Life brings opportunities, happiness, and skyrocketing success when we decide to live it fully and without fear. Along with that, we will face challenging times that will cause us to grieve.

Globally, we are all facing a form of grief right now. Be it the loss of a loved one to Covid-19, or the loss of our free way of life — grief is all around us. Before this pandemic that we are experiencing collectively, you may have suffered the loss of loved ones for other reasons, or you may have gone through a divorce, a breakup, the loss of a friendship, or the loss of a pet.

There are many forms of loss. You can experience loss of money, your job, reputation, your faith, health, and even loss of hope.

“Loss is a normal part of life and grief is part of the healing process if we learn to face it with grace.”

To get through grief with grace it’s ideal to face it with the help of others, but for the most part you have to get through it alone. We are privileged to have family, friends, spiritual direction, therapists, life coaches and other support groups around us, but healing grief is essentially between you and yourself.

“In time of grief you need to embrace yourself, love yourself and cure yourself.”

It is easier said than done, but there is truly no other way around grief than to face it fully on your own, courageously, vulnerability and with grace.

Importance of Grace

We all, at some point in our lives, have felt as if we reached our breaking point, but eventually we wake up to the desire to not be broken for rest of our lives. For instance, while going through hard times we are not always acting our best selves. Harsh words are often exchanged with others out of the need to “dump the pain” on someone else to feel some sense of relief. After doing that, we often feel guilty about it and apologize.

It is not bad to apologize, but losing your temper and saying things you normally would not say can not only tarnish your image, but can scar someone badly enough that you lose their trust for a long time, and sometimes forever.

“When you manage your emotions while grieving, you hold on to grace, and grace is the energy of mercy for yourself and others.”

Our personality gets groomed with every pain we overcome. If we walk through life’s journey with a mindset that everything happens for a reason, and everything happens to teach us something new, then every challenging time becomes an opportunity to add strong positive and graceful traits to our personality.

The people who learn to manage their emotions during the toughest times without falling apart, add an unprecedented trait of composure, grace and an emotionally intelligent personality.

How to Get Through Grief with Grace

First, you need to fully acknowledge that grief is normal. It is not a disease. It is not a sign of weakness, or lack of emotional intelligence.

Our human body and mind is built to respond to situations. When we lose something, or someone precious, grief comes knocking. Trying to avoid that grief is not the right way to get over it. The best way to deal with grief is to embrace it and get through it.

One of my spiritual teachers used to say: “The only way to get to the other side of hell, is one more step deeper into it, that is where the exit door is waiting for you.”

“In order to grieve with grace, we need the courage to face loss as normal as anything else we experience in life.”

I know people who have avoided facing the loss of their loved ones for years, but ultimately, they had to go through it and face it. Grief will come for you no matter what, so why postpone it?

The foremost thing to handle any tough situation is to develop gratitude for all those blessed situations in your life that make it beautiful. No doubt, feeling gratitude while grieving is almost impossible, but if you develop a habit of being grateful on a daily basis, it becomes possible to feel it even during tough times.

If you are going through grief, find a peaceful place away from all those people reminding you of the loss, and try to connect to any happy moment you can recall. Feel that moment in your heart. Hold on to that feeling as long as possible and write it down later. 

Whenever you feel broken, be mindful of such moments. You will soon be able to tap to a comparatively happy person inside you, anytime you need to.

“The way to develop your grace muscle is to live daily with gratitude and make a mental library of the happy moments in your life that you can borrow against, during difficult times.”

We have been living in a time in history void of pain. We are constantly seeking happiness and running from pain and suffering. Now we are being forced to face pain, suffering, uncertainty, and loss.

There are blessings inherent within loss and suffering. The blessings are always revealed on the other side of grief, and it is always hard to believe that the blessing is happening amidst grief and pain. However, if you look back in your life at the moments that defined you, the moments when you experienced the most Light, the most blessings — it was soon after your darkest hours.

“When we move through the process of grief believing in our ability to grow from the experience, we become more aware of the blessings in disguise that will come out of it.”

A sense of serenity can be achieved through releasing the pressure of the expectations of a set pattern for your life. There comes a moment when it is better to embrace what you can’t change, and develop the courage to strive for what you can.

“Acknowledging your capacities and the difference between what you can and what you can’t control, will make it easier to go through grief.”

What I am talking about is the power of surrendering to what is, instead of holding on to what could have been. For most people, grace is among the most precious trait of their personality and behavior.

