Episode 50: Three forms of suffering and what to do about them
3/13/24
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You are listening to the Life Reconstructed podcast with me, Teresa Amaral Beshwate, grief expert, best-selling author and widow. I’m so glad you’re here because in this and every episode, I shine a light on the widowed way forward.
Hello and welcome to episode 50. In this episode, I distinguish pain from suffering and offer 3 common forms of suffering plus simple strategies to help.
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The loss of a spouse is profoundly difficult. To quote my client Melanie, “I didn’t know that people could hurt this much and keep existing.”
The loss itself is hard, and the secondary losses are hard.
And yet it doesn’t have to be one ounce harder than it already is.
Many widowed people suffer extra. And that’s what I want to talk about today. There’s the pain of the loss, and then there’s the suffering that gets piled on top.
Now there is no one right way to grieve. And you’re not doing it wrong. But if you’re like many widowed people, there may be some suffering that is making your journey even more difficult.
That suffering is extra, and optional. I want you to be “on to” your brain, so that you can recognize any suffering you may be experiencing and set it down. It’s one way to feel better, and you deserve that.
There are many forms of suffering, but today I want to focus on just 3. These three are probably the ones I see the most.
The first is what I call the should have’s, could have’s, would have’s. It sounds like, “If only I had been there, I could have helped her.”
“I should have been able to save him.”
“If only I would have done X, things would have been different.”
The brain offers up a variety of scenarios, that, in the moment, offer a sense of control. In this fictional world, the brain gets to have control over the outcome. Which feels like a little break from the pain. But thoughts like these can also create a sense of guilt or regret. Often the responsibility falls directly on your shoulders. And the more you practice thoughts like these, the more they seem true.
I believed I should have been able to save my husband. I felt loads of what I called guilt. And this belief directed my life. It dictated how much I allowed myself to do, it limited how much I allowed myself to feel happy, it kept me in a small existence. Because if I wasn’t able to save him, how could I allow myself to truly live?
I finally settled on a new belief that’s more in line with reality. If I was supposed to save him, I would have saved him. His life truly was not in my hands. It wasn’t for me to save him.
If you’re stuck in a spin cycle of should have’s, think about what else might be true. Ask your brain to consider the opposite of what you currently believe to be true. Be open to explore other, less painful possibilities.
The second form of suffering is how we deal with difficult feelings. Which is that we do anything to try to avoid them. And it makes perfect sense. Our primitive brain is hard wired to avoid pain and instead seek pleasure. And there’s plenty of pain that comes with the loss of a spouse. So, the brain urges us, in fact demands that we resist or avoid the difficult feelings that come with the loss of a spouse. So we try to brush the feelings under the rug. We attempt to stay busy enough to outrun them. Or we try to numb the feelings with overspending, overeating, overdrinking, over scrolling, binge watching, and the like.
But doing any of these things actually causes more suffering. Because none of it works. We still have the difficult feeling, plus the fear of actually feeling it, plus the consequence of the numbing agent of choice, whether that’s debt, weight gain, or exhaustion, which then leads to shame and self-criticism.
This looks a lot like self-sabotage, and I did a webinar on that topic. You can watch the replay by clicking the link in the show notes. https://www.thesuddenwidowcoach.com/stop-self-sabotage-webinar
The truth is that feelings demand to be felt. And they’ll wait. So if you find yourself crying in the car, or the shower, or when you go to bed, or at any time you let your guard down, there’s a good chance that you’re avoiding feeling the feelings, which is completely natural. The problem is that the feelings often hit you at the least convenient times. It’s like holding a beach ball under water, you can do it for a while, until you can’t.
Here's what to do instead: feel the feelings. Listen to episode 4 of this podcast, or chapter 3 of my book if you have it, for a simple and powerful process to feel difficult feelings. It’s proactive and efficient.
Other quick ways to allow feelings is to say to yourself, “Right now I feel ….sad….and that’s okay.” Or “Right now I feel lonely, and that’s okay.” It’s like narrating your emotional life, which has a way of releasing the resistance and getting you in sync with the present moment.
The third form of suffering is deciding that how you feel now is how you’ll feel forever. Widowed brains love to put a longevity stamp on this experience. It sounds like, “I’ll be alone forever.” “It will hurt like this always.” And those thoughts simply are not true. Whether or not you’ll choose to have a companion or relationship, you can live a full life filled with deep social connections. You can choose to have a housemate. You have many options to ensure that you won’t be alone forever.
And no matter how long you’ve been on the journey, you’ve probably experienced that grief is ever changing. I can assure you that you will not always hurt like this. There was a time that I didn’t believe it, but I promise you it’s true.
When you notice your brain making your current feelings permanent, just apply a time stamp. Right now, I feel lonely. Right now, I hurt. It’s all happening right now, in this moment, or in this chapter. Grief evolves, it changes, and with intentionality, you become stronger and more capable of carrying it. It becomes a backpack that you’re strong enough to carry. Somedays you won’t know it’s there, and other days you’ll feel it’s weight. Remind yourself that it will not always feel as heavy as it does today.
There’s a theme here. The brain offers thoughts, and we humans get to think about what we think about, and then choose true thoughts that serve us. That’s what I help my clients do every day.
If you’re listening to this episode as it’s released, my coaching program Life Reconstructed is beginning again in early April. If you’d like more help to end the suffering, plus a group of like-minded people who get it, then Life Reconstructed is for you. There won’t be another session until the fall, so I hope you’ll join us in April. Learn more by clicking the link in the show notes.
If this episode was helpful, please share it with a widowed friend. And remember that I believe in you, and I’m here for you. Take care.
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If you’ve found this podcast helpful, I invite you to join Life Reconstructed, my coaching program exclusively for widowed people. It will help you step forward toward a life you will love again. Simply go to thesuddenwidowcoach.com and click work with me.
