February can bring up mixed feelings for some.  It’s Valentine’s Month if you haven’t guessed since Christmas clearance has gone.

I feel like our culture emphasizes too much on Valentine’s Day.  I see people depressed thinking why don’t I have someone in my life? What am I doing wrong? I also hear I HATE this month I can’t stand it! I don’t need anyone in my life, they have hurt me too much!! I don’t care!

My own daughter & son in law do not celebrate Valentine’s Day. EVER! Not even when they were dating. It’s just the card company that made it up, They say! We know we love each other, why do we have to buy anything to prove it?

So WHY does it hurt some people, and others not so much?

If you hold onto something tight enough you will bleed.

It’s same thing about relationships.

If someone hurt you bad enough it’s hard to let go. But what if you could just ease up a little at a time, and pretty soon you realize it doesn’t have a hold over you anymore.  But getting there is the hard part. Especially doing it alone. You have well-meaning friends and family that are saying “stop wasting your time on him/her”.  But that doesn’t help. They are not understanding your feelings and situation. It may feel like the knife just sank in deeper when they say those things to you.

There are steps to take that can help you. But you must want to let go!! You can’t hold on and want it gone magically. I think that is the main reason why so many people are hurting. They like the feeling of the hurt. I am not saying you like being hurt. It’s more like a habit. Almost like a craving. If that feeling goes away, then what? You have an emptiness. You need to fill that void. So you overeat, or binge watch tv or jump into a new relationship. You are not solving the problem, you are creating new ones.

I know because I have been through it. I overate, I sat & watched tv for hours on end. I overworked. I stayed up late worrying about other things because I didn’t want to think about the thing that really mattered that I was avoiding.

For our family February is a hard month. Our son was born on Feb. 6, 1988.  On Feb. 14, 1988 he had a heart transplant. He was #13 in the world to get one.  In 2005 He died of lymphoma cancer from the drug that was supposed to keep him alive and not reject his heart.

I was suddenly alone. My 2 dogs were there for comfort when my husband went back to work, and the kids went back to school. There wasn’t anything for me anymore. No more doctor’s Appts.; which was my social hour with the nurses and doctors. Sad but true. No more meeting with the teachers. Or the Physical and Occupational therapists. I had my other 2 children and they needed me emotionally but physically there was no place for me anymore. What was I going to do? Who was I if I wasn’t a mother of a special needs child anymore? I was a mother of a deceased child now. People didn’t want to be around me. They couldn’t handle it. It made them sad! I had no friends left.

What do I do with my life now? What are my likes? What do I want to do? To feel better physically & mentally I started to do yoga and meditation.  I started to listen to Wayne Dyer and Deepak Chopra and read their books. The more I dived into their teachings the more the emptiness started to fill up. I started to feel at peace. I was still grieving but it was different grief now.

It wasn’t until we had to move from Colorado to Maryland that the grieving and emptiness came back. I didn’t have any place to put a story to for a restaurant or the movie theater that our son liked.  Each February we did go to Red Robin the hamburger place to “celebrate” his b’day and Valentine’s Day. We would get a red balloon since it was his favorite color.  I didn’t talk about my son to my coworkers while working at the library. I felt like it was my story and I didn’t want it to spread for others to tell it. So I wrapped it around me like a cloak. As the years went on I realized that my cloak was now smothering me. I wanted to hide. I wasn’t interested in going out. I had to WANT to be in a better mind space.

In the beginning, it was not easy to go within to meditate my mind was all over the place! It took practice, and once I found somebody that I liked, it got easier. Once I started meditated I stopped thinking about the relationships that were lost. But if we start with Self Love first, the rest will fall into place easier.

 Here are the steps to Self-Love:

STEP ONE:

-Meditation

-Journal

-(EFT) Tapping

Not every day would work out the way I wanted it to. Sometimes I would wake up anxious and depressed. I would start to get angry. I turned to my spiritual practice to meditate I would feel more at peace. At bedtime, I Tap to help clear the anxiety so I could rest and sleep through the night.  I had to practice self-love and let myself be able to let go.

