Tag: now
Coping with a wedding anniversary after spouse’s death
Coping with a wedding anniversary after spouse’s death
On the day of writing this it is my wedding anniversary.
It would’ve been 30 years today, and I have to say Claire and I had genuinely a most wonderful relationship, she was most certainly taken much too young.
So the question is, how do we cope after the death of a spouse on wedding anniversaries?
It can often be really difficult because other people don’t know what to do or say so they don’t send cards.
They don’t phone as they usually would.
And it feels as though everyone else has forgotten that love and that amazing day we had – apart from me – and apart from you, of course, if you’re in the same situation.
So here’s what I do.
Focus on the now, the right now, right this instant, right this moment.
And right this moment, the sun is shining. I’ve got some beautiful scenery behind me and everything is good. The moment now only becomes ‘not good’ when I start to compare.
If I compare to the past, if I compare to what went before, if I compare to what was seemingly so unfair, then suddenly ‘now’ seems very difficult.
If I compare now to the future, to what should’ve been happening – Claire and I should be growing old together – We should be traveling the world – We should be living in the life with our camper van and our dog – Again, ‘now’ seems very difficult.
So now only becomes difficult when we compare to the past or when we compare to the future. And the thing is, the past is all in our head and it’s a story. And the future hasn’t happened yet and it’s all in our head and is a story.
So when we focus just on right this instance, right now, without comparing to the past, without comparing to the future, just what is right now, then we can have peace.
And right this instant, I’m feeling good.
Not comparing to the future, not comparing to the past, just now.
The Power of Now
The Power of Now
Sometimes the smallest things can get me thinking, and I never know where they are going to come from. It would be so easy to just give in to these negative thought patterns and spiral out of control, but there really must be a balance between listening to our body and getting on with daily life, if I completely listened to my body I’d curl up in a corner and not come out for quite some considerable time.
Someone asked me yesterday what my motivation for jogging was, they were saying how good they felt whilst exercising and that it is addictive. I must say, I feel no addiction to physical exercise at all… I never have. I don’t get that endorphine kick and each workout is painful from the first step to the last; this is nothing new, it’s always been that way with me.
I guess my motivation to get physically fit is that I now understand how fragile our grip is on this life. It’ll never happen to me… It always happens to someone else doesn’t it? We watch programmes on TV about disasters and bad things that have happened in other people’s lives… And there it is, other people’s lives… It never happens to us does it?
Well, this time it did happen to us.
If I am a little fitter then my blood pressure will come down, not that it is worryingly high but it is higher than it really should be, my heart will be stronger and in the event that I do get ill I will be better able to fight it.
If something happens to me then the kids are completely alone, so there it is… That’s what motivates me to jog.
So that thing that got me thinking what was it? I was watching the news this morning and saw an interview with a tennis player who has recently finished his chemotherapy cancer treatment, I bet he never thought it would happen to him, I bet he thought it always happens to someone else.
Our time on this planet is short, our time with the ones we love is often shorter and in this world of business planning, key performance indicators and business exit strategies I wonder how much this detracts from enjoying the now.
The only known is now. The only sure thing is now. The only guaranteed thing we can enjoy is now.
I wonder what we could notice if we simply spent more time enjoying now?