A confession…

As most of you know, my dad passed away recently after a process of swift brain deterioration.
To say that it was a devastating, heart-breaking experience feels trite. It was one of the most difficult things that I have ever been witness to.
With my heart held together by thin string, the only thing I wanted was comfort. Pure and simple and immediate.
So I did what so many of us do when we are dealing with something that is so very far from pleasurable.
I ate and drank my way through it.
I am normally a very clean eater who does enjoys wine, but my typical eating practice went out the window. If it was consumable, it got consumed.
Yep. Not my finest moment but there it is. The sheer humanity of looking for and finding a quick fix.
I knew that after trying to support my dad each day in the simplest of activities like eating, reminding him that our mom was waiting for him, and advocating for him to get to his spiritual place, I was desperate to get home to dinner, a good amount of wine, my couch, and Netflix.
I was aware that I was trying to keep my raw feelings at bay. But in those moments, it felt like what I was doing was helping. It took me, for just a bit of time, from the torment of seeing my father in the state he was in while being helpless to do much about it.
But it did nothing to help me maintain my strength at just the time I needed to feel strong. I felt more exhausted, more anxious and depressed. The amount of food, drink and junk I was putting into my body took away my strength instead of giving me more inner resolve to get me through.
Could I have been stronger and chose other things to gave me comfort? Could I have balanced the foods that feel good in a lasting way with all the ones that didn’t, as I normally do? Absolutely. And I did that to some degree. But I had zero energy to challenge myself. My emotions were screaming too loud for me to focus. I gave in.
I have coached countless women who have gone through something traumatic that has left them reaching for things that don’t serve them. It’s like your choices feel like they are no longer your own. And together we always work on understanding our feelings, knowing what supports our hearts and our bodies, and building that into a regular practice to keep them strong during the crisis.
But shit happens in life. Shit that challenges our headspace and our strength. And sometimes we just gotta get through it in any way we can.
I am grateful that this time for me was relatively short in the profile of traumas in life. As much as I knew that my consumption habits were not serving me, I also knew full well that they wouldn’t last.
And they didn’t. While the pain is still inside from my loss, my need for stuffing myself and washing it down with wine decreased significantly. My strength returned, as did my inner resolve to feel good in every part of me, not just that immediate gratification part. That took a lot of rest, reflection and taking the time to do for me what actually made my heart, my spirit, and my body feel good.
This post is a reminder. A reminder for those of you who get hit with an experience that is unmovable. One that you have no choice but to walk through.
It’s a reminder of our own humanity. A reminder that we are not perfect, nor will we ever be. A reminder that even when we know better, we don’t always do the right things by ourselves. And we can still love ourselves.
It’s a reminder that we always have choices, even if just noticing them is all we can do while trying to hang in during a mega hit. And a reminder that we can always bounce back, lay down the wall to shield us from the experience and pic up our supportive habits again.
One last reminder that if the things that we know don’t serve us stick around after the crisis is over, there may be some deeper emotional shit that is worth managing with a professional support person.
Each crisis, like every other life experience, teaches us more about ourselves.
And that makes us stronger for the next one.
Dianna xo