Last year, I wrote a post about removing the negative. I still find that to be the most effective thing for relieving stress, overcoming obstacles, and enjoying life. Lately, however, I’ve realized that adding the positive is also extremely important.
I started doing this a while after my dog Sawyer died. The first few weeks I mostly spent alone at home working through the worst pain I’ve ever felt. While I did go out occasionally and do some things with a few people close to me, I kept those jaunts to a minimum. I hated being away from home for more than a few minutes, I barely enjoyed anything I did, and I broke down a lot throughout each day. As I’ve continued reducing the pain through daily inner work, I’ve been able to go out more often, stay out longer, be around more people, and better enjoy whatever I do.
The past few months, I’ve gotten through several firsts without Sawyer in my life: going to my favorite restaurants I enjoyed during his life, seeing people I met after I got him, going places I regularly visited before his death, etc. Each first visit has been painful since I no longer have Sawyer to tell me goodbye before I go or greet me when I return home. Despite still being painful, the second time I’ve done each of those since his death has so far been overall easier than the first time. I hope that continues.
Most positive experiences come with a certain amount of distraction. When the experiences end and the distractions decrease, the pain becomes apparent once again. I often notice it in quiet moments during a fun event or when I experience something that reminds me of Sawyer. I still have to work through the pain even on my most distracting days. As I continue doing that, I remember more activities I enjoy doing, including things I enjoyed doing during Sawyer’s life. Having less pain makes it easier to enjoy those activities again and find them almost as satisfying as I once did. Doing enjoyable things also makes it easier to work through the pain; lots of positivity allows me to get down to the deep-seated negative emotions in ways I can’t when I’m barely getting through the day. As long as I have enough time to myself on the days I do a lot of fun things, I can work through a lot of pain and feel much better than I do on the days in which I seem to just be killing time until bed.
Adding the positive is a wonderful complement to removing the negative. In fact, I see them as two sides of the same coin; neither can truly be done without the other. Pursuing positive experiences and welcoming positive emotions lets me see that life goes on, even if it is different or less enjoyable for me than it once was. Avoiding negative scenarios and eliminating negative emotions allows me to enjoy the nice parts of life and better handle the rough parts. Sawyer was such a huge part of my life that it’s been a struggle to find new life for myself. That gets a little easier the more I work through the pain, the more I pursue past enjoyments, and the more I find new things worth doing. I look forward to adding even more positivity to my life and seeing what that does for me.