Fruit bowl: dealing with pain and grief

[Donte]

The other day as a song unexpectedly popped up on the radio, I found myself overwhelmed by myriads of emotions. Memories of my late partner and the years we had together flooded my mind. Tears started rolling uninvitedly on my cheeks.

It's funny how grief raises her head out of the blue, even years later, when you have come to terms with the loss, the permanency, the death of your loved one.

As I was standing there, my eye caught the fruit bowl on my kitchen bench. I looked at the bananas, pears, apples, mandarins etc. in the bowl. I realised that a few looked a bit off. Some were starting to rot. Instinctively, I wanted to remove them from the bowl, but something stopped me. I decided to take a few steps backwards. Then had another look.

Suddenly, a smile appeared on my face.

'This bowl is my life!', I thought to myself. There are amazing things in it. My daughter, my friendships, work, home, pets, family and relatives overseas, all the material things and hobbies I enjoy. There are also some bad things, pain, loss, issues, problems, challenges that are affecting me. But when I take a few steps backwards, and look at the whole bowl in its entirety, it's actually beautiful and pleasant. There are in it things that I love and give me pleasure and joy.

This thought made me feel better and I found myself remembering the good things and feeling thankful for my life and my countless blessings.

How do you deal with pain? Problems? Issues? Grief? Is there a particular way that you've learnt to see things through your cultural or religious background? Through your upbringing? How do you see your uncomfortable challenges in life? How do you normalise loss and carry on? what's your experience?

[Donte]

Hello Jisaw,

Yes! Great advice. I think it's good to strive to do this - see things outside the box we are in.

I'd like to hear from you how do you manage to do this? We are all in certain boxes (cultural, spiritual, social, gender, age etc) and that is necessary for self-preservation and survival as the boxes offer us security and safety and help us have structure and understand ourselves and our roles within the world/society we find ourselves in e.g parents, lovers, workers etc.

Personally, I always felt I didn't fit in the boxes provided for me. I have always strive to break the boxes, squash them, destroy them, and let myself free but I realize each time I do this i find myself in another box and then another and another...

When I broke free from my heterosexual marriage and came out of that box, I found myself in the gay box, when years later I left the gay scene I found myself in another box.

How do we leave those boxes behind? And how do we self-define without them? Also, how do others define us then?

As an ideal it makes sense but it fails in practical terms. This is my experience. If you could elaborate from your perspective would be great insight. X

[Jigsaw9]

Donte

Thank you for your reply and i appreciate your kind words. 'How do we leave those boxes behind? And how do we self-define without them?'

This is not the aim of seeing things from outside the box. Naturally the boxes define us and we can't do anything to change that. You say you were heterosexual then became homosexual... you can't change that. That experience is something you went through and it is real. We should embrace our past, learn from it, and build for the future.

I have been fortunate to do a fair bit of travelling. I've seen many different levels of lifestyles. You and i see an apple for example and see it as a piece of fruit. Something we may snack on when we are hungry. Others see it as something they will never eat, maybe due to an allergy or whatever reason; yet some people will view it as something they must eat to survive. In extreme cases of poverty, eating that same apple that we only seen as something to snack on when hungry will be the difference between living or dying from starvation.

The same analogy can be used for many situations. We need to step back and think about what things mean to others, and not just ourselves.

[Donte]

Thank you Jigsaw,

That's beautiful. Still not sure how to do this though. X

[Donte]

When we feel uncomfortable emotions like sadness, fear, or anger, arguing with ourselves or trying to think our way back to serenity isn't feasible. In moments of distress, trying to play 'mind tricks' by forcing ourselves to think of something else or challenge the validity of what we feel isn't very effective - in fact, it usually makes things worse.

What I discovered is that in moments like these, the most effective thing we can do is to engage in a behavior that helps to both distract and soothe us.

Walking away from distress means simply that you must use your behaviour to change the way you are feeling and to reduce distress. Once we get our distress feelings down, we can then consider more effective options for getting what we want - as opposed to blowing up or overreacting.

I think, rarely when we feeling intense emotions we act in our own best interest.

[Donte]

Hey Jigsaw9,

People do not choose their sexuality. Apologies if I gave you that impression. I was never heterosexual. I was born homosexual but was forced by society, culture and religious conditioning to abide by the rules and married someone of the opposite sex as I felt I had no choice. I, like many others, felt I had no choice. This has contributed hugely to my mental illnesses.

Many people find themselves in this terrible predicament, especially if they are from a culturally or linguistically diverse background, where often, their personal self is sacrificed to community's and family's rules and ideals. It's a crime really. One that often goes under the carpet. The individual and their needs is never the focal point but rather their family, village and community.

I have met so many people, just like me, who have suffered abuse and bullying and persecution from their families and community just because they were born gay and that didn't fit their community's or religion's ideals and beliefs. Collectivist cultures have many disadvantages too if you happen to be born different. If you can't abide by the prescribed path...

[Donte]

Hi Elizabeth,

I've been thinking on this more and I think it is extremely helpful to remember that acceptance is not approval. Very often, those things that we must accept in life are also those things we do not like, and perhaps even despise. For example, you likely would not choose to be HIV+ and may even despise what that virus has done to millions, but if you test positive for the HIV antibody, you must accept that you are HIV+. To consistently refuse to accept this keeps you in continuous, excessive, and unnecessary suffering.

Once we fully accept everything about us and are honest about it with the important people in our life, much of that distress disappears.

My wish is that these forums can provide the necessary space for people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds to share and receive support that often is non-existent or minimal in their collectivist communities and religious groups, so they can come to accept the things that torture them and develop strategies towards a recovery mindset. X

[Donte]

"The most important decision you make is to be in a good mood."

--Voltaire

[Donte]

I’ve been thinking lately how destruction, hardship, devastation, darkness is actually absolutely pivotal in regeneration and development of positive outcomes. For example, how forest fires have amazing benefits to the regeneration of trees and bush.

Similarly, sometimes enemies are our best teachers as we can learn so much from their mistakes. Destruction often means rebirth.

None of us are getting out of here alive, so please stop treating yourself like an afterthought. Eat the delicious food. Walk in the sunshine. Jump in the ocean. Say the truth that you are carrying in your heart like hidden treasure. Be silly. Be kind. Be weird. There’s no time for anything else.