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Even tiny tweaks can help us, even in times of grief. Quite often, I hear excuses from clients, as well as from friends. “Oh, what’s the use? I can’t change that. It’s overwhelming.” Somehow, people often manage to make even simple things complicated. I have been there myself at times! We think that change always has to be big and impressive, and that makes us feel afraid or defeated before we begin.
How many times, though, have you made just a small change or tweak and discovered that it made a huge difference, either in terms of your own clarity, well-being, or even in the behaviors of others?
Have you ever persistently prodded anyone else to do something that seemed pretty important to you, but that obviously didn’t to them, because your prodding was just ignored? What happened if you backed off for a time, phrased your request differently, or provided an incentive that was meaningful to the other person? In other words, what if you tweaked your typical approach?
In my poetry writing, sometimes substituting one word can shift the feeling of a whole poem. It can make it all fall into place and work “just right”, even though at times I resist the change. I know I have been at a place where I was ready to scrap a poem (and all of the work and emotion that I invested in it) because it wasn’t working for me, but the tiny tweak gave me the results I wanted.
When I cook, I often tweak things when a dish is nearly done, if it somehow doesn’t taste as good as I think it ought to. I don’t use recipes all that much, and if I do, tweaking and changing is definitely my style. I am very much in favor of tweaking. Sure I may worry that I will ruin a dish and could end up wasting all my time and ingredients, but I do it anyway. Usually the results are very good, though I do make mistakes, just like everyone does. So what?
Most mistakes, setbacks or consequences that may result from our tweaking are not going to be earth-shattering or life-altering.
Then there are bigger, more overwhelming and difficult situations in our lives that we think can’t be tweaked. One example is when we are grieving the loss of someone, or suffering about something that has happened to us. Grief can come over us in waves and fluctuates. While there are similarities in certain experiences that people have, our grieving processes and time frames are pretty individualized. We tend to keep ourselves focused on the pain, even if we don’t want to, and we get more and more paralyzed and stuck in inaction, or in unhealthy and unproductive habits. We say we want to feel better, but frequently, we don’t do a lot to make things better. Feeling bad perpetuates itself, though. We find ourselves in a downward spiral. Engaging in some tweaking can help us, and can feel more manageable than initiating substantial and more scary changes.
Things aren’t going to be as they were before our loss or bad situation. It is self-defeating, and even delusional, to try to keep them the same. We may very much resist deviating from our former routines, even when the stark reality that our life is different keeps smacking us in the face, making us feel worse. Sometimes it is guilt that keeps us doing that, and sometimes it is fear and habit.
Sure we may not feel like going out, like fixing ourselves a meal, like meeting new people, like changing anything, really. But change is a must if we are to move on. Brainstorming with someone we trust about ways to tweak our habits and patterns even a bit, can break us out of our misery just enough to recognize that it feels good, that it didn’t kill us, and that we can do it some more.
Conversely, if our way of coping with our grief is to avoid it, to avoid being alone in our pain, and to plunge into a million new things at once, in hopes of numbing that pain, or even forgetting it, then a tweak is in order here too. The tweak in this case might be scheduling one morning or one evening alone. This time can be dedicated to intense grieving, when one sits and looks at photos, letters, momentos and allows the feelings to come out. Maybe it is only one hour that you can tolerate at first, and you have to get back to the activity and chatter of others. Maybe you hate being alone so much that you can’t go into a particular room due to the memories, or you feel devastated just being in your own home. In this case, tweak that by inviting a friend to sit with you. Pre-designate it to be a time of sharing and letting out feelings, or ask the friend to sit quietly in another room and just be there if things get too hard for you.
Whatever you do, it’s a good thing to tweak your life, and you will be surprised at the results that a little tweaking can bring about. Now is a good time to begin.
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Certified and Credentialed Coach, Iris Arenson-Fuller, PCC, CPC, is a Life and Grief Transformation Coach, Life Reinvention Coach helping people (mostly midlife women, widows and Baby Boomer women}create a better present and a more promising future, no matter what they have been through in the past. She also has many decades of experience in Adoption Loss and all adoption issues.
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I help people go from Life Stinks to Life Shines. If you’ve lived through loss of any type, or any tough life stage changes, or are ready for changes, I can help you navigate the rough waters, & come out better than before, regardless of how painful & disappointing things have been. I will help you find a new normal full of hope & promise.
