These ideas, if you are able to implement them, can make a difference to you being able to focus better on what needs to be done, so that you can allow yourself the time and the space you need to grieve and heal.
STOP GIVING YOURSELF A HARD TIME AND STOP FEELING GUILTY
This may be difficult especially if you are used to being focused and functional. Grief really messes with your brain and it is seriously hard. You can’t help it if you are distracted. It doesn’t mean you are bad, doesn’t mean you are a failure it means you are a normal griever doing their best to deal with what has been thrown at them and trying to cope. It just takes a while and you really need to give yourself not only a break, but some time to get that focus back. Give yourself space to know that it’s okay. You are worth so much and you don’t need to give yourself such a hard time. You are doing the best you can here and there is no need to feel guilty.
TRY YOUR BEST TO EAT PROPERLY AND GET THE SLEEP THAT YOU NEED
This is difficult. You don’t feel like eating, or you need to eat to get some kind of comfort. Your days and night can be mixed up, you can’t sleep at all or you sleep all the time. It is a challenge in grief because everything can pile up on top of each other and all impact each other. Everything is out of whack. However, concentration and focus can be a problem even without grief on the table when there are sleep and food issues. So, loading grief on top of it too can result in mind overload, and mind meltdown. Try your best to eat what your body needs even if eating is the last thing you feel like doing. You might have to force yourself to eat and try to pick something healthy.
WRITE THINGS DOWN
Sometimes that is just what has to be done to remind us what to do when we are grieving. Just because having you could organise things in your head before your loss definitely doesn’t mean you can now. It can be hard to accept but there is no shame in to write things down. Save yourself some added anxiety and just write it down in case. If you remember you remember but it’s there anyway.
JOURNAL
You might think this one a strange tip in relation to managing grief and concentration but when you think about it there is just so much going around and around in your head that getting some of it out onto the paper can be helpful. When it is all crammed inside your head no wonder it’s difficult to focus. It can clear out some space and allow you to focus for a while.
MEDITATE
Meditation can help you get control of your thoughts and your relationship with your thoughts. It can be the helper, the catalyst to allowed focus to return to your distracted mind. It really is worth taking the time to try this, even if you haven’t before or are sceptical about it. It really is worth a try.
VISUALISE
This is suggested for when you are stuck in the moment of death thought replacing/visualising something different. It can help get rid of the consuming thoughts even if it is just for a while. Compartmentalising is another tactic to try. You need to take care of the practical things in your life to keep it working. If you feel consumed and totally distracted just stop for a minute and notice what is causing it and visualise grabbing those thoughts and putting them into a box. You can come back and deal with them later when you have time and space.
FORCE YOURSELF
Of course, you just don’t feel like doing anything much so it’s easy to use the fact that you are feeling distracted and unfocused to put things off and not do them. Then you are setting yourself up for added stress because putting it off doesn’t make it go away but only allows less time to do it. It then gives you even more stress, even more for your brain to deal with so even more likelihood for distraction and non-focus. It is a vicious cycle. Just try to start, even if you are distracted. Don’t listen to the grief brain all the time, especially when something important needs to be done. Just force yourself and see what happens.
TAKE BREAKS
Make sure that you set a time for doing what you need to do, but also set a time for breaks.
You really need them. It gives you a balance between all of the emotions when you schedule things like this because you are creating a space for them.
DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE GRIEF TRIGGERS
Unexpected grief triggers can catch you off guard and hit you at any time overwhelming you with emotions. It could be walking down the street, or in a supermarket or a movie theatre or just on an outing with friends. The grief journey has constant ups and downs and is an unpredictable path with those emotions having the potential to change from hour to hour. Triggers are a part of grief that we need to learn to deal with as they are just unavoidable. We can however make the experience we have with them easier by doing certain things to help. Identifying your triggers can allow you to have an easier time avoiding or dealing with them as they come up again in the future. Finding a place just for yourself if you are in public when it happens can help you process your emotions. Go to your car or the bathroom and give yourself space and a chance to mourn. Cry if you need to. Talk to someone if you need to. Even if you only take five minutes it gives you a chance to regroup so you can continue on with your day. Don’t be afraid of these grief triggers. Even though it is stressful and emotional it doesn’t mean you should avoid it entirely. You can’t avoid everything for good because it makes you sad or upset. The goal is to get where you are at a place where the positive memories outweigh the negative and to do this you need to face your fear – gradually. Talking to others really helps whether it be a family member or friend or a professional grief counsellor. Discussing your experience allows you to gain a better understanding of why you feel that way and what you can do to make the triggers less powerful in the future. Triggers can also be in the form of our own internal questioning. ‘Could I have done something different?’ ‘What if?’. Being bereaved comes with a lot of questions and hindsight is a wonderful but often torturous thing. The trouble with ‘What if’ or ‘Why’ is that we may never have answers and can just make ourselves feel crazy with it going around and around in our head in vicious circles. At this stage a more helpful question to ask yourself is ‘How can I look after myself in this moment’. What to do now? Find some support and be patient