WELLBEING TRAUMA
You’re allowed
to feel the pain
If you do anything for yourself this week, take five and meditate. Your mind will thank you for it, Harriet Bremner writes.
E Harriet Bremner and Poppy.
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mergency departments, emergency vet departments and a dead cat. Life can be smooth sailing then suddenly a whole lot of stuff just happens. My theory since James died has been that, as long as no one died today, it’s a good day! I still believe that but those little life niggles can creep up on you and make you feel you are walking through mud just to try and get through each day. I have been in the hospital emergency department twice in the last month for two different reasons and different people plus the emergency vet clinic on a Saturday night for Poppy (my sausage dog) who nearly died and then my cat got run over and died. So much for things happening in threes! How do we continue to function when things are all up the whop in our daily lives? It is stressful waiting for results to come back, not knowing whether this is going to be the day you find out someone you love has cancer or something else really bad is wrong. It can trigger old traumas and make just tackling the normal things you have to do in your day hard. I had to remind myself it was okay to feel all those feelings and let them out. I have mentioned in the past how I had learnt to shut down how I was feeling and put on a brave face and, initially, my mind wanted to take me straight back there – to the ‘I’m okay’ box. I didn’t let myself, instead I let it all out. I have found myself in a really good and safe space in life which made this so much easier to do.
The relief of actually allowing myself to feel exactly how I have been feeling in the past month has been incredibly refreshing. Sometimes we worry that if we start crying we will never stop, but we do. It runs its course and after a good cry, good sleep and good food I feel so refreshed and more able to tackle what life is going to throw at me next. I have made a real effort to appreciate all the positive and wonderful things I have in my life. There will most likely always be something going on that affects you in one way or another so it’s so important to see what’s amazing right in front of you as well. Sometimes it’s the things we think we will cope with well, that we don’t – when I found myself in a hospital bed recently during lockdown having surgery, I really struggled. I had no one by my bedside as they weren’t allowed in and I just battled
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | October 2021