If you have lost something or someone precious that is an irreparable loss, it is important to take care of yourself during those testing times. Remember that all chaos comes with an expiration date, and to surrender to the change you need to make to keep moving forward.

Remember the blessings in your life, be grateful for what is, has been, and will be, and be patient with yourself.

NOTE: For all those who have lost loved ones during the Covid-19 pandemic and have not been able to properly say goodbye, I wish that their memory be a blessing in your life. 

Many people recently find themselves having difficulty being motivated to keep moving forward with excitement and a positive outlook. We live in a time filled with stress and anxiety due to the uncertainty of the recent Covid-19 calamity that has besieged the entire world.

These are unprecedented difficult times filled with financial struggles, health challenges, personal isolation, social disconnection, and fear. We are mostly in survival mode. The struggles personally and professionally have made our lives challenging, making it easy to fall into the trap of developing a negative mindset.

“Only a positive mindset can lead us to a satisfactory life despite the challenges ahead.”

The truth is, there are many valid reasons to feel negative about the outlook of the near future, however a negative mindset can do nothing but cause more despair.

Importance of a Positive Mindset

A positive mindset is an attitude someone has who “expects” good and desired results. The power of positivity is immense, and it can help you convert that energy into reality. By expectation, I don’t mean it to be a sense of entitlement.

“A positive mindset is rooted in a sense of gratitude, and that helps us tap into the reality of abundance.”

In the world of abundance, you can only expect good outcomes, because in that reality there is always more than enough.

That being said, I want to acknowledge that when something bad hits you, you get bombarded with negative thoughts. These negative thoughts cast even more negativity in an already devastating situation. We have all been hit with a bad deal right now, and the feelings of fear, desperation, grief, sadness are all very real, but it comes down to how long we stay in those feelings and stress about things we can’t control.

Having a positive mindset can help you avoid stress. Even out of the most challenging and devastating situations we can find a silver lining.

“Every challenge is an opportunity to learn and grow if we choose to accept reality as is and make the best of it.”

With a positive mindset you can avoid many physical and mental diseases as well. If you don’t give weight to negative thoughts, you won’t cause your body discomfort from stress, anxiety, worry, and frustration.

A stress-free mind leads to a stronger immune system, and there is nothing more important during a pandemic like Covid-19.

Half of life’s battles can be won if you practice being confident in your abilities. A positive mindset cultivates confidence in your personality, allowing you to perform at your best because of a boosted self-esteem. You can make the right decisions at the right time with confidence.

A positive mindset doesn’t just benefit your professional life, it is also essential for a successful and lovable personal life. Since positivity is rooted in gratitude, you feel thankful for many blessings in your life, especially the people who add happiness to your life. By expressing gratitude and appreciation, the bonds become stronger, giving you access to a satisfying personal life.

How to Build a Positive Mindset

Having a positive mindset when everything is going well is easy to practice. It becomes almost impossible to think positively in difficult times.

“If you want to have a positive mindset in difficult times, the key is to start behaving positively right now.”

Entering into a day with something positive is crucial. Start your day with expressions of gratitude. Everyday kick off your day by being thankful for something you already have. It could be as simple as waking up and making a mindful statement that you are grateful to be awake. It could follow with being grateful for your family, your home, your health, your life.

Starting your day with all the Covid-19 bad news or having a call with a negative person in the morning can spoil your entire day. Try to listen to or interact with something positive when you wake up. Go for a walk and have interaction with the most positive entity of the universe: the beauty of nature.

“Starting the day on a positive note often proves enough to have the entire day filled with positivity.”

Another step towards crafting a “positive you” is to start any project or task with the goal of learning from it. Keep in mind, whether you complete your goal, and accomplish it or not, the journey will definitely add knowledge and experience in your life. If you start a task or goal with the intention to learn from it, you will never be disappointed. That is how you develop wisdom.

Another recommended way to attain a positive mindset is to identify the negativities in your life and remove them like a bad cancer. The more you ruminate negative thoughts the more you feed them.

When you find yourself being overtaken by negative thoughts, stop doing what you are doing and write them down. This way you will slow down the momentum of that negative thought in the first place.

Secondly, read what you have written down and evaluate if it is indeed factual. More than half of your negative thoughts will be dismissed if you simply follow this step, because you’ll discover that more than half of them are fictitious, having no connection to facts or reality.

