A Smiling Young Widow

Anxiety is a pretty natural response after losing your spouse, but oh what a beast! It’s a kind of anxiety where you can’t really talk yourself down from it. If you try to convince your brain that the worst case scenario won’t happen… well it did, like worse than I ever could have imagined. So what’s stopping that from happening again? I’ve read a bit about how typical CBT techniques for addressing unhelpful thoughts might not apply to anxiety in the context of grief and trauma. Plus there’s facing the anxiety of how unanchored my life feels right now. There’s a level of existential crisis that comes with losing your spouse young that I can’t really put into words.  I definitely wouldn’t describe that as comfortable! 

I listened to an episode of The Happiness Lab podcast on the power of awe that helped put words to something I’ve leaned into on my grief journey – experiencing a sense of awe can be an antidote to anxiety. 

Awe gets you outside of your own self. 
Awe connects you to something larger than yourself. 

The amygdala which fires up fear in our brain, can also be activated by a sense of awe that helps to calm our brain back down (getting moving can also be helpful here). Dr. Dacher Keltner has a whole book on what awe can do in the body and different ways we can find it (I haven’t actually read the book yet, but turns out he was the scientific advisor for Inside Out so we really should trust his stuff I’d say!) He suggests there are eight categories of wonders of life that can evoke awe for us, likely different for each person which one(s) resonate.

Nature has been huge for me. A lot of slowing down and noticing. Like a walk in the woods where I was looking up at all the different patterns the trees follow growing up to the sunlight – have you ever done that? It is art, looking at the curves of the different trunks. Or appreciating the different shades and textures of the lichen that grows on the old trees in the forest. 

What time outside has done for me on this journey has been incredible. Sure it inspires awe, but I also think there’s a power in how much nature can hold for us. Grief isn’t about fixing things or feeling better, but rather about finding a way to carry this. Nature does a really good job of helping me hold this all just as it is. Whether it’s looking up at the canopy of a forest, watching a powerful waterfall rain down, gazing out into massive canyons, or noticing how the changing colours of a sunset as it slides behind a majestic mountain. 

The idea of looking for small moments of awe isn’t totally new, I did this before. Arguably I did more of that as old me, before Tom died, without really even appreciating it. I was thinking back on a roadtrip to the Oregon coast Tom, Frank and I did. We’d done this little hike along the coast and sat at a lookout spot with Tom’s trusty binoculars watching sea lions and whales. Other people came by and we’d visit for a bit, then they’d carry-on and we’d get back to taking turns looking through the binoculars and listening to the roars and the rushing water from blow spouts, appreciating these massive creatures. 

Now it is an absolute lifeline to slow-down. My therapist described it as a “have to” vs “want to”. That helped me to see for myself how much work I’ve put into this and the intentionality of it. 

Permission too, that yeah this is still the “work” of grief. This isn’t easy, I don’t just float around with a big smile as I absorb moments of joy and awe in the world. It’s never taking away my grief or worries. I can find so much comfort in relishing in sweet baby snuggles, enjoying live music in a crowd, watching the birds flutter in the wind, busting a move on a dance floor, or listening to a friend’s story of something amazing happening in their life – but it takes effort to get there and to really be there. 

I met a wonderful friend in Costa Rica in October. He died last month, leaving lasting imprints in my life. I’ve been thinking about him a lot as I reflect on awe. He was going through really hard stuff, but always had a positive spin to offer and a talent for focusing on the little things that were just so amazing. We had some really special beach walks in Costa Rica – we’d talk about death and grief, how terrible dark thoughts could pass through, and the little joys of life too with this epic background of the ocean meeting the jungle. We kept in touch after the trip and he was a source of infusing wonder and gratitude into my days. The positive spin on everything – like reminders that every type of precipitation was liquid sunshine or frozen sunshine – he was this poster child for finding awe. It doesn’t mean there isn’t stuff in life that still really sucks, you can acknowledge that, and also hold the extraordinary things happening too. 

If I were to label the most recent phase of my grief, it would be unanchored. It isn’t “just” not having Tom, who I would have described as anchoring me for the entire time I had him in my life, but also in how I see the world. The shift that has happened as I was let down in a way I never thought possible, and as beliefs I held at my core previously have been shaken or shattered. The way I think has forever changed, but it hasn’t for the rest of the world as life continues on. That leaves me feeling what I can only describe as unanchored. And not in a fun, “the world is your oyster” way, but rather in a way that sends waves of anxiety through me quite regularly. 

Society gives us the idea of what would be a justified anchor, it could be work or family or kids. Those questions come up a lot. I know they come up more now than they did before, as people take interest in my life in what is meant as a really compassionate way. When Tom was alive, neither of us would have put it in these exact words, but we were on a mission to not let work be our anchors. I still want that. However if I don’t have a husband and I don’t have kids and I don’t live where my family is … well I’m often thankful I have the line, “I have a dog at home” to fall back on!  I’m kind of trying on different anchors right now, attempting to give myself permission to not need to fit into boxes that are considered socially-acceptable ways to run your life. This is still a work in progress. The line “for now” can be super helpful in this too, trying to move away from the idea that everything has to be a big decision. To be ok with a bit more flexibility and leaning into what might fit for me. Living somewhere that gives me the chance to easily find awe in nature is actually a super helpful anchor. For now. Waking up and seeing deer munching away behind the back fence, looking at a big awe-inspiring mountain as I cook supper and noticing how different the sunset looks each night, heading out into the vast forest whenever I want to or need to, gazing up at the stars in a pitch black sky right outside my door. 

Grief invites you? begs you? to go find awe. Not as another thing to do, but rather as a very valid reason to do less.