Ep. 63 How Finding One Simple Joy Each Day Can Change Your Grief Experience

In this Divine Healing Coaching episode, learn how finding one simple joy each day, which is different from gratitude, can change your grief experience.

TIMESTAMP:
Finding joy after loss and its impact on grief experience. (0:00)
Recognizing and cultivating joy in grief. (2:39)
Embracing joy in grief despite self-doubt. (6:57)
Finding joy in grief through daily journaling. (11:42
Joy, gratitude, manifestation and personal growth. (15:53)

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“Lessons in Surviving Suicide – A Letter to My Daughter
“Divine Healing Transforming Pain into Personal Power – A Guide to Heal Pain From Child Loss, Suicide and Other Grief”
“The Power of Change”

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Transcript

Vonne Solis  0:00  
Welcome to another Grief Talk Coffee Chat episode. I'm your host, Vonne Solis.

Vonne Solis  0:12  
Welcome to another Divine Healing coaching episode. Today I'm going to be sharing with you how finding just one small joy a day can change your grief experience. 

Vonne Solis  0:25  
So the other day, I was actually speaking with an upcoming guest on my show and we were talking about joy. Finding joy and the impact of that. How it's different from gratitude, and how it has impacted her in her own bereavement. Which I will say is a different type of bereavement than mine as a mom who lost her daughter to suicide. So I'm a bereaved mom. But the more I listened to her and the more we talked, you know, I started to practice finding joy. Just one little joy a day. I mean, I'm at the stage 18 years later, that I can find more joys per day. But understanding the impact of grief at any stage that can knock us down. Anniversaries. Sometimes seasons. I've talked about how weather can actually be a trigger for a sudden death for many of you who may be watching this as a suicide loss survivor. Whatever the impact of whoever you have lost. How close you were to that person. How pained you are by their passing. What type of passing they had. Was it sudden, you know? Was it difficult? Do you think that they were struggling? Did you have regrets and the should have, would have, could haves done and all of those things which this episode is not about. But they can impact us and stay with us and really do a number on our emotional and mental state for years until you understand what's going on within you. 

Vonne Solis  2:07  
And I have done other coaching episodes about this. So again, this episode is more about having the skills to tap into a higher vibrating emotion, which joy and love top the list of how much they can change the experience we are having in that moment. And sometimes and often last with us for a lot longer. That's what I'm here to share with you today. How to recognize something that is joyful. What you need to actually put this practice into your daily life in grief. And how it can actually change your entire grief experience. 

Vonne Solis  2:57  
So starting right off the bat, and I'm going to keep this video pretty short. So we're gonna get right to it. Here's what you actually need to be able to put this practice into place. First of all, understand that joy is something that I describe as a tickle of your heart. Something that makes you smile, or instantly feel excitement. It's that joy that we get from an experience. An exchange of words with someone. A look exchanged. A smile exchanged. It could be some good news you heard. Whatever it is, and again, it doesn't matter that it is only a momentary and fleeting jolt of joy, one of the main ingredients you need for starting this practice is to understand that joy represents a light in the otherwise darkness that you are experiencing within from the pain. Pain is always dark, Joy is light. It's like turning the switch on again, momentarily or longer to erase that darkness. 

Vonne Solis  4:16  
You need discipline to stick to the practice. You need will to want to do the practice and experience something different in the pain you have otherwise probably become used to. You need to recognize the power that you have just by choosing to want to experience at least one joy per day, how this will change the energy within you to one that is a little higher vibrating because it takes a little bit of work to get in there. You know? It's kind of like trying to cut a cake with a toothpick, but the more often that you tap into a higher vibrating energy. Joy, again, with love, being at the top of this vibrating type of light healing energy, the more you tap into that, the further the light is going to spread within you. 

