Writer Roxanne Sadovsky wrote, "Rays of Hope is a gentle guide and companion for everyone, taken as a daily vitamin to keep you company when grief swallows you whole." Her phrase, "when grief swallows you whole" is a fitting description of how it can feel at times.
When you feel the most lost, that's when working through three potent prompts is especially helpful. Because loss has a tendency to swirl around in our minds making it seem infinite in time and space, an awareness exercise can tame the swirl and bring about some elements of finite from the seemingly infinite sense of loss.
You can think of this exercise as getting a GRIP on grief when it has a grip on you. Or if you prefer, think of it as getting a GRIP on growth. GRIP is an acronym that provides the 3 potent prompts that slow that swirl of seemingly endless loss. It's best to write out whatever comes to mind to these prompts (but thinking it through has value too): What is:
Gone?
Remains?
Is Possible?
Be sure to answer what remains after you've answered what is gone (or lost). If you're doing the exercise with limited time, limit the list of losses to five, so you can make sure you've added at least five on your list of what still remains for you. This is because losses seem to become magnified in times of grief and it's easy to lose track of what you still have.
Best of all, listing what remains starts to grow once you begin to raise your awareness of it. And moving into what is possible gives you the healing balm of thinking of the future again, catching a glimpse of hope as you continue integrating change into times ahead.
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