All Blog Postings by Mary
Widows Making Decisions
Archive notice: This is a historical post from Mary’s years of blogging. Some older posts may mention products, courses or shop items that are no longer available, as Mary now focuses her time and energy on supporting widows inside her private Facebook community. The guidance and stories remain here as a free resource for widows.
For current ways to connect with Mary’s work, you can:
- Read her book on Amazon .
- Request to join her private Facebook group for widows .
Widows making decisions - it doesn't have to be complicated. Life is hard enough when we are grieving. Grief makes it easier for us to postpone making a decision, to not think about all the pros and cons that have to be considered.
Put the task in your calendar and don’t let anything stop you from doing it.
Take three pages and on each page write one of these on the top.
“Do Now” – “Do Later” – “Do Whenever”
List all the decisions you have to make on the page you think it belongs. Now list all the tasks that are involved in that decision. Make notes about why and who this might also affect. Use this as a work plan so that you can make an educated decision. Before you know it your list of things “to do” is done and they were done at your pace.
Every time you make a decision cross it off your list and you will feel like you have accomplished something. It will make you feel good about yourself. Take time to enjoy the moment.
Write out all the problems that you are worrying about and your plans to solve them. Then let it be. Often the fact that you wrote them out is enough to unburden the mind and bring peace to your sleep. Writing it out will give you a chance to look back over this period of your life and see how far you have come.
Grief Specialists are quite stern that under no circumstances was a grieving person to make any major changes in their life for at least a year. I wasn’t to quit my job, move away, squander my savings, sell my house or anything else for at least a year. That sounds so basic but when grieving we so desperately consider doing most of these things in the mistaken belief that it will help ease our pain.
Absentmindedness, forgetfulness and being accident prone are all frequently experienced after a loss. Grieve first, then make major decisions — not the other way around.
As a widow we are left to make our decisions without our husbands input; every day we make hundreds of them. Most are minor, but we will be forced to make some important and even life changing decisions on our own.
After we lose a loved one our judgment is off, so if possible postpone major decisions. Ask friends and family to help you make minor decisions but keep major changes to a minimum. It’s okay to go slow so be easy with yourself.