Most of the time, negativity comes from bad experiences in the past or the haunting fears of the future. If you learn to live in the present moment, negativity will fade out of your mind.

“When you live in the present you are more focused, and less likely to be distracted by what ifs, and this can further induce a positive mindset.”

You can also keep a journal of the blessings in your life. You’ll discover soon enough that they are countless. All you need to do is to take account of them and feel immediate gratitude. Having an ongoing list of blessings and seeing them grow every day will build your positivity muscle.

“Cultivating an attitude of gratitude helps to maintain desired positivity in life.”

Memories of unfavorable experiences, defensive nature towards calamities, negative people you may be holding on to, can be a cause of constant negativity in your life. You have to intentionally create positive energy around you.

Everything we experience in life is a result of our intentions, aware of them consciously or not. If you want to experience positivity during difficult times, you have to intentionally do the work to practice gratitude and invite positive people into your life.

There is no magic pill, elixir, or short cut towards having a positively charged life, except for one, and that is to practice unlimited gratitude.

Self-discipline and happiness seem to be two contradicting concepts, and using them in the same sentence seems totally unacceptable. Self-discipline brings to mind the idea of “work and effort”, while happiness is usually associated with “pleasure” and the absence of work.

For most, self-discipline can never be the source of what makes them happy because the relationship with what it means to be happy is misplaced. 

Happiness is not the absence of work, it is the absence of guilt, shame, regret, anger, resentment, frustration, sadness, self-doubt, fear, boredom, stress, anxiety, loneliness, and all negative emotions.

Absence of work may give you momentary gratification, but the absence of self-discipline and wasting time with momentary gratifications ultimately results in un-ending negative feelings.

Importance of Self-Discipline

It is an established fact that without discipline, success becomes merely an untranslatable dream. Self-discipline allows you to develop problem solving skills, and helps you make the right choices. It also helps you cultivate strong relationships, and gives you the ability to manage debts, make use of opportunities, and develop a positive attitude towards your health.

This ability to make the right choices at the right time leads to a successful personal and professional life. No one can negate the fact that being blessed in your personal life and having success in your professional life guarantees a certain level of happiness.

Another aspect of being disciplined and happy at the same time is that self-control can help you avoid indulging in problematic situations, distractions, and poor habits. This can help you avoid making rash decisions that can cause regret, discontentment, stress, and resentments.

“When you proactively avoid tension by being disciplined, you are definitely earning happiness.”

As a disciplined person you are more likely to achieve what you want from life. Victory in life brings confidence and ultimately enables you to embrace the fact that you can achieve anything you want. Furthermore you become proud by the fact that you have achieved success through your own efforts.

“Being in control of the way you lead your life makes you more content, satisfied, and confident, and this creates happiness.”

A high disposition towards self-discipline enables people to experience fewer problematic desires, and set goals in favor of more virtuous outcomes, which in turn result in a happier life.

How to Become Self-Disciplined

The most tested and proven way to become self-disciplined is to remove distractions and temptations from your environment. If you want to eat healthy, unsubscribe from those fast-food promotional texts you get at lunch from the visiting food truck. 

If you want to focus on your project, turn off your cell phone or at least turn off the notifications when it’s time to get things done. Keeping your work desk clean and your files organized will also go a long away to help you become more focused. The fewer distractions you face the easier it becomes to stay focused on your goals and tasks.

The other step towards becoming more self-disciplined, is to have set goals and a clear plan to achieve them. By having an action plan that guides you daily towards your goals, you will never get sidetracked. A clear plan that outlines each step towards your goals, will help you stay focused. You can also keep a journal to keep tabs on your plans and use it as a way to check in with yourself on an ongoing basis.

“Your will-power is determined by your beliefs. If you believe that you have limited willpower, you are more likely to become exhausted.”

Will-power plays an important role in developing self-discipline. Will-power is elastic and can be stretched to infinity. You can train yourself to control your actions, rather than being on autopilot.

Improving your self-discipline means changing your not so great habits, which at first can be uncomfortable and feel awkward. 

“When a good behavior becomes a habit, your decision-making power embraces it.”

Changing habits takes time. Neuroscience says that it usually requires 90 days of repetitive brain-hacking of your beliefs. This is why mantras work so well as a way to reprogram your mind to become more disciplined.

Constantly self-regulating according to social expectations can result in living a dull, mundane, and joyless life. 

