Navigating Grief Daily Action Planner
An Anchor in the Storm
The death of my wife of 16 years and mother to our three children not only shattered my heart but also completely scrambled my mind. For the first time in my life, I wouldn't remember to do things if I didn't write them down. This led me to purchase a couple of daily planners. I found both to be useful but each, in their way, focused more on productivity than they did on well-being. While I acknowledged that there were plenty of balls I'd still have to juggle, I found myself wanting a planner that focused my attention more on my well-being than it did my productivity, ideally treating productivity as an aspect of my life, not the whole of it.
This Navigating Grief Daily Action Planner is a