the difference.

This knowledge has helped to get me through numerous grieving challenges. One of the most difficult challenges was the fact that after Julie died I still had an enormous amount of love for her that I didn’t know what to do with. She died, but our love didn’t. I was confused by this and in a state of crisis. I needed to sort through the wreckage and make some emergency repairs. The repairs needed to consist of a promise of hope. For what’s life without hope? Meaningless. Unwanted. So turning to my gifts for strength during that time wasn’t just helpful, it was vital to my survival.

There were a number of strengths I found in myself that I turned to along the way. One of my most powerful ones involves my creative side. I typically enjoy problem-solving and using my creative side to figure out how to meet needs. This is usually done on a much smaller scale, but none-the-less, I was now faced with a problem, and it was time for me to do some problem-solving. One of the results was the birth of this book. It was so freeing to me because it allowed me to connect. I’ve found grief to be something that feeds isolation, and I’ve found that connecting with others keeps the flame of grief at a controllable level — one that can be an ally that shines light on my life, rather than a destructive enemy.

This book allowed me to connect with Julie as well. Death laughed at me at first, with not-so-subtle whispers of, “I took something you loved dearly, and as much as you need to connect with her, you’re out of luck, because she’s gone now”. But by turning to my strengths, I realized that I was the one in control, not death. If I need to connect with Julie, there are countless ways in which I can do so. If I need to connect with this world, there are countless ways in which I can do so. This book helped me to re-establish my connection to life. This book was born from one of my greatest reactions to death: finding a way to incorporate my known strengths into my current challenge.

 

KEEPING A SENSE OF HUMOR:
“From there to here and here to there, funny things are everywhere.”
 ~Dr. Seuss, 1904 – 1991

Sharing a Laugh
Eric(38) & David(8) – January 2012

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One of the gifts I’ve been blessed with is the ability to laugh at the most disheartening of situations. Laughter is a magnificent form of medicine. On many occasions, it has allowed me to magically escape from the pain associated with grief. There are few things that I find too heavy to laugh at. And I’m sure there are plenty of times when no one laughs with me, but that’s ok, because while I very much welcome a shared laugh — as there are few things in this world better than that — I can also very much appreciate a moment when I’m laughing by, or at(!), myself.

I can remember a low point a few months after Julie’s death when my sense of humor came to the rescue. I had our house up for sale and was preparing to move in with my mom and her partner. I had a houseful of my stuff that in no way could be accommodated by the smaller home that we were about to move into, so I was left with a couple of undesirable choices. One, I could rent a storage garage and store my larger belongings until I had my own place again. Or two, I could sell my larger belongings and put the money towards the eventual purchase of new items. After investigating the high cost of renting a storage unit, I decided it made more sense to sell my stuff. There was nothing easy about this, as they were all things I was attached to, but it seemed like the best of my two options, so I did what I had to do. To help sell my stuff, I crafted an email that included the things I had for sale, and sent it off to family and friends who I thought might be interested in an item or two. This “for-sale” situation felt morbid in many ways, so I think I instinctually recognized the need to make myself laugh, so I created a 2nd email that poked fun at the absurdity of my situation. Along with pics of the bed, furniture, etc., I went ahead and put my toothbrush, shampoo, and toilet up for sale too! I thoroughly enjoyed creating the descriptions (below) of each; it provided a much needed release. If I have to do something I don’t want to do, I may as well have fun with it…

FOR SALE
Used Finast supermarket brand toothbrush: 55 cents
Finast brand toothbrush is full size with soft bristles. No bells and whistles, just a good old-fashioned toothbrush. With close examination you may be able to notice a slight discoloring or yellowing of the bristles. Has been used twice daily for a couple of months but still has some great brushing left. You’d be silly to pass this up.

Family size Suave Naturals Aloe Vera shampoo: 90 cents Family size Suave Naturals shampoo is great if you have a family or just use quite a bit of shampoo. It originally had 22.5 ounces. About 16 ounces currently remain. Bottle has a nice flip cap feature that is convenient when you just don’t have a lot of time to be messing around. Makes a great gift. 

American Standard Toilet: best offer American Standard has set the bar high for other toilet manufactures. I have yet to clog this thing up. It has a pearly white finish that helps to make the whole restroom experience quite pleasant. You probably won’t come across a better used toilet.

 

SMILE:
I can go on and on about how important smiles are to me, to my health, but I’ll keep this one short and sweet — like a smile itself.