Vonne Solis  5:21  
So recognizing that is a power that you have within you, and even around you, because the more you are affected by your your inner joyous being, the more this radiates outward, and affects your relationships. What you are actually experiencing, and actually draws to you more of the same types of higher vibrating experiences, relationships, thoughts, and emotions, and feelings. 

Vonne Solis  6:01  
So understanding and owning the change, this being another key ingredient. The change that you are willing to be responsible for. To create. To sustain. To embrace. To accept it's something that you deserve. This is all in your hands. And the more that you understand the change and transformation you want from a slight shift in your energy on a daily basis, the more you are going to shift your energy and your experience in grief.

Vonne Solis  6:50  
Now, again, my definition of joy, as I said, is something that just tickles your heart. Oh, that felt good. And there are any number of situations throughout a day, that could be a catalyst for you, switching your mindset to ultimately see your glass as half-full, rather than half-empty all the time. And some of this may be our inherent disposition in the way we're kind of wired to look at life. And by the way, that is also a really, really good exercise to do is when you're really really in your in your grief, whether it's a trigger in the first several years. Triggers are really difficult. They're always difficult, but they seem to last longer, and are so much more intense in the earlier years in grief. And hey, you decide what's early for you. I'm 18 years in my bereavement now, over 18. And for me, my early grief, I've I sort of ended up looking back and going, I think it was about, you know, three, four years. And at about five, it was kind of like, okay, I'm living with this. And I've got to do some serious changing. Even though I'd always you know, always been working on myself, the longer you are in grief, the more you have an opportunity to welcome change. See things just a little bit differently, and invite this transformation. This deservingness of joy and good things that you deserve into your life. 

Vonne Solis  8:35  
Now I'll be doing other episodes on just why it's so difficult to love ourselves in grief. Why we're so hard on ourselves and think we're just so undeserving of anything good. And again, this can last for years and years and some grievers never actually change their experience of blaming themselves for the death of their loved one, you know, for a host of different reasons. So it would be very difficult if you're in that headspace to even consider that you deserve to feel joy, number one. And number two, that maybe you wouldn't recognize what feels joyful because that part of you that may be used to experience joy is so deadened inside that it's just not possible. And three, you know, you maybe just don't want it. 

Vonne Solis  9:31  
So I'm speaking here to the people that truly don't want to waste the remaining years of their life as a bereaved person, not being able to experience wonderful things for yourself. And I am a firm believer in we need to first feel it within us, the joy. That spark of absolute happiness and acceptance and in you know, embracing love for ourselves which comes from, you know, forgiving ourselves for the things that, you know, we feel are our absolute worst transgressions. And making room to, you know, just create a life that feels like we are loved and valued most especially by ourselves, and really worthy of all that we want to have in our life, that actually makes us feel good. And joy, makes us feel good. Think of your most tickleliest spot in your body. And imagine that same giggling and you know, stop, stop that feels, you know, it's making me laugh in your heart. That's, in my estimation, what joy is in the toughest of grief.

Vonne Solis  11:02  
And when we recognize these moments that we are experiencing this, you know, when it first starts to happen, we might chastise ourselves and go, no, no, ooh, that doesn't feel good. I'm not supposed to feel that. And we may not even understand why we think we shouldn't be feeling that. Again, mostly in our earlier grief, but it can be 20,30 years on, still stuck in that pain cycle where, I just don't deserve this. I don't know how to feel this. I, I really don't think I want to feel this. And even if I do want to feel this, it's just not possible. 

Vonne Solis  11:42  
And so yes, it is. Yes, it is. And I'm so thankful for this guest that was on my show, which she's going to be appearing in the new year, who speaks about joy. And I'm so glad that I was willing to entertain, consider the ideas of someone else who hadn't, or hasn't experienced the same bereavement. The same loss as me. Not making one worse than the other, but child loss and really difficult deaths. Suicide. I don't have experience with other difficult deaths. But these are things that people who don't experience them, they in, in my estimation, have different type of grief. Because I too, have lost parents, a former partner. You know, many extended family members, and that grief from you know, losing those loved ones didn't impact me as much as losing my daughter. 

