All Is Well When You S.E.R.V.E.
Mindset Coach Latresa Rice
Life hits us all with unwelcomed and unexpected surprises, such as the loss of a loved one. Many times when this happens, our service to ourselves and others is compromised. However, service is essential to healing and writing is your tool to transcend the pain from the loss.
Lack Of Service To Yourself
Before you can use techniques to transcend the pain from the loss through writing, you must first recognize the need to do so. Too often we are told to stop crying, dust yourself off and act like the loss did not hurt you, but that “mask” could be the very thing that keeps the wound from the loss open. An open wound is
immensely sensitive to all things that it encounters.
In order to close up the “open wound,” we have to identify what lack of service to ourselves looks like, then take the steps to correct our behavior, so that we can stop neglecting ourselves in the healing process. Lack of service to yourself looks like failure to allow yourself to grieve the loss of your loved one, giving everyone a “yes” while simultaneously giving yourself a “no,” and failure to take care of yourself physically, spiritually, emotionally and socially following loss.
Lack Of Service To Others
Now that you have identified what lack of service to yourself looks like, let’s identify what lack of service to others looks like as we travel on our healing journey to wholeness. Lack of service to others looks like extreme irritability, removal of yourself from service and/or business related activities, inability to listen to other people’s concerns and refusal to provide any amount of assistance to them. When we fail to serve ourselves and others, it keeps us stuck at the beginning of our road to wholeness. You are probably saying to yourself, “I want to help them, but I am just too hurt right now. I just can’t listen to anybody else’s problems while I am dealing with my own.” It’s ok to feel this way in the beginning; however, healing will require you to take your “Closed” for business sign down and S.E.R.V.E. your way to healing. In the next few paragraphs, I will describe what it means to S.E.R.V.E. and how it will help you heal through writing.
Healing will require you to S.E.R.V.E. using both spiritual and natural techniques. You are spirit wrapped in flesh and all aspects of you must be engaged in the healing process in order for you to experience it. Let’s S.E.R.V.E. our way to healing.
S tart where you are
E mbrace the royal you by offering yourself some grace R emember the Good and the Bad when writing
V isualize a healed future
E ntreat others to join you on this healing journey to wholeness
Start Where You Are
One major tool in your arsenal that will help you heal is by writing your authentic feelings. How do you feel right now about yourself? How do you feel about your loved one that past? Are you angry with them? Why? It is essential that you write it down. Kings and Queens write decrees and messages often. After loss, sometimes it is hard to see yourself as a child of God or believe that your heart will be mended again. It was hard for me to see those things in 2020, after my grandmother died and then a month later, my husband died from Covid-19. I was devastated! I was angry with God, angry with my husband, angry with myself, angry with some of his family members and some of my family members. In order to move further along the healing journey to wholeness, I had to start right where I was: angry. I had a Job moment in which I told God exactly how I felt about the loss of my husband and my grandmother. As ugly as this moment may have been, it was the starting point of my healing. Start from where you are, even if you are hurt, angry, indifferent etc. You don’t have to pretend like the loss did not affect you at all. Some of my Facebook posts in the very beginning following the loss of my husband were filled with pain. We had only been married five months. The pain of the loss was immense. Starting from where you are will cause you to be authentic. Keep in mind, that everyone can’t handle your brokenness; thus, if you start from where you are using public platforms, you run the risk of people disconnecting from you. It’s not that they do not love you, they just can’t handle where you are at the moment. However, do whatever you need to do to heal.
Embrace The Royal You By Offering Yourself Some Grace
An aspect of doing whatever you need to do to heal involves offering yourself some grace. You may be saying to yourself, “Why do I need to do this?” The answer is that sometimes when we lose loved ones, we blame ourselves. Some of the tormenting questions that came to my mind following the loss of my husband were “What if I would have ignored my husband’s request and called the EMS sooner? What if I had been more aggressive in my request for him to refrain from going to the barbershop? What if…” I had to make the decision to offer myself some grace by saying to myself “Enough! Listen, you did the best that you knew how to do at the time. Stop torturing yourself with things that you can’t answer or control.” Because you are child of the King, you are royalty. As royalty, you can make decrees and offer grace to others. Sometimes, the person that you need to offer grace to is yourself.
Remember The Good And The Bad When Writing
Once you offer yourself some grace, the next thing that you must do to heal while writing is remember the good and the bad. During this phase, I encourage you to get a piece of paper and write all the good memories on the front and all the bad memories of your time with that loved one on the back. The reason why this is necessary is because sometimes we only focus on the roses despite the thorns. If you are going to heal, you must look at the total picture: thorns included. Was the deceased person content with their life before they died? Was the deceased person healthy prior to death? How was your relationship with the deceased? These are just some of the questions you should ask yourself as you write the good and the bad with regards to the loved one that transitioned from this life.
Visualize A Healed Future
Now that you have written your document identifying the good and the bad with regards to the loved one that you have loss, next you must visualize a healed future. One tool that could help you visualize a healed future is by creating a new vision board. What is the new vision that you would like to see occur in your life? Go get a board and design it with your new vision. Post the board in an area that you frequent and read it to yourself out loud. “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God” (2 Corinthians 5:17). You have to see and hear this vision often in order to reprogram your mind to visualize a healed future.
Entreat Others To Join You On This Healing Journey To Wholeness After you have visualized a healed future and spoken it on a consistent basis, you must remember that you are a member of a body. Therefore, if you are going to heal, you must humble yourself enough to entreat others to join you on your healing journey to wholeness. When I was dealing with the intensity of the depression that I experienced in 2020 following the death of two of my loved ones, I had a plethora of people close to me that helped me to heal by listening, writing, doing mindset renewing devotionals and so much more with me. I also acquired a therapist. Although I am a licensed clinician, it would be foolish of me to attempt to counsel myself. An open heart surgeon that needs open heart surgery would be very foolish to perform it on himself. “Pride comes before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18). I am so grateful that after creating a new vision board, I killed pride in my life by allowing these anointed people to join me on my healing journey to wholeness. I encourage you to do the same. Of course you will need to operate in discernment, but in order to kill pride and heal, you must be willing to be vulnerable with others.
After reading this blog, the main thing that I want you to understand is that All is Well when you commit to S.E.R.V.E. You do not have to continue to be depressed. I would love to assist you. I am Latresa Rice, your Mindset Coach. I help bereaved Christians regain hope by rediscovering their identity and healing through writing. The question is: Are you ready to heal through writing and publish your story? If your answer is “yes,” let’s talk soon.
Mindset Coach Latresa Rice
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