For many, the past year has given a lot of reasons for anger and grief. It is not easy to move on from grief and anger at the moment when it occurs. However, after some time it seems we all move on but do we? Making this period of grief and anger brief and efficient is crucial and important for our overall mental health.
Don’t Rush It
As we said, moving from grief and anger sooner rather than later is important but don’t rush it. You should work through your emotions and with the help of inner healing you will move forward. Healing is a process and it’s not something that happens out of nowhere.
Getting out of grief and anger takes time and work. If we don’t process our emotions they might stand in our way of healing in the long run. We don’t want to hold onto unprocessed emotions that might have an impact on our future decisions (consciously or unconsciously).
The Impact of Grief and Anger
Historically, we’ve been told to hold all in instead of working through our grief and anger. We need space to heal our soul and holding it in won’t help.
If we hold it and don’t work on grief and anger, this might lead to negative emotions being stuck in our body which can lead to different diseases or behavior such as always being angry or even depressed.
Instead of holding it, you need to feel and experience fully the emotion of grief or anger. We live in a society where there is great stress on moving forward continuously. Still, grief and anger as emotions need time to be processed and integrated in a way that serves us.
Grief and anger are not here to stop us from moving forward but to help us grow in a greater way.
How to Process Grief and Anger?
How to Process Grief and Anger?
Move Your Body
When animals experience some type of stress, they tend to shake as a response to help their bodies to process being attacked or wounded.
To move through grief, you need to move your body in a way that’s meaningful to you. Maybe that’s dancing or doing yoga. Maybe you want to run or just take a walk to process the negative emotions inside of you. Moving your body will help you release and integrate difficult emotions such as grief and anger.
Connect with Your Community
You won’t be able to process hard emotions on your own! You do need support. We all need support and there is nothing weak about that. Feeling supported by your community especially in times of grief is crucial for your growth.
Find your tribe of people who can support you without trying to fix you and change you. In the time of a pandemic, you can find that support virtually. Don’t forget to stay in touch with your friends and family members in these difficult times even if that’s only virtually.
When you are surrounded by people whom you trust you will feel safe to release what happened and how you feel. It will give you space to acknowledge your feelings out loud which is an important part of processing grief and anger.
Journaling
It’s important to talk to someone about your feelings, it’s also important to have your emotions written down on paper. You can journal at any time that suits you. Unpack everything that you’ve been holding inside and put it on paper. Ask yourself questions about how you feel and dig deep to find answers. Journaling will give you insight into how you feel and how you can grow.
If we don’t process anger and grief, those emotions can turn into mental health issues leaving a strong footprint on your soul, mind, and even your body.
If you’ve been through a lot in the past year, connect with your community, take care of your body and write down how you feel. Give yourself space to grow, to be aware of how you feel and how can you move forward. Taking care of your mental and physical health is probably the most important thing that you can do, and taking care of how you feel is an important part of it.
