1. Social Media Communities Are Helpful
2. Choose Your Community Wisely
3. Seek Positive Messengers
4. Silence Is Golden For A REASON
4 Ways to Grieve Through Social Media
1. Social Media Communities Are Helpful
Humans are social by nature and friends are important to our overall well-being in general, especially during times of sadness such as grief, that’s why social and media can go hand in hand. Aristotle once said, “In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge.” With social media like Facebook and Twitter, the ability to discover new like minded friends has expanded far beyond what Aristotle could ever have imagined.
The beauty of social media is that we can find groups of people going through similar misfortunes in life such as grief. These people understand our pain. They can be a source of strength in our darkest hour and we can in turn be a source of strength for someone else in their darkest hour. The structure of social media and grief is that we can join and leave groups as they serve us throughout our journey on grief because one size does not fit all.
You will evolve in your grief and for each season, there will be others in a similar place on their journey. Some of these people may stay with you and you may become best friends even though you’ll never meet them in person. How awesome is that? It’s the beauty of social media communities for people dealing with a broken heart from the death of a close loved one. They just get us and let us be real with our pain. Social media and grief communities are definitely a gift for people who are grieving.
2. Choose Your Community Wisely
One day about five years ago, my son Todd told me it was a good idea to join some social media and grief groups on Facebook. So I joined a few different social media and grief groups including some specifically for grieving mothers. Wow! What an education that was! As I read several posts, I felt myself being drawn into a much lower vibration filled with tremendous sadness, anger and guilt. I remembered that I too had felt this way at numerous times since Todd’s death but it was no longer a place that I cared to hang out. Before I knew it, I had spent hours in these groups and I felt depressed when I finally resurfaced for air and logged out. When I asked Todd why he sent me there he replied,
I never said you should stay. What did you learn?”
I learned that I’d come a long way back from those days of anger where I blamed myself, God and the world for Todd’s death. I learned that anger and sadness are an important part of the journey through grief but it wasn’t a place that I wanted to be anymore. I learned that the pain of grief was the teacher but the self-imposed suffering had little value. I learned that I could show up in those groups as a visitor with a source of inspiration and hope for brighter days ahead but that I no longer wanted to be stuck in that mud and yuck. And most importantly, I learned to choose my social media communities and communications more wisely.
3. Seek Positive Messengers
I have been drawn to work with Angels on my journey through grief because the Angels always offer a high vibration of unconditional love from the Creator. I just FEEL so much better when I sense their presence around me. I also love working with crystals because I know that Mother Earth provides crystals to us as another form of healing our physical bodies through the power of nature. Both the Angels and crystals are positive messengers for me that resonate deep within my soul. Much of the healing they offer is beyond words but I feel it nonetheless. So I now follow or like social media people or pages that incorporate the higher vibrations of Angels and/or crystals.
Healing Light Online
If Angels and crystals are not your thing, that’s ok too. Find your positive messengers on social media and get a good dose of inspiration each day from whatever source resonates with you. It’s self-care for the soul and it will help lift you on your journey through grief, or whatever challenges arise in your life.
4. Silence Is Golden For A REASON
Todd’s death sent me into a deep spiritual crisis where I questioned everything, absolutely everything about life and death. During the 10 years immediately following Todd’s death, there was no social media so I found myself very isolated in my grief. Was that a bad thing? I don’t think so because during that time I also did a lot of reflection and soul searching on my own through prayer. I also read books that resonated with me that gave me hope to cling to on my worst days. In the quiet moments of my grief, I discovered glimmers of hope here and there and everywhere. Each one fed me and led me on until I discovered the next glimmer of hope.
What I’ve learned since then is that everyone goes into this deep state of darkness with grief based on their own unique experiences where they ask: Why me? Why my child? Why? Why? Why? The list of why questions can go on and on but it’s when I stopped asking and started listening that I heard God answer me.
It was within those quiet moments of reflective solitude that the answers my soul was yearning for came forward. And so, while I believe there is tremendous value in finding a community of grieving hearts who can support you on your sacred journey through the mess and chaos of grief, I also believe the value of the silence. It’s the place where no social media exist or other distractions exist. It’s the place where it’s just you and your Creator. It’s the place that I finally heard my Creator ask me if I was ready to hand over my burden. It was the place where I admitted that I was tired and that I couldn’t do it alone anymore. And it was the place that I felt the burden lifted from my heart so that joy and happiness could return. It is the reason that silence is golden for me.
