When bad news breaks in
Eventually, we will all receive bad news in our lives. If you haven’t yet, it will come as you grow older. People you love will get sick, some will die. You will have medical challenges, and eventually, your life will come to a close. It is something that we don’t talk about a lot. Facing a crisis or facing death can be a very hard and often lonely journey.
As I slowly watched my wife 36-year-old wife struggle through stage 4 cancer that led to her passing 3.5 years after diagnosis we found four pieces to help us find hope and direction each and every time the bad news came. For us, about every 3 months, they would assess her levels and give us bad news again. Phrases like, “You need to get your life together, you will, your finances, you health care directives.” can be very intense.
Prepare for when they come and consider how you wish to navigate your crises.
Emotional Permission
Sit, in shock.
Cry. It is good to Cry.
Hurt, It is natural to hurt.
These are not abnormal. You are unique in your crisis but your struggle is very real and your response is very normal. We could list so many intense emotions that would describe some of what you may be feeling. I won’t list them because I also don’t want to project what you could be feeling onto you and add them to what you are already feeling. What you are feeling or will experience is real and raw. Often super intense and very hard to navigate on your own. For myself, I wish I would have had a life coach with tangible experience to help me find my way through. That’s not a plug for Courageous U Life Coaching but it is the real reason I started my Life Coaching for Caregivers practice.
You will need to allow yourself time to emote or emotionally respond to the news you have received. Just the realization that things will never be the same can create a sense of grieving even if the prognosis is to return to full health eventually. If the prognosis isn’t great the grieving can be acute.
Why We Run is a song we wrote to share some of the struggles from a Christian faith perspective. It is always a reminder that it is okay to cry. Even in this moment as I relisten to it the tears come down as my heart emotes the sense of loss it will always have.
Allow your emotions the moments they need. Allow each other to respond with feelings.
Reality Substantiation
It is crucially important to allow your emotions to be expressed. However, It can be a dangerous exercise to allow your emotions to henceforth make all your life decisions for you. Decisions on how you will now live or what you will care about should be discerned wholistically. Moving forward with your emotions is really hard and very essential if you are to find joy and hope throughout your crisis.
But moving forward isn’t a step that can tangibly be processed until you have taken stock of the reality you now face. Often listing the bare reality, and substantiating each of the pieces, can give a foundational sense of clarity. Anxieties, lost hopes, and a myriad of informed and un-informed voices offering advice creates a blurry-eyed horizon for moving forward. Often instead of looking outward to the future, it is helpful to look down at your feet. You can hold your head high, courageously, as you fight this battle. But looking at your feet, metaphorically, helps us stop looking at all the what-ifs and start solidifying the foundation you are standing on and listing and being aware of the realities you face.
This is the practice of starting to list the realities. For us, it was a list that looked like this:
We have stage 4 cancer.
It emotionally hurts a lot.
We are worried about our kids.
The treatments are no longer working and there are no options left.
We have no control over whether the cancer will be healed or end in death.
We know God can heal cancer or can use it as a doorway to heaven
We can only choose how we are going to respond to what we have been given.
We can choose to be the victim of the cancer or be the victor over cancer.
We want to be the victor over cancer.
Cancer may end in death, we don’t want it to take our life before that.
We know that heaven with Jesus is our ultimate goal
We know that each of us will face death to get to that ultimate goal.
We chose to remain faithful no matter what.
All the rest God has got. Not us.
It’s a laying down of all the pieces and allows us to understand exactly where each of us is at. It often helped remove the confusion and frustration in the intense moments of trembling. It often ended with declarations of our choices; To be faithful to God, to find joy, to encourage each other, to live the best we can for our kids, to be honest with our kids and ourselves.
Affected Consideration
These choices also helped us to remember who was affected by this journey the most; our kids, ourselves, and other close family and friends. And this allowed us to remember them in our choice to find joy.
When considering the affected people there is one really important part. It is the thoughtfulness in bringing them along with you for mutual care, support, and grieving. This a very impactful process that often gets used to help people move out of depression. Depression often centers the mind around one’s self. This process of considering the affected helps the mind and the heart to start thinking about other people, about their needs, and their dreams. This, alone, is a healthy way to find motivation and direction through crises.
This is like turning your eyes from your feet to the people right next to you. The people holding on to you and walking with you. It keeps your eyes off of the horizon. The horizon is the big picture and includes all the ‘what ifs’ that create intense worries that we have no control over. Choosing to care for those around you and those going through crisis is a very healthy way to avoid the big-picture panic.
Directional Motivation
Once we start looking around at the people we actually gain some of the control around us that we often feel we have lost. The spiralling feeling of everything being out of control can change. You may still feel like you are in a hole; trembling and humiliated. But maybe not falling or spiralling so fast.
For us, we found that it was here, the depths of our journey that we were able to now as ourselves legacy questions. What do you want to give to others through this journey? What do you want your legacy to be? Who do you care about most? Who is going to need you the most?
Crises tend to make the planning of our life from years in advance to days or even moments at a time. At times it may also feel like you can not plan anything at all. This is when we look at our lives. When we looked at what we faced it was a day-by-day process. When we looked at our children’s lives and at times when we looked at what life would be like for myself after my wife’s passing it gave us a few glimmers of hope. Those glimmers made it easier to plan little bits and to give little bits to the people we care about. Those little bits gave joy to those we gave them to and in turn, the joy they received gave us joy.
What are you going to live for? Who are you going to hold on to? Who are you going to give little bits to? Where are you going to find joy?
Being intentional about your direction and motivation through crisis will make a big difference for you as you navigate life.
Closure
Not only do these steps help us navigate through crises, but they also are very strengthening in helping people move forward after crises. Navigating well and finishing well are rich. They can reduce regrets and reduce the effects of the crisis. They can soften grieving, not lessen it, but yes soften it. Allowing grieving to be filled with good memories instead of depressing memories.
Closure to your crisis can also be a very important part of your process. For some journaling or documenting things through the journey and afterwards are important. For others doing something significant to celebrate the end of the crisis or in memory of those lost. However, each person affected by the crisis will manage it differently. Being gracious to yourself and to others is critical.
Whatever you are facing or may face you have a choice how you are going to respond. I trust that you will take what you can from this post and do your best to navigate to the best of your ability. That measure will look different for each of us. I hope for you that you will be able to find joy in your crisis.
