This meeting is a continuation of the topic we discussed at the last meeting. This time, I would like us to talk about some things we might do to help us overcome inertia if we feel it.    

 Just to remind everyone, in the context of bereavement, inertia is a term I use primarily to talk about a number of often unrecognized types of grief fatigue that our grief imposes on us that may make it difficult to gather the physical, mental or emotional energy to do things or to work on our grief throughout our journeys. It refers to our finding reasons not to do things that need to be done that may be things we used to not have problems doing. It also refers to an active or very active way of trying to avoid elements of our grieving that we may find ourselves immersed in.  It may also appear in the way we make or don’t make new connections with other people as we go forward.

In any of its forms, inertia is a part of what our grief and grieving can do to us that can hold us back, keep us from dealing with our grief and slow or reduce our movement through our grief journeys into healing and wellness.

Overcoming the inertia: 

Overcoming inertia mostly only happens slowly on its own; we usually have to work at it to recognize it, see it for what it is and get to see significant change. If we ignore it or deny it, inertia in any form can cause us to develop what I’ve come to call “habits of grief” that persist and hold us back in our healing journeys. Recognizing and breaking those habits, especially if we become comfortable in them, can become more and more difficult the longer we do them.

As we can, it is valuable to let our grief journeys be about creating a balance in what we do that allows us to experience our grief and also helps us to find healing by gradually working on and through our grief. It’s also important to consider that we have to be the ones to do the work and make the changes, no one else is going to do it for us.

If we don’t tip over into and embrace one extreme of inertia or another and we try not to let the inertia turn into habitual actions or activities, we can learn to recognize and then overcome any of the types of inertia that may come into our lives if we want to and when we are ready to. 

Here are some ideas and strategies to consider:

Starting early in our journeys, intentionally building structure into our lives can help us create new patterns to guide us through the fog and to overcome some of the inertia that our grief contains. 

If we want to, we can also use structures to help us change mental, emotional and physical patterns from our life with our loved ones that might not fit into our lives now when it becomes possible or needful for us to do that. Later on in our journeys, creating structures can also help us change patterns and habits we create that may be a result of inertia earlier in our grieving that we may not want to continue. 

Routines and Rituals: 

A routine is something we do in the same way, usually in the same order, time after time to accomplish a similar outcome. It’s a positive pattern that we purposefully build into our life. A routinecan also contain thoughts that we actively repeat purposefully, in the same way, over and over. It may also be about finding ways to not repeat negative or sad thoughts over and over as well.

We can use routines to help us fill our life with structure if we want to or need to. They can help us to create new and healing patterns that can become our way of finding the energy, focus and direction to approach each day and each task that comes before us. They can help us navigate through our life when the fog is thick and it is hard to remember what we need to remember or even what we were going to do when we went into another room!

Routines especially, are tools we can use to help us to overcome inertia one task at a time, one activity at a time, one thought at a time, until we are able to function with more focus and with more energy more of the time. They can help us to begin to overcome much of the inertia in our grieving and to some extent, help us to also move more clearly through the fog at any time along the way.

A ritual is a solemn ceremony consisting of a series of actions performed in a prescribed order. 

In grief, a ritual may be about things we do that make us still feel connected to our loved one. It can contain relatively simple things like talking to their picture each night before bed or wishing them good morning in the same way each day or they can be more complex structures we construct to help us still feel their presence and to express our continuing love. 

Ways to help build routines: 

Using guide-words, phrases or mantras, making lists and/or putting tasks and reminders on a calendar or even on sticky notes around our house are good ways to began to create routines. They can all be tools to help us remember what needs to be done, what order we need to do things in and what we want to be working on to make sure we get as much as possible of what needs to be done accomplished each day that we can. 

It is incredibly useful in the early part of our journeys, when the fog is the most dense and our thoughts and memories are the most compromised, to create some fairly linear structures to help guide us through our days.

Using intent statements (from our January meeting) or guide-words and phrases that we create is a powerful way to overcome mental inertia and the physical inertia it may cause to make intentional changes in our lives. We can repeat them over and over as we would a mantra and they can help us to focus on and remember things we want to accomplish or change. They can help us to build new patterns to guide and (re)structure our minds and our actions and to reduce our inertia. (ie. I can and I will, instead of I can’t and I won’t).

Some simple examples of I will – I won’t types of guide-statements or mantras are: I will be kind, I will be a good friend, I will make breakfast every day, I will clean the house. I won’t sit on the couch all day and eat junk food. I will pay attention to my diet, I won’t get angry at seemingly unkind things people say. I won’t think negative thoughts or repeat negative phrases all day, I will get up now and do whatever task I’ve been ignoring, I will get out and walk every day, I will pay attention to my actions, I will become aware of my illusions, I will slow down, I will reduce my activities or commitments, I will recognize that this is inertia and I don’t have to listen to it… or you can create whatever you want to use that helps you focus on the changes you wish to make.

