Your Grief Emergency Supply Kit

You keep emergency supplies in your house, car, and workplace, right?
Fresh water. First aid kit. Flashlight...

But what about when LIFE hits?

When someone leaves.
When you lose something important.
When a door slams shut and everything feels different.
Even when YOU decide to move, change career paths, let go of someone or something.

Where’s your emergency kit for that?

The Truth

Your brain can’t tell the difference between types of loss.

Death.
Divorce.
Empty nest.
Losing a job.
A friendship ending.

All transitions trigger the same pain response in the nervous system.

💥 BAM. Your brain says: EMERGENCY!!!!

Without a Toolkit

When pain hits, people reach for whatever is closest:

  • Drugs or alcohol
  • Food for comfort
  • Even “healthy” things taken too far (over-exercising when you actually need rest)
  • Digging the depression hole, replaying stories until you believe the worst about yourself

Pain without tools doesn’t disappear. It just looks for an exit.

A Real Example (Art Client)

You love art. You had a great teacher. You felt alive creating.

But now you get little enjoyment from it. What happened?

At some point, you allowed your mom’s (exchange for you challenge person) voice inside your head.
She expected perfection. She yelled when mistakes were made.

So your brain learned:
“If it’s not perfect, I failed.
If I failed, I’m no good, not just at art, but at everything.”

Even when time is limited with her now, she still screams in your thoughts.

So here’s the work:

🔥 Fire her. Fire him. Fire them.

The practice

Your art, creativity, career, finances, and growth in all apspects of YOUR life should be guided by:

✔ Your heart
✔ Your brain
✔ Your voice

Not the voice of someone who hurt you and certainly not the critic you internalized.

🔥 Fire them from your internal board of directors.

🧰 THE BIG LIST: Emergency Grief Tools

Build YOUR kit from this list:

🚑 Immediate Response

(0–24 hours after pain hits)

💧 Hydrate - dehydration makes emotions worse
😭 Cry - let it out, don’t hold it in
🐕 Hold or pet an animal - unconditional presence
🛌 Rest or nap - your brain needs recovery time
📞 Call one safe person - don’t isolate

🏃 Physical Release

(Move the emotion out)

🚶‍♀️ Walk - especially in nature
💪 Gym or exercise - sweat it out
🥊 Punching bag - release anger safely
🧘‍♀️ Yoga - gentle movement
🏊‍♀️ Swimming - water heals
🎵 Dance - move to music

💛 Emotional Processing

📝 Journal - get it on paper, out of your head
🧘‍♀️ Meditation - calm the nervous system
🎧 Self-hypnosis - for deeper work
🛁 Bath or shower - water as ritual cleansing
🕯️ Breathwork - calm fight/flight

🤝 Connection

(Don’t isolate)

👥 Safe friend or family
💬 Therapist or coach
📱 Text someone who gets it
🐕 Dogs - no judgment, just love
🌳 Nature - trees don’t talk back, but they hold space

🎭Creative Release

🎨 Art - your art, not someone else’s criticism
🎵 Music - play, listen, sing
✍️ Writing - poetry, letters you’ll never send
🧶 Crafts - busy hands calm the mind
🍳 Cooking - creation plus nourishment

🛡️ Protective Distance

(When you live with the hurt)

🚶‍♀️ Take a walk - remove yourself temporarily
🚪 Close a door - physical boundary
🎧 Headphones - create auditory space
📖 Read - enter another story
🛌 Your room - claim your space

🌱 Long-Term Practices

📅 Regular self check-ins
📋 Review your toolkit like you would an emergency supplies list
🧰 Add tools as you discover them
🔄 Practice before crisis hits
💙 Keep your heart open

🔑 The Critical Shift

Don’t ask:
 ❌ “How soon can I reopen my heart?”

Ask instead:
 ✅ “How can I not close it at all?”

Your Practice - You Decide, Here are some Tips:

❌ Hurts YOU, NOT them to close your heart!

