In my last post Moving Through The Dark Room Of Grief I described how it felt for me to be in the throes of profound and uncontrollable sadness likening it to walking into a dark and scary room and not finding your way out of it. 

The post was very hard to write but it was something I felt that I needed to write as this was what I was going through at the time and it was my hope that writing about it would allow me to find my way out.

Since then, I have been taking some small (but very important) steps to see myself clear of the darkness and it’s those steps that have enabled me to find the door that leads to the other side. I am now walking through the door and into the light.

The first step was to get professional help. Simple as that. 

Friends and family are wonderful to talk to because they will always listen and offer their advice, but there is nothing more powerful than dumping your emotional stuff onto someone who doesn’t know you from a bar of soap and in return, they offer fresh new perspectives, insights and objectivity on the very stuff that has been swimming around inside your head.

The second step was to re-establish some routines in my life.

I know I have written about it before but I’m always amazed how easy it is to let my guard down and allow myself to slip into bad habits again, like living on autopilot, not getting enough sleep, not exercising, not writing.

It’s like I have an internal map to the path of less resistance in my life and through not being careful and vigilant, I find myself back on that path time and time again, without me even realising it.

For me, routines are designed to stop the constant merry-go-round of being in and not being in the driver’s seat of my life that I find myself in. They act as an anchor that grounds me, that sets up my day right, that allows myself to “be” on purpose, not by accident.

My routines are still being developed and refined (as they will always be a work in progress) but over the last month I am sleeping better and feeling stronger mentally and physically.

The third step was to start writing about it again.

When I initially paused and reflected on my adventures in the dark room, I realised that I wasn’t writing anymore. 

I had stopped my daily journal, I had stopped my blogging, I had in fact stopped all forms of taking what is swimming around in my head and recreating it external from my person so I can have some distance and therefore a fresher perspective on what is going on.

All of this has shown me how important the act of writing is to me. Whether the outcome is songs, blogs, private journal entries or everything in between, writing everything down is essential to my existence. 

Writing helps me to make sense of it all. Most importantly, it helps me to examine what it means to be me.

Right now I feel like I’m on a path of rediscovery. I’m going over old ground but with a fresh set of eyes and ears which in turn changes my perspective towards the positive and as I now walk through the door and into the light on the other side of the darkness, I remind myself that the smallest of changes can make the biggest of differences.

All I’ve got to do is put one foot in front of the other (hmmm, I reckon there’s a song in that).

Peace,

Corey 🙂