Bodily Harm

Grief must take a toll on our bodies. My joints ache, I have developed anxiety, depression, high cholesterol: granted, my weight doesn’t help these matters, but most of it has accumulated since having been dealt an unhealthy dose of grief.

There are a lot of things in life that contribute to our illnesses; stress probably being number one. I have seen what stress does to people, and I have no doubt it contributes to many deaths in this country. We are overworked, financially strapped, sleep deprived, and worry about everything, people.

What can we eliminate to make our lives more fulfilling and less stressful? I believe that battling immigration, being a cancer caretaker and becoming a young widow probably took several years from my life. What is taking years from you?

Do we really need that new car, or can we repair what we have and be less financially burdened? Is that larger house necessary, or do we just have too much stuff? What toys have we neglected in hopes a new toy will bring us that old joy we used to have? Are things what makes us happy, or is it the company of others, faith, and nature?

I want to eliminate my life of the things that give me the most stress in hopes that I can gain back some of the years I lost from grief. There has to be a way to do this, without being a freak of society, and to still be able to live a normal life. We can do this.

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Comments 3

  1. Yes we can!

  2. I’ve been a widow for four years. It’s strange that I should read this post tonight, because my grief comes in uncontrolled waves and tonight it nearly sank me!!

    But I have done a few things to relieve the stress in my life. I recently sold my house and moved into an apartment. I bought a smaller, more gas efficient (thus greener)car. I gave away everything that I hadn’t used in the past year, including, and this was very painful, many of my husband’s possessions.

    And I became an armchair activist, by which I mean that I have begun to try to raise awareness, on Facebook and on Twitter, about the need for aid in places like Haiti and Pakistan. And I am donating much more of my income to humanitarian projects around the world.

    I became a vegetarian, so that my eating habits would not support factory farms and cruelty to animals.

    Not everyone can do these things. My children are grown, so I can choose how and where to live, with only myself to consider.

    The result is: I feel better about myself and my role in the world. I am not overwhelmed with “stuff”. My life is simpler, and I feel less stressed.

    I need fewer meds to control the symptoms of lupus, an illness which has plagued me for 22 years.

    I am still blind-sided by grief more often than I would wish, yet I feel increasingly blessed.

    I have also been working on cultivating gratitude; thank-you for this post. 🙂

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