Circle of Life

Daily dose of my thoughts and favourite things

[ghitmung]

I’d Rather

I’d rather have bad times with you, than good times with someone else I’d rather be beside you in a storm, than safe and warm by myself I’d rather have hard times together, than to have it easy apart I’d rather have the one who holds my heart

Part of the lyrics from Luther Vandross’ song ‘I’d Rather’

[ghitmung]

Five Stages of Grieving (5)

Acceptance

Acceptance is often confused with the notion of being “all right” or “OK” with what has happened. This is not the case. Most people don’t ever feel OK or all right about the loss of a loved one. This stage is about accepting the reality that our loved one is physically gone and recognizing that this new reality is the permanent reality. We will never like this reality or make it OK, but eventually we accept it. We learn to live with it. It is the new norm with which we must learn to live.

We must try to live now in a world where our loved one is missing. In resisting this new norm, at first many people want to maintain life as it was before a loved one died. In time, through bits and pieces of acceptance, however, we see that we cannot maintain the past intact. It has been forever changed and we must readjust. We must learn to reorganize roles, re-assign them to others or take them on ourselves.

Finding acceptance may be just having more good days than bad ones. As we begin to live again and enjoy our life, we often feel that in doing so, we are betraying our loved one. We can never replace what has been lost, but we can make new connections, new meaningful relationships, new inter-dependencies. Instead of denying our feelings, we listen to our needs; we move, we change, we grow, we evolve. We may start to reach out to others and become involved in their lives. We invest in our friendships and in our relationship with ourselves. We begin to live again, but we cannot do so until we have given grief its time.

[ghitmung]

Soulmates

We are not soulmates because our hands fit perfectly, or because our kisses are like fireworks.

We are not soulmates because we hold each other perfectly, or understand each other without saying a word.

But we’re soulmates for sure, because even we argue or fight, we will never give up on each other.

Soulmates don’t have to be perfect, they just have to hold on and never let go.

[ghitmung]

It's true, though. In the matter of love, sometimes you just have to let things happen without having to define what they are.

Ika Natassa

[ghitmung]

Some wish remains a wish for as long as we live. Bukan karena kita kurang berusaha, namun karena memang sudah begitulah takdirnya.

Critical Eleven

[ghitmung]

We've all hit that point of exhaustion. The point where nothing makes sense anymore. Your body hurts, your brain becomes foggy, and you feel like you're trapped in a tunnel, when all you want is your bed. So, how do you keep going? How do you not just sit down and give up? Sometimes, it's easy. Sometimes you play games in your head. You make up someone. Someone good. Whatever you need to keep you going.

Meredith Grey

[entertainmentweekly]

Exclusive: See 9 enchanting photos from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast

[ghitmung]

Pain. You just have to ride it out, hope it goes away on its own, hope the wound that caused it heals. There are no solutions, no easy answers, you just breath deep and wait for it to subside. Most of the time pain can be managed, but sometimes the pain gets you where you least expect it. Hits way below the belt and doesn't let up. Pain, you just have to fight through, because the truth is you can't outrun it and life always makes more.

Meredith Grey

[ghitmung]

Five Stages of Grieving (4)

Depression

After bargaining, our attention moves squarely into the present. Empty feelings present themselves, and grief enters our lives on a deeper level, deeper than we ever imagined. This depressive stage feels as though it will last forever. 

It’s important to understand that this depression is not a sign of mental illness. It is the appropriate response to a great loss. We withdraw from life, left in a fog of intense sadness, wondering, perhaps, if there is any point in going on alone? Why go on at all? Depression after a loss is too often seen as unnatural: a state to be fixed, something to snap out of. The first question to ask yourself is whether or not the situation you’re in is actually depressing. 

The loss of a loved one is a very depressing situation, and depression is a normal and appropriate response. To not experience depression after a loved one dies would be unusual. When a loss fully settles in your soul, the realization that your loved one didn’t get better this time and is not coming back is understandably depressing. If grief is a process of healing, then depression is one of the many necessary steps along the way.

[ghitmung]

The Black Sheep

Introducing, the black sheep in the family.

Me.

[ghitmung]

Five Stages of Grieving (3)

Bargaining

Before a loss, it seems like you will do anything if only your loved one would be spared. “Please God,” you bargain, “I will never be angry at my wife again if you’ll just let her live.” 

