I grew up working on a farm. At one time or another, we had cows, chickens, ducks; always a large garden to harvest and canned food from, and a large yard to mow. On top of this, we raised tobacco. Now in Kentucky, pretty much everyone my age or older understands that backbreaking labor, and how it makes all other manual labor pale in comparison, and tobacco season covers the entire year! Talk about keeping busy!!

All this to say work and busyness just WERE in my house. 

There is always something to do on a farm, whether outdoors, or inside where meals are being prepared, laundry washed and hung outside, cleaning—truly, a never ending cycle of work!  This learned necessity of staying busy has followed me through adulthood, and I think many of us often use busyness, chores, and work to avoid dealing with other issues. 

How many of us have gone back to our jobs, maybe a bit too quickly after our loss, in order to avoid the stillness of home, where our minds and feelings are not pelted with the daily needs of our work schedule?  

The hard decisions we have to make and the upheaval of feelings and emotions are tamped down and negated when we busy ourselves with physical labor, or maybe with the mind-numbing repetitiveness of office or school work.  

We just want to make the pain stop, in whatever way we can!

The GRIEF  we are experiencing is not something we can ignore, by throwing ourselves prematurely back into our jobs or daily tasks. There are portions of our journey where keeping our minds and bodies occupied can be healthy and help us deal with our sorrow in a healing way. 

There has to be a balance, though, between avoiding the inevitable season of facing our grief, and keeping busy so we aren’t consumed by it. 

The article attached further highlights how we can do this. We encourage you, friend, to share your thoughts and feelings here in the comments, or to reach out via the contact info on our main page. 

Does Staying Busy Get You Through Grief or Lead to Avoidance? – Open to Hope