You don’t have to keep the patterns and structures you create forever either. Later down the road, once you get to a place where you don’t feel you need them as much, when the inertia is no longer as strong, you can begin to let some of the linearity go and let your life become less structured and more intuitive if and when you want to.

Getting out and doing stuff: “GOOTH!”

Another way to help work through the inertia is to get out and do things, alone if we feel comfortable with that or in small groups of friends or family. Walking, alone or with others is a great way to begin this process. Talking to our loved one when we are walking alone is also an interesting and often powerful thing to try. If you wear ear buds, no one will look at you funny as you talk, lol. 

When we feel able to, spending some time actively engaged in life is a very positive thing to do. Especially if it’s for a few hours each day to start, it is a strong and effective way to begin the process of moving forward and stepping outside our grief. It’s a time when we are not actively grieving and when we are giving ourselves a break from the intensity and inertia that sitting home and grieving can bring or enhance. 

This is not, however, the same as the idea of “active inertia” but there can be a fine line between the two. “Getting out of the house” can sometimes turn into “staying out of the house” and become an all-the-time, avoidance kind of thing that is something we may not even recognize we are doing as an attempt to not feel or have to deal with the pain of our grieving. 

What I’m suggesting here instead is a proactive attempt to begin the process of living again while still taking the time to experience, acknowledge and work on our grief, not to find ways to run away from it. Used this way, it can be a positive part of the reconstruction and healing process and an effective way to begin to overcome inertia. 

If we find ourselves experiencing this “active inertia” and we want to try to change it, perhaps we might consider finding or taking some time each day to just stop, to consciously not schedule anything for part of the day and later, to begin to say no to new (and old) commitments one event at a time for a while. 

Maybe at first, we can work to spend just an hour a day reading or meditating or doing stuff around the house or any other thing we choose that allows us to just “sit back”, relax, be “one-pointed” at home and maybe even to spend that time visiting with our grief until we don’t feel we have to stay busy all the time avoiding it.  

With time, maybe we can learn to be able to be home alone (with our grief) for increasingly longer parts of the day without it becoming too hard to handle. Taking the time to find activities (at home) that allow us to be “one-pointed” and mindful may be ways to begin to overcome, slow down or moderate our active inertia. 

It’s our home after all and we should eventually be able to learn to live there and spend time there again in comfort.

Doing things that are mindful and “one pointed” can help us to overcome inertia and to occupy our minds, bodies and time: 

Learning new things or re-engaging in old hobbies, doing things we always wanted to do but never had a chance to do, doing things we enjoyed doing in the past that fell out of our life and any other things that engage our attention and let us set our grief aside for awhile are all things we can do to help overcome inertia.

It doesn’t matter what it is we do, just that it engages us and holds our full attention for the time we are doing it. That is where the healing lives in these activities. We become “one pointed” for a time and we are actively living while we are doing them, not “sitting still” immersed in our grief nor running away from our grief.

A final possibility here to think about is that if we seem to be stuck in place, if we feel like we are unable to get moving or started on something, physically, mentally or emotionally, we might consider asking for help to get going. Maybe we can allow someone to help us to make the first move or the first decision and then pick it up from there. Maybe letting someone show us the way or just lend a serious hand can help us change our patterns of resistance and inertia and can be the impetus we need to start overcoming our reluctance to begin or continue a task or action we don’t seem to be able to start on your own. 

Some other ideas about how to overcome inertia to consider:

Journaling: One of my favorites and why we have the “Zen Writing” workshop each month!

Journals can be hand-written in a book, on pieces of paper or as a computer file, or whatever you are comfortable with. If you don’t like or are resistant to the idea of journaling, you can call it anything you want. It’s always about the writing, not what you call it or what it looks like. 

An important thing about writing in journals or anyplace else, is that they can be a private place to explore our thoughts and feelings that works particularly well in our grief and grieving. Since no one will see what we wrote, journals don’t have to be edited! We can just write as it comes to us and not worry about paragraphs, spelling or grammar! 

Writing (in a journal) allows us to express things we don’t want to or that we feel we can’t share with anyone else but that we need to work on and find our way through as we navigate our grief journey. They can be a way to get thoughts out of our head when we no longer have our loved ones physically there with us to share them with. 

Writing is also a very good way to help us identify places where inertia is effecting us and for finding ideas and things we might do to help us find strategies to overcome the inertia we experience. 

Journaling or documenting our daily thoughts and activities can also be a great memory aid and reinforcement. If we choose to read our record of the day, it helps us remember what we did and helps us remember that we did it, no mater how thick the fog.

The important part is the writing, of getting the thoughts and feelings out of our head and onto the page. That’s how and when the healing happens.

Recognizing and dealing with emotional inertia:

These emotional inertia ideas may not be things we ordinarily think about or feel early in our journeys. There are many other things we experience and have to work through, usually long before we find and consider the possibility of some of the more emotional parts of our grief and the inertia they may contain. 

In emotional inertia, it’s recognizing what is happening that is the key to finding ways to work on and change things if we want to. Because emotional inertia tends to show up later in our journeys, we may have also already gained some skills that we learned in other parts of our journeys that can help us here. 