✅ Better to move away, protect yourself, take breaks, distance

✅ Especially hard with people you live with - at least take a walk

✅ Love them from a distance: Add Distance ≠ closed heart

✅ Create space without creating walls: Build Boundaries ≠ walls

✅ Protect your energy AND keep your heart open: Find Protection ≠ shutdown

⚠️ The Anxiety/Depression Hole Warning

Don’t turn pain into a giant pit.

Keep Conscious of YOUR Pattern

  1. Pain hits (BAM!)
  2. We start digging (rehashing, replaying)
  3. We dig deeper (what did I do wrong?)
  4. We believe the worst about ourselves (it's all my fault)
  5. Giant pit = The bigger the hole, the longer we spend digging, the more likely anxiety and/or depression is to follow the same pattern. 

Light anxiety/depression is normal and may benefit from walking, prayer, mediation, and Immediate Tools. 

Deeper pain needs stronger tools and outside support.

How do I know? 

I LOVE this clear, visual scale to use as mood guide. Anxiety Scale

The SELF Intervention

  • Notice you’re digging
  • Put down the shovel
  • Access your toolkit
  • Ask: How fast can I return to a more neutral or calm state?

⏱ Setting a timer is allowed.

🎯 The Emergency Kit Challenge

Action steps:

  • Build your kit NOW (before you need it)
  • Test your tools (practice when calm)
  • Review regularly (like emergency supplies - keep them fresh)
  • Add tools as you grow and discover deeper and quicker results by stacking multiple together
  • Share your kit (help others build theirs, Giving calms us quicker than just about anything)

The goal: Not to never hurt (we're human!) But to return to center FASTER each time

And remember:

💙 Protect your love

💙 Keep your heart open

💙 Fire the critics in your head

💙 Use your toolkit, not your vices

🛒 Ideas for a Grief Emergency Kit

Immediate Tools:

Physical Release:

  • Yoga mat - This one has poses right on the mat!!!
  • Barefoot shoes - Get outside and feel the ground, grass, sand, water (this is my fav) on your feet.
  • Punching bag - This is small for a desk. I used to have a full sized guy, but boxing gloves are needed for real punching. I HIGHLY recommend a boxing gym where they can teach you. But in the meantime, why not punch along to some music?
  • Exercise equipment - There’s a whole lot you can do with a home kit like this but most people don’t. SCHEDULE, at least 2 times/week to go do movement you enjoy! Simming is GREAT!!! Hire a trainer, some gyms offer one free personal training. YMCA and Planet Fitness are very supportive! 

Emotional Processing:

  • Journals - I’m partial to Step Stones to Calm Emotions but Blank with Pocket and Pen are great for travel, money and financial, anything that’s important to YOU! 
  • Aeromatherapy - A versitle Diffuser is needed, mine has sounds I use Breathe Essential Oil
    at home.
  • Meditation cushion - I don’t use one, but some people love them, you decide.
  • Self-hypnosis audio - FREE! Michael Sealy is my personal favorite. Search for him, and just about anything you might need sleep, anxiety, grief, money… Hypnosis ONLY relaxes, your brain is always in charge.
  • Bath salts - I LOVE this! But, I always add some of this bubble bath because Bubbles make me happy!

Creative Release:

Connection:

  • Books on grief/loss -  I used this workbook journal to work through the grief from losing my Dad. With the support of a good grief counselor I went from swirling emotions that were making me crazy back to a calm, clearer and new version of myself.
    WARNING: The loss of the 2nd parent is the end of something bigger and needs extra TLC to sort through.
  • Therapy workbooks
  • Letter-writing supplies, Scrapbook Stickers (yes, stickers belong in healing 😄)

This IS my multi-sensory gift to you.

If you come to my GrowthShop you will experience this and so much more.

Tools for the hands.
Sensory Smorgusbord.
Transform Taste.
An Oasis of Calm.
Safety for the heart.

Because healing isn’t one thing.
It’s a kit you carry with you.

I’m excited to try this: Lifelines Writing Wellness Gift Set - Scented Writing Set Includes Finger Maze Sensory Journal, 3 Scented Stacking Highlighters & 2 Lava Gel Pens - Aromatherapy & Sensory Immersion

Where Are You Now in Life's Maze?

Find Out →