If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.
-Wayne Dyer
Grief is hardly an experience in which you immediately see opportunity. Grief is awful and painful and raw and exhausting. In grief, we see everything we no longer have, we see obstacles, we see fear. What if, hiding behind that fear and those obstacles, lies hope, goodness, and beauty?
Beneath its off-putting exterior, grief offers us good things. A fresh start, a new perspective on the person we lost and our lives together, new friendships that are stronger than before, a stronger self, a more vulnerable self, and more.
Rather than looking down the path of grief and seeing a dead end or a treacherous, overgrown path of hidden miseries, try to change the way you perceive the path. Yes, it is ugly and lonely and sometimes worse; but what if you shift your perspective? What if the ominous, overgrown path is a lovely dirt road that just needs weeding to tidy it up? What if being alone is not loneliness but a chance to discover who you really are and the time by yourself brings you closer to the person you lost? What if the friendships that dissolved have freed you to make room for more supportive people who truly want the best for you?
It is easy to say “change your perspective,” but it is a necessary step in grief. Start small. Change the way you look at one thing this week, just one. Next week change a second thing. Watch how, little by little, the environment around you begins to transform.
A.N.Carroll 