As always, however you want or need to proceed with any of this is ok. These are not judgements or have to’s, they are just possibilities I’ve thought about, heard about and some that I’ve experienced, that you might find occurring as part of your grief and grieving as well. In the emotional sense, it is ok to not get involved with others or not want to get involved with others if that’s what you choose at a particular time.

These thoughts are here if you need them to help you by giving you things to think about if you find yourselves feeling, experiencing or being confused by or held back by any of your emotions. They are here to help you ask yourselves meaningful questions about how you want to go forward. They are about how you might want to actively approach this part of your healing journey with intent and thoughtful consideration when you are ready to and when you can. There are also many other emotions I have not dealt with here that you may experience and that may contain elements of inertia as well.

Thoughts and feelings that may come from emotional inertia:

When we feel that since we don’t have enough time left in our lives to make something as deep and loving as our lives with our loved ones was and then we won’t try, that may be a form of inertia. When we just don’t want to let our emotions take a chance on being hurt by any (deep) connection to others, this too is a possible type of emotional inertia we may experience and may not realize that it comes from or is part of our grief.

If we find our emotions locked away within ourselves and we can’t find our way to compassion or to helping others or doing anything that comes from our heart and our emotions, this too can come from our grief and the inertia it contains. 

When we consciously or unconsciously use our grief and our emotional loss as a way to keep from allowing ourselves to become close to anyone, maybe the fear of hurting again is just too much for us to deal with or consider at that time and can create our inertia. 

But if we find these things happening to us now, are they going to be happening forever? Are they going to be healthy to retain in our lives forever? Can we learn in our healing journeys going forward, to heal the emotional part of ourselves as well? Can we find ways to learn to trust and to accept affection, commitment and friendships again and let our hearts and emotions heal as our bodies and our minds do and can this help end the emotional inertia we may feel? 

Some example of places or ways emotional inertia may manifest:

• When we find ourselves making judgments and statements about emotional things that are inflexible and forever.
• When we believe that what’s emotionally right for us is emotionally right for everyone.
• When we put a timetable on whether or when we might be open to emotional interactions or relationships of any type.

• If we find that we deny friendships from building or growing. 
• If we find ourselves pulling back from getting close to others in any type of relationship. 
• If we keep to ourselves and restrict others from becoming close by withdrawing or not allowing ourselves to bring others more closely into our lives.

• When our hearts and emotions feel so broken or frozen by our grief and grieving that we either can’t or won’t allow friendships or relationships to build or we can’t or won’t enter into one even if it appears in front of us and we then find any number of emotional or mental reasons to not do that.

• When we tell ourselves we will not or we will never want to be with anyone else now or in the future. 
• When we find ourselves repeatedly denying the possibility of having another relationship or denying that it’s possible or even ok to think about having another relationship in the future or ever.
• If we repeatedly, over a long period of time, tell ourselves that it’s not or it will never be ok to enter into another relationship.
• When we become angry at the suggestion that we might want to have another relationship or that another widow or widower might want to have one or find one or be actively engaged in one.

Our emotions can lead our minds to all kinds of inertial type thoughts. I can’t or I won’t types of thoughts can be triggered by our emotions and maybe by our fear of possibly experiencing another intense loss or of being a caregiver again. If we decide, and it’s fine to do that if we need to, that we would much rather not experience that again, we can keep that emotional door closed and that’s ok. 

But, it’s also worth analyzing periodically, to be sure its not inertia talking in our heads. It’s a decision that we might want to examine from time to time going forward, to see if how we feel changes as we get further into our grief and our healing journeys.

Moving forward:

It takes courage to face and experience our grief! The path to healing and wellness lies through our grief whether we like it or not. It is not an easy nor a comfortable path to travel but it’s one we have to take none-the-less, no matter how long it lasts.

By eventually breaking into the inertia within our grief, by building routines and rituals that are outside of our grief, by beginning to engage in life again, by changing our mental dialog and looking more closely at our emotions, we can begin to break out of our inertia into more healing patterns, thoughts and actions. By slowing down and learning to live with our grief, we can let new healing patterns build where we can deal with our grief and grieving and engage in life as well. Gradually, we can come to experience and embrace our grief and then let it transform into healing and wellness. By traveling through our grief, and by overcoming the inertia it contains, we can help open the door to the next part of our lives beyond the grief and the pain.

But it’s important as we go forward, to not let the inertia living within our grief keep us from looking for, working on and finding healing and wellness. 

Questions:

• Can you think of ways to overcome inertia if you are feeling it?

• Have you done anything specific to fight your inertia?

• Would establishing routines help to overcome the inertia? Would or does making lists and writing on calendars help?

• Can you think of any words or phrases that might help you to build routines?

• If you have created them, what are some examples of routines or rituals in your life that you have established to help you.

• Do you think you need to be “proactive” in approaching the building of the next part of your life?

• Do you keep a journal? Why or why not?

• Do you feel you have established any “habits of grieving” in your life? How might you work to break them if you have?