What matters is not what life does to you but rather what you do with what life does to you.
~ Edgar Jackson
Death is a choiceness event. Death happens to those we love and we have no choice about how or when. The result, however, is an often overwhelming feeling of helplessness.
Nothing feels like it’s within our control.
We can however, choose our responses to this and every other life event. In each one of our choices, we regain some power and our sense of helplessness begins to slowly dissipate.
Think of all the memorial fundraising events which happen every year. Those are all a response to someone feeling helpless.
Thomas Attig, the author of How we Grieve: Relearning the World, says that bereavement is choiceness but grieving is not. While acknowledging that retreating from life, numbing ourselves, and staying in our helplessness may seem attractive, doing so is exhausting and drains us of our life energy. He encourages his readers to “take some small beginning steps to accept and take on challenges and shape new life patterns and the next chapters of our (their) lives.”
Is there a choice you can make today? One small beginning step into your new life?
Photo credit: Steinar Engeland on Unsplash