Vonne Solis  12:47  
So losing my daughter, in 2005, has absolutely proven to me, it was the most difficult thing I've had to endure in my life of nearly seven decades, and wouldn't wish it on anybody. Other deaths like losing your spouse. Granted, losing a spouse early is, is sudden and traumatic. But you know, when they're expected in, in the right order to go, losing a spouse. Losing our parents. Losing our grandparents. Sometimes losing our adult siblings, all of these deaths, and especially when they are from old age, or they're from recognizable diseases that we understand and can sort of consider ooh, that could happen in my family, these are all types of grief, where it may be possible to invite joy into our life again. And maybe much quicker. 

Vonne Solis  13:42  
But for those of you and including me, that have been severely challenged by something a little bit, you know, more than, you know, we can really, really take on, it has to become a disciplined practice and especially on the days that are just basically too dark to even consider your experience can be different. At least on that day. So imagine the tickle. Feel the tickle. And use it to help change your entire grief experience.

Vonne Solis  14:20  
I would really encourage you to get a little notebook. Nothing too cumbersome, but whatever speaks to you as a little journal, a notebook and record at least one joy per day. You can definitely record more. But make sure it's in response to something that gave you that tickle. And guaranteed when you write it down you will remember it all day. And use it and hold on to it so that you can look at it the next day. 24 hours later and remember oh that gave me my tickle yesterday.

Vonne Solis  15:00  
Don't try to force it. You know, if the tickle is just kind of a little bit like a quick feather touch for today, then that's okay. What you're doing is just training your brain and your mind to recognize and appreciate this joy. Which makes room for it, and you to recognize further joys. Even if it's like, I really, really tasted my cup of tea this morning. You'll have to think about what it is for yourself, especially wherever you are in your pain. But as I said, I encourage you to write down one joy per day until you want to write down even more, but one is sufficient just to get you started on this practice. 

Vonne Solis  15:53  
The last thing I want to say about this is joy is different from gratitude. And for a number of years, many, many years ago, now maybe around 2007, I started talking about and writing about in my first book, Divine Healing, gratitude. Feeling gratitude, and actually how gratitude can bring you joy. And I actually still believe that is true. But when I think about gratitude, and I think about joy all these years later, in fact, they are two different things. 

Vonne Solis  16:18  
So gratitude is something that we're very thankful for. And so I'll use the example of, I am extremely grateful, and feel enormous gratitude, that I have a roof over my head. Heat to warm me in the winter. A loving family, right? And some security. Super grateful for all of that. But that in and of itself, is not tickling my heart. So when I have those things that transpire in my day, that, that felt great. Tickle! That is helping me now 18 years later, form a picture of what either remains, or it has become more meaningful to me at this stage in my life, and what I'm experiencing. The current situation I'm experiencing today. And I'm using this as a compass to envision my basically immediate future and longer term future. 

Vonne Solis  17:26  
So I am not suggesting that the joy piece is necessarily going to change your whole entire life overnight. It's not. But for those of us that have lost or did lose the ability to dream and are trying to dream again. Which you need to envision what you want. What you're capable of. The life you want to be living. The situations you want to be creating. The environment you want to be in. The relationships you want to either improve or create. You do benefit from creating all this and having it basically manifest into your life much quicker and with the desired results you're really looking for, when this intention and this knowing and this envisioning and this imagining and all of this dreaming comes from a place of joy. It's very difficult to see anything in pain and suffering. 

Vonne Solis  18:24  
So while it is important to have a gratitude practice as well, understanding the difference between being grateful for all that you have, and that takes courage to practice just in and of itself. Finding that one simple joy every day, you can start experiencing the changes you want in your grief and your life moving forward that you openly want to embrace, and most certainly do deserve.

Vonne Solis  18:55  
That's it for today. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. Until next time.