STEP TWO:

Let go and allow.

Once you are on the path to self-love you will get anxious and depressed. It’s normal.  We are told that we shouldn’t put ourselves first. Especially women. I felt like I was being selfish for putting myself first. But over time I realized that I was making myself sick for not doing so. If you don’t permit yourself to let go and allow the feelings that you have bottled up, it will fester and will turn into a disease. You need to pour self-love into yourself to fill up the cup so you can be there for others to help them also.

STEP THREE:

-Upon Waking up, check into your emotional place and decide where you want to be emotionally for the day.

Do you want to be happy, positive, or sad? Start by feeling compassionate towards yourself. Put yourself first. Emotionally and Physically. Don’t judge or be too critical. Just feel and see in the present moment, not the past. Observe your feelings throughout the day. This helps you to be awake and aware in the present moment meaning you actually experience your own life.

After our son died and everyone went back to work & school I allowed myself to rest before the kids came home from school. My mind kept going over a “list” that needed to be done that day but I was exhausted. Housework and other things on my to-do list could wait a couple of hours or be done on another day. If I didn’t get things done I would just RELEASE AND ALLOW the (negative) feelings that came up. When I told my husband that things didn’t get done that day I tried not to dwell on the negative feelings. If you release and allow the negative (or guilt) feelings you won’t bottle them up.

My thought was Tomorrow is another day and I could do them when I felt like I was able to. I always did everything I wanted to in a day but with grief, depression & anxiety my husband realized that I was putting myself first (First time in our marriage) and I needed to rest and relax. Sometimes I would go to the park and spend the afternoon there when the kids got home from school instead of chores.

To avoid anxiety I would write down the things that needed to be done the next day. At night if I needed to pay a bill or something equally important I would do that once the kids went to bed.

STEP FOUR:

-Step out of reactionary and start living your truth

-Step out of living in the past and start living in the present moment

-Practice Mindfulness

In the beginning, I was numb, I was lost, and I didn’t know what to do with myself.  I would sit at home and stare into space. I didn’t want to think. I didn’t want to do anything. I had to be honest with myself and get out of living in the past. I had to WANT to be in the Present moment. I didn’t want the past to be repetitive in my head over and over again.

This wasn’t just after our son passed away. It reoccurred when we several states. I felt sad, lost, and alone again. I didn’t know anyone. I let my feelings rule me for some time. We lost a lot after the several jobs my husband lost, and the 2 moves before moving to South Florida.

It was a different type of loss but it was still loss all the same.  I let myself feel the loss. I wouldn’t excuse it away. I focused on self-love, meditation, and Tapping to get out of the funk I was in.

Exercising made a big impact on me also. I love walking and meditating. This is a great technique for moments when you go for a walk to clear your mind or calm down a negative emotion or obsessive thoughts.

STEP FIVE:

-ACT! Be a service to others

–Find your calling

Through the counselor I was seeing at the time we talked about my calling. She pointed out that I had plenty of experience working with special needs children. I started to work for the school district as a Special Education Teacher Assistant. Because I was able to put my love and energy into the kids it also helped me to grieve in a unique way. Putting your energy into being a service to others can help you as well.

Note: I started writing this at the beginning of February. I am now finishing it up. I got really sick around Christmas (Luckily COVID was negative) and I am trying to get out of feeling blah again. I am tired all of the time again, my doctor says that my thyroid levels are fine, my cardiologist says everything is fine. Physically I am fine. But I don’t feel like myself. I realized since getting sick I haven’t been exercising or meditating as much as I did before. I am not following my own wisdom. I want to feel good again! Getting back into my habits I know I will slowly start to feel better. 

What are some ways you feel better when you are in a funk? Let me know! Also, sign up for my newsletter where I go more in-depth about what I write about on my blog.  I email 2xs a month so I will not be bombarding your email box! Thank You so much for reading my blog!