Monthly Take Aways: #3

As promised once a month I am sharing one of my 7 Take Aways for living life to
the fullest, learning to grieve and support others, and having “The Talk” about
end of life, long before it arrives and diffusing the fear.

This time I’m sharing Take Away #3; when someone is grieving… Just Show Up!
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, “I don’t know what to do,
I don’t know what to say!” So we often avoid, don’t we? When someone is facing
a crisis, loss or someone they love died, it is awkward, it is uncomfortable.
We don’t know what to do. We don’t know what to say.

But the truth is, there is no magic formula. There is nothing we can say to fix it.
We have to allow grief. We have to feel it. It is the path to healing.
We think, “What if I remind them about what happened?” I promise, they haven’t forgotten.
It is so much better to acknowledge and just be there. Just Show Up!

How? Hug, text, sit silently, cry, walk their dog, call. Do something.
We feel so strongly and passionately about this message that we started the
I Just Showed Up Movement. I’m wearing my bracelet to remind me.
We don’t have to do anything magical. We don’t have to fix it. We just have to allow
our “human-ness!” Grief can be messy. Life can be messy. We need to be okay with that.
The truth? Grief shows no mercy. It arrives unannounced and uninvited.
It does not care what else you are going through. It does not care if you’ve had enough.
It’s a part of living and loving. But it’s worth it, and our hearts will heal (never the same, battered and scarred), if we learn to take good care of ourselves and each other.
And we learn to… Just Show Up!

www.ijustshowedup.com 
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www.facebook.com/ijustshowedup