When Tragedy Strikes — Dealing with Bereavement
The Question Is….
How do you respond to crises?
More specifically, how do you react to a personal disaster that affects either yourself or someone who looks like you?
Do you react and go with the first emotion that enters and pushes itself to the forefront?
Or do you stop, self-check, and weigh what your posture and position should be?
Many times and I dare say most times, we are guilty of the former.
The Analogy Is….
Because of the nature of our physical shells (a.k.a. bodies), we often embody (literally) the emotion of the wind.
Fast-moving gusts storm without much stability in direction.
But don’t get me wrong, I don’t shade the wind for its innate personality as it’s simply bending to the obedience of God.
Yet, for the human comparative we become the antithesis of this alignment with divine power when we operate in thoughtless reactive decision making.
It is here where we create destructive patterns of unstable emotive responses that hinder our personal growth and our spiritual wellness.
My Take On It Is…
When an unjust situation occurs, we go into the architects layer of The Matrix.
It is here where we are presented with the choice of taking the red pill or the blue pill.
The crossroads moment demands a decision of whether we will choose option A (the red pill), to follow whatever natural instantaneous human response we generate.
Or if we will take option B (the blue pill), which is to lead our response by our established understandings of the bigger picture.
Now option B has a precursor.
This antecedent is not and has not been something that has been generated overnight. No, quite the contrary, option B has been brewing in development for quite some time.
Option B has been a lifelong endeavor.
An endeavor that has encapsulated a well-thought-out set of ideals, understandings, and revelations pertaining to the purpose of humanity and life beyond death.
This understanding is something that becomes the foundation of one’s response kit when a crisis hits.
The Resolution Is…
Rest.
Many crises’ can be overcome through the posture of rest.
In today’s culture, rest is the enemy of productivity. However, it is my belief that rest is actually the best friend of true productivity. You see when you operate from a position of rest, you are able to think clearly and process all emotions at play — both external and internal.
You’re able to discern and decipher the true heart of the matter.
It is here that you can then begin to do business with those emotions. Whether that be validating, re-assessing, investigating, or discarding. Whatever the outcome of the emotional inventory turns out to be, you‘re then able to process the grief in the most effective manner.
Does this sound to formulaic to you?
Not a believer in this type of approach towards injustices of life?
Well, my response to you is to ask how things have turned out for you when you’ve simply gone off your first reaction…and stayed there through its entirety?
If the answer to this is -hmmm not so great -then my encouragement to you today is to try a new way.
A new path to processing tragedy.
One that doesn’t ignore the authentic emotions of life, but simply responds to them in a new way.
Because one thing is certain — injustice, crisis, tragedy, and offense are all bound to occur at some point in our lives. So we must set ourselves up for success (mentally, emotionally & spiritually), as much as we can, so that we can overcome them when they occur.
Let us not be moved by the panic porn of mainstream media or by the reckless opinions of our closest counterparts.
Let us instead be moved by the prudent conclusions of our eternal existence.
