The first one is “Get some exercise.”
While I was editing that video, I felt like blowing something up. Actually, I just wanted to blow up iMovie. Other times of the year, I have a little more patience.
Karla Helbert, a grief expert, will be co-authoring many of these posts.
This is for anyone who is coping with adversity– loss of a child or other loved one to suicide or overdose, someone else’s substance use disorder, your own mental illness, SUD, or thoughts of suicide.
So onto coping strategies
Some of you don’t want to get out of bed, much less exercise but I’m going to be a drill sergeant and tell you that you have to. You don’t have to run a marathon, just go walk outside or do wheelchair yoga. Pick what you want to but do something. Give yourself at least fifteen minutes, ideally a half an hour or more.
It was while I was running after Charles’ death by suicide that I thought of the title “Emotionally Naked” and got the crazy idea to be emotionally naked in public.
Tears froze on my face and my eyelashes in the winter but I felt better after. Due to having had my brain zapped last year with radiation, I have shortness of breath so I walk instead. No headphones– just me and my thoughts.
Getting outside gets you out of your own head.