After a loss, bargaining may take the form of a temporary truce. “What if I devote the rest of my life to helping others. Then can I wake up and realize this has all been a bad dream?” We become lost in a maze of “If only…” or “What if…” statements. We want life returned to what is was; we want our loved one restored. We want to go back in time: find the tumor sooner, recognize the illness more quickly, stop the accident from happening… if only, if only, if only. 

Guilt is often bargaining’s companion. The “if onlys” cause us to find fault in ourselves and what we “think” we could have done differently. We may even bargain with the pain. We will do anything not to feel the pain of this loss. We remain in the past, trying to negotiate our way out of the hurt. 

People often think of the stages as lasting weeks or months. They forget that the stages are responses to feelings that can last for minutes or hours as we flip in and out of one and then another. We do not enter and leave each individual stage in a linear fashion. We may feel one, then another and back again to the first one.

[pidi-baiq]

[islamicthinking]

The Prophet (ﷺ) said, “None plots against the people of Medina but that he will be dissolved (i.e. destroyed) like salt is dissolved in water.” [al-Bukhari] The Prophet (ﷺ) said, “Whoever terrifies the people of Madina through oppression, God will terrify him. The curse of God, His angels, and all humans will be upon him. God will not accept his compulsory or optional good deeds on the Day of Judgment.” [al-Nasa'i, Sunan; Ahmad, Musnad] May Allāh (ﷻ) preserve Madina and its people from those who seek to harm it regardless of who they may be.

#PrayForMadinah (via islamicthinking)

[ghitmung]

Saat kita memutuskan memaafkan seseorang, itu bukan persoalan apakah orang itu salah dan kita benar. Apakah orang itu memang jahat atau aniaya. Bukan itu. Kita memutuskan memaafkan seseorang karena kita berhak atas kedamaian di dalam hati.

- Dari Novel 'Rindu' Karya Tere Liye

[khadijahbintahmed]

Umar’s Instructions on the First Night of Ramadan

It is reported that on the first night of Ramadân, ‘Umar – Allâh be pleased with him – would pray Maghrib, then say (to the people):

Sit down. Then he would give a small address: Verily the fasting of this month has been made a duty upon you, and standing in night prayer has not been made a duty upon you, but those amongst you who can stand in prayer should do so, for it is from the extra good deeds about which Allâh told us: so whoever cannot stand in prayer, let him sleep on his bed.

And beware of saying: I will fast if so and so fasts and I will stand in night prayer if so and so stands in prayer. Whoever fasts or stands in night prayer, he must make this for Allâh. And you should know that you are in prayer as long as you are waiting for a prayer.

Minimize any vain or false speech in the houses of Allâh (mosques; he said this two or three times). Let none of you fast a few days before the month (in order to avoid missing the beginning of the month; he said this three times). And do not fast until you see [the crescent of the new month] unless it is overcast. If it is overcast, count [the previous month] as 30 days. Then do not break your fasts until you see the night upon the mountain (i.e. you are sure the sun has set).

‘Abd Al-Razzâq Al-San’ânî, Al-Musannaf article 7748.

[pearlsofislam]

[Source: Sayings of the Salaf. Translated by Owais Al-Hāshimī (hafidhahullāh)

[ghitmung]

Five Stages of Grieving (2)

Anger

Anger is a necessary stage of the healing process. Be willing to feel your anger, even though it may seem endless. The more you truly feel it, the more it will begin to dissipate and the more you will heal. There are many other emotions under the anger and you will get to them in time, but anger is the emotion we are most used to managing. 

The truth is that anger has no limits. It can extend not only to your friends, the doctors, your family, yourself and your loved one who died, but also to God. You may ask, “Where is God in this?” 

Underneath anger is pain, your pain. It is natural to feel deserted and abandoned, but we live in a society that fears anger. Anger is strength and it can be an anchor, giving temporary structure to the nothingness of loss. 

At first grief feels like being lost at sea: no connection to anything. Then you get angry at someone, maybe a person who didn’t attend the funeral, maybe a person who isn’t around, maybe a person who is different now that your loved one has died. Suddenly you have a structure – – your anger toward them. The anger becomes a bridge over the open sea, a connection from you to them. It is something to hold onto; and a connection made from the strength of anger feels better than nothing.

We usually know more about suppressing anger than feeling it. The anger is just another indication of the intensity of your love.

[dailypotter]

This week Pottermore was able to share some extraordinary new portraits of characters from Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Watch this video to get a closer look behind the scenes