Take Some Time To Take Care Of Yourself

Most of us are so busy with our jobs and daily living that we rarely stop and think about taking care of ourselves.  That might sound a bit counterintuitive, since doing our jobs and handling the process of day-to-day living involves taking care of ourselves, doesn’t it?  In truth, doing those things simply makes it possible to survive from day-to-day, but has little to do with self-care.  When you think about it, working and handling our everyday actions puts food on the table, a roof over your head and provides you with those things that makes day to day living easier.  It allows us to take care of our physical wants and needs, but it does not begin to address our deeper emotional issues.

It is amazing the number of people who find that, no matter how much they have in terms of physical stuff, they are still not happy!  That is because they are still emotionally unfulfilled!

What thing can leave us feeling emotionally incomplete?

Most of us carry around inside a great deal of “unfinished business” in our emotional relationships.  We do this, for the most part, because no one ever taught us how to deal with the emotional matters we face on a daily basis.  This unfinished business is not just related to those relationships that have ended, due to death or estrangement, although those feelings of loss can be overwhelming!  It can also be related to ongoing relationships with both those we like or love, and even those with whom we deal with through our jobs.

“Unfinished business,” from an emotional standpoint involves those things we wish might be, or have been, different, better or more in any relationship.  It might be unmet hopes and dreams that never came to be.  Sometimes it is about getting something, on an emotional level, from someone who was never able to provide that type of support.   This may be because that person died, or because they simply could not or would not provide it.

Whatever the reason, that sense of being emotionally incomplete can leave us feeling wanting.  In a very real sense, it leaves us feeling a sense of grief! 

Most of us grew up thinking that grief was the emotion that we experienced after the death of someone who touched our life.  In truth, grief is something we feel whenever we are forced to deal with any unexpected or unwanted change in our daily living.  When we have anything that hits us emotionally, in a less than positive way, feelings of grief can be generated.

Sadly, most of us have been taught to discount our feelings of sadness and suppress them.  That does not make them go away!  Instead, we hold them deep inside, never realizing how they impact our vitality.  Instead of processing those feelings, we continue to hold them inside and they accumulate over our lifetime.  The more we accumulate these painful feelings in our hearts, the less room we have for true happiness!

How can you take action to deal with is emotional pain?

Please understand that we are not suggesting that the answer to this problem is to spend years in therapy!  While some might find that this can be helpful, the vast majority of people can take this action on their own in a far shorter period of time!

The Grief Recovery Method is all about taking action to deal with the unfinished business in emotional relationships.  This is certainly a method of action to follow when you lose someone to death or estrangement, but it is also extremely effective in improving ongoing relationships as well.  This approach will help you to discover exactly what it is that is unfinished for you so that you can take the necessary steps to become “emotionally complete.”  It is designed to help you safely sort through all of those feelings of emotional pain that you have stuffed inside and deal with them is a positive way, so that they no longer negatively impact your life.

While that might sound involved and complex, that is anything but the case.  John W. James and Russell Friedman spell out these necessary actions in “The Grief Recovery Handbook”.  This is not a complicated textbook, but rather a step-by-step guide to dealing with the unfinished business in both relationships lost and ongoing ones as well.  The authors walk you through this process, hand in hand, not only explaining each step, but also outlining how to take each step with examples from their own lives.  They start this “journey to recovery” by helping you to explore the “misinformation” that most of us learned, at an early age, on how to suppress these feelings of emotional pain, that have made it so difficult to effectively deal with our daily grief. They then walk you through the necessary steps to taking positive action.  It is in taking these relatively simple, but emotional, action steps that you can move out from under the shadow of all of that pain that you have carried inside for so long, and live a happier and fulfilled emotional life.

If you are dealing with a series of failed personal emotional relationships, and are still looking for the “love of your life,” they have packaged these steps in another book, “Moving On,” which you might find better suited to your needs. 

I am the perfect example of someone who has benefited from taking this action.  When I first went away for training to become a Grief Recovery Specialist, certified by The Grief Recovery Institute, to help other people take recover action, I never realized how much emotional pain I was personally carrying around deep inside.  As part of that training, I had to take action concerning my own personal losses and it made an enormous difference in my life!  I found that I was able to let go of the emotional pain that was impacting me that I never realized I was holding in my heart.  It made me a far happier person, which is exactly what I am hoping for you as well!

If you take some time to take care of yourself, you will find that going to work and taking care of daily living can become a joy in and of itself, since you are emotionally fulfilled as well!

If you found this article helpful, we also suggest you consider some other articles from our Blog Library:

Am I equipped for happiness? Holding onto pain?

Finding Love Again After A Divorce

Moving On

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Austin Jackson Photography