Is there an easier way to brighten this world? Not sure that there is. A smile lightens the heaviest of loads. A smile is a gift that keeps on giving. They’re contagious in the most wonderful of ways. Even when I’m sad, receiving a smile instantly brings warmth to my soul. And giving a smile is just as amazing. I can feel my mind following my physical body when I smile. It’s as if my insides have no choice, even if they’re not in the mood, but to surrender to the love within a smile. Powerful stuff.

Bike Ride Smile!
David(3) – July 2007

1^ST Day of Kindergarten Smiles!
Daddy(35) & David(5) – August 2009

 

BEING GRATEFUL:
I’ve come to terms with the fact that my perception of this world is very limited. All too often I find that events I perceive as misfortunes turn out to be my greatest blessings, so I’ve determined that the best way to deal with my shortsightedness is to be grateful for it all. Yes, I still feel down at times, and there are still plenty of moments when I feel sorry for myself, but when all is said and done, it’s comforting to know that I am very capable of finding the beauty in any situation. And I shouldn’t even say “I”, because that implies too much ownership in my role in all of this. It’s “love” that’s doing the work, so I don’t want to take the credit. I just want to try to not get in its way.

My growing and life sustaining faith that everything happens for a reason — and that reason, whatever it is, is a good one — continues to heal me. And my choice to be grateful for all of my life experiences results in more than just an optimistic perspective; it makes me feel that I am continually receiving the best gifts this world has to offer.

The universe wants to bless me, and will continue to do so, regardless of my actions. If I want to find comfort in this process, I’m finding that all I have to do is have faith that love will find a way—which isn’t very hard to do, because when I take a good look around, evidence of this is everywhere.

 

FEAR:
“Nothing in life is to be feared.  It is only to be understood.”
~Marie Currie 1867-1934

I’ve come a long way in learning how to not be afraid of death—how to not be afraid of love. From the start I was grieving a separation from Julie’s love. Grief and fear are powerful business partners, and I so very often felt their controlling presence. Throughout my widowed years I’ve come to see that so much of my recovery/stability involves learning how to not be afraid of her love—learning how to access her love.

I could comprehend the fact that death couldn’t destroy love. And that was comforting. Love is not something that goes away. Love just is, and always will be. Yet in spite of being fully aware that her love still existed, it felt scattered inside me—and that brought on feelings of fear—because I was unsure of my ability to connect with her love, unsure of my ability to ease the pain I felt inside.

My solution (that I continue to work on): Face my fear. Look at it. Admire its power. Sit with it. Welcome it. Acknowledge its presence, and acknowledge that I can use its power for good.

Fear and love will always be a part of me, whether I want them to be or not, so why not want them? Why resist? Why fight with friends? Why not use fear, and love, to become more? I see love as my greatest asset, so why would I want to make futile efforts at trying to separate myself from it? Love is one of my powerhouse gifts that can get me through tough challenges, so what better application to apply Julie’s love to, than this one?

I just had to learn how to not be so afraid. If I wanted to access Julie’s love, I had to learn to have more faith in fear—and I had to learn to have more faith in love. This understanding of fear has contributed to the strangest paradox of events—I can use her love, to find her love.
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I’ve always had a fascination with fear, even as a child. My mom tells stories of looking out the house window when I was five years old, shocked to see me balancing six feet in the air, carefully walking across the narrow top bar of our backyard swing set. And over the years, I’ve done countless other things that some may not understand. I lasted the full three rounds one night against a blackbelt karate instructor in a local bar’s boxing ring (there was literally a boxing ring in the lower level of this bar in Twinsburg, Ohio). My brother was my cornerman (fitting), and Julie (a year and a half before her death) and other family members were cheering me on ringside! What an experience!

I do not do things like this because I want to hurt myself; it’s just the opposite. I enjoy putting myself in controlled scary situations, so I can learn more about fear, learn more about myself.

As time passes, I can feel my perspective widen. I’m becoming more aware of all the love in my life and more aware that Julie’s love is here to bless me.
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still walking on swingsets…

…and anything else I come across!

Ziplining in beautiful Hocking Hills, OH

Whitewater Rafting with Family in Pennsylvania

Polar Bear Plunge Fundraiser
submerged myself in icy Lake Erie waters to face my fear of cold water and raise money for Special Olympics – February 2011

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Click here to continue to the next chapter (Chapter 9), but before you go…
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