MHM Magazine

should have been there. God would have used me to call for help and saved his life. What have I done to experience the excruciating pain as a young adult? I don’t need all the things we had - I need my “normal life.” How can I get that back? The more I tried to live in the illusion that I was moving forward with life, the more I repressed the trauma. Cognitively, I suffered from forgetfulness, dissociation, anxiety and indiagnosed depression. Sadly, the emotional outbursts became the norm, and my daughter was left to raise herself. I had to find a way back home, to myself. Later in life, I studied Social Science, including Psychology and Counselling, at SACAP. I needed to comprehend what had happened to me, but now I narrate it as what happened “for me”. During my last year of my psychology degree at SACAP, my worldview was challenged, and I had to revisit the inner turmoil of unhealthy attachments formed in childhood, which shaped my expectations of interpersonal relationships. In contrast, grief requires a gentle approach to navigate its different stages. At the same time, I was not convinced those stages were all it took to heal, or that they were the tools that helped you live with the new normal. I took a leap of faith and registered for an international programme called Conscious Parenting. Now, I’m an internationally registered Conscious Parenting and Conscious Coach. The beginning of awakening from the suffering of loss and grief. I’ve learned that loss is inevitable; however, suffering from the process of grieving is a choice. The question became: what was I grieving, and why? Through reflective journaling, I realised that my pain was more about me not having the same attention I used to, the co- dependency on others and needing someone to ease the lifestyle demands. Including unconscious needs from my childhood trauma which played a considerable role in delaying my healing. The cultural norms of segregating the widowers in communities and the labelling that has no expiry date exacerbated the suffering rather than influencing recovery. Acceptance began when I acknowledged that I co-created the suffering and perpetuated the pain because of the narrow view I had about myself, the world and how others should treat me when I was mourning. I had to divorce the inner narrator that said I was nothing without the other because I learned that stems from seeing myself as an incomplete being. I had to ask: would someone want to be with me if I spoke to them the way I spoke to myself? How can I not see my life as necessary yet see others as significant? Why the need to be perfect when I now understand that it is an illusion that creates self- bullying masked as capable and resilient? Throughout my unique journey of healing, I’ve learned that resilience is the individual's ability to stand and flow in the midst of pain and joy without clinging to any as a form of identification. I’ve learned to forgive myself and others, recognising that everything in this world is impermanent. For me, acceptance is the ability to let others find their own journey to the new normal with patience, grace, compassion, and an understanding of the burden of not letting things pass as they should, like day and night. In my world, acceptance is not only about loss and the grief process, but also about the individual’s capacity to redirect their internal compass toward accepting themselves, again and again. References available on request. MHM | 2025 | Volume 12 | Issue 5 | Living With MHM 34 | MENTAL HEALTH MATTERS | 2025 | Issue 5 H