Hello worklifers,
Today is Father's day. This year, I find myself to be a new member to a group of worklifers who have lost a parent. It is a club you never want to be part of. You rather not take membership yet somehow you find yourself in it when it is your turn. It is hard enough to be a member of it, but even harder to go through all the events that take place - birthday's, birth anniversaries, death anniversaries and days such as father's & mother’s day.
I found myself anxious as I was approaching this day. As being a new member of the club and with grief and loss being new emotion, I found myself stuck. So what do you do when you feel stuck with emotions or even those that are brand new?
You can try taking these five steps;
Choose feeling them - When you to feel, you can ever surrender to the emotion and allow it to vibrate in your body. I find like many for grief to be a multi-tasking emotion. It exists alongside all other emotions & also interwoven in them. It also does have this quality of coming in waves. It hits you so hard some days that it harder for it to pass through you. Have you ever experienced standing in the ocean and the waves hitting? Then you have to pick yourself up against gravity. However, when you do that you learn the skill and this is just what happens when you let the feeling vibrate and pass through you. This is the skill of falling down and getting up is what we coach on in the worklifeunstuck program.
Reaching out for your silver platter - This is when you turn to your silver platter of emotions. Let me explain how to create and use it. Have you heard your mom telling you as a child? Can you get that silverware out as we have some special guests coming. She then gives you a stool, which you use to raise yourself up and get that silver platter out. That is exactly what you need to do first. If your silverware is always outside it can be easy to reach. However, sometimes you may find yourself needing the stool…
Place your healing emotions on it - The next thing you do is think of the healing emotions you want to place over the platter. These emotions are ones you can reach to the ones that make you stand up when the waves hit you. For me overwhelm and anxiety are the guests that show up frequently and over the years I have learnt how to choose self care and self love from my platter. By having them available to me, I use them generously to heal and feel better.
Handling a new guest emotion - With grief given it is a new emotion, I needed the stool and had to reach out. I found the emotion that has helped me most are gratitude and self-compassion. Greif can be all exhausting and all-encompassing and what has helped me, is to reach out daily for gratitude. Gratitude for the love in my life, for the relationships and for the good health and wellbeing for the people across my work and life. Self-compassion is another such emotion that I choose to pick from the platter. A lot of compassion for myself and acknowledgement that loss is real and not something to hide away from. By leaning into it, and letting it take its time, is the path to feeling it. One has to take a learner attitude to new emotions and be vulnerable to them. Overtime, you will enrich the platter and get good at polishing it. However, in the beginning the process may be slower.
Making it be handy & accessible - When guest emotions are frequent you can keep the platter handy. You may not want to reach out for the stool. This means being mindful they are present or even being mindful that you will be anticipating them during certain periods or certain events. I can't say it will always make you feel better but using your intentional mindset and having the platter be accessible makes it easier. You don't need to think of the emotion you need for the specific guest that is arriving. When you practice it enough the platter becomes handy.
So this week think about your silver platter. What do you like to keep on it? How can you create it for new emotions and keep it handy for the ones that show up. See if you find yourself reaching for the stool or do you practice enough that you find your platter is handy.
Maithili Vijay Dandige
Thanks so much for writing this Maithili. I am far away from my father and he is in the hospital at the moment with a recent injury and I need to reach for my silver platter. He is doing ok and came out of the surgery fine and I am holding onto that on.