The fact is, self-disciplined people start feeling joy in doing things because they create a controlled environment. They are less driven by the need for immediate gratification, or pleasure. They have trained their minds to associate pleasure with the journey life offers.

“By balancing desires and goals with discipline, you have more good moods and higher levels of satisfaction, and this leads to sustainable happiness.”

Contrary to what most believe, disciplined people are not self-denying or unhappy, rather they are happier than many because they have mastered restricting impulses, and temporary pleasures. They have picked virtue over vice.

Self-discipline is about choosing virtues that deliver sustainable joy in your life, and embracing the journey as the adventure instead of the distractions.

Most people define success by some tangible effort and its consequential output based on favorable result. We think that our efforts concerning our outside environment leads us to success. It can be true for a few, but for most people success can only be achieved through an inward journey.

This inward journey includes some solid efforts towards self-awareness, with the courage to act while practicing patience with yourself. Diagnosing your greater purpose and discovering your strengths and weaknesses. Finally, giving yourself the respect and love you are worthy of.

Why an Inward Journey

The longest relationship you will ever have is with yourself. You should be the most important person in your life, even if your goals in life are focused on helping others.

“You can’t achieve any of your goals without being on good terms with yourself first.“

Being in a state of awareness and appreciation for yourself, supports your physical, psychological, and spiritual growth.

Your inward journey becomes most crucial when you get lost in unnecessary routines and habits that don’t serve your greater good. That’s when you find yourself pointlessly doing random things that keep you busy and stressed at the same time. That’s when you need to spend some hours with yourself to get to know what the bigger picture is you are striving towards.

Some good questions to ask yourself include:

Is every action pointed in the right direction? Is everything I am doing necessary? Am I proactively making choices, or reacting to situations? This simple session with yourself can help you channel your strengths towards those things that actually matter in your life.

The better you know yourself, the better your performance will be, as it happens in the case of any machinery. If you are familiar with all its features, you can get the best out of it. So, it is important to be self-aware and to channel your own “features” towards your own success. If the outcomes end up different than what you had planned, don’t take it as a failure.

“Every struggle is an opportunity to learn and this learning makes you grow, and growth gives purpose to your life.”

How to Get Started

To get you started on your inward journey, begin journaling and writing everything that comes to your mind. Writing your thoughts and then reading them helps you become more aware of what your mind and your heart is up to. 

If you find a repeating pattern of unfavorable thoughts as you journal over time — you will begin to see what you need to eliminate. You may come to know a different aspect of your personality through this practice, that can make help you leapfrog forward in your life.

Taking advice or listening to opinions of others is good, but not all advise is universal. Everyone is unique in their ability to see reality based on their own journey. If something was impossible for someone, it is not necessarily going to be impossible for you.

“Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.” ~ Maulana Rumi

To be more connected to yourself, the first step is to remove distractions. Eliminate all the unnecessary habits, and negative people with discouraging vibes.

We are constantly absorbing negative things, from the morning newspapers to the discouraging opinions of the people around us. Even those who love us can be a source of negative vibes, at times. Still, we hope to act positively and progressively.

It is important to be kind to yourself by eliminating all the negativity from your surroundings. The start of your day should be with on a positive note of either feeling gratitude, listening to a motivational speech, or looking at your progress so far towards your goals.

“Start each day with a sense of appreciation for your own journey, and always take in positive energies in order to have a solid and powerful foundation for the rest of the day.”

It is impossible to move forward in life if you are being weighed down by negativity, anger and resentment. To start a journey towards success, make a new start with yourself by forgiving yourself. By doing that, you permit yourself to let go and move on.

If you go through all these steps, you will soon find yourself holding and controlling the reins of your life and living it the way you always wanted to.

In the season two finale episode of my podcast Rant & Grow I spoke with Kacie Main. Kacie is a writer, podcaster, and author of the book “I Gave Up Men For Lent: The story of a jaded, hopelessly romantic, health-conscious party girl’s search for meaning”. She hosts the Better You podcast and talks with people who share stories of personal transformation. 

We spent time on this episode of Rant & Grow talking about breaking away from co-dependency, and the challenges we face to develop healthy habits. If you find yourself repeating certain unfavorable patterns in your life, you won’t want to miss this podcast and learn how to navigate through changes in a healthy and constructive way.

Just click on the play button below to listen to the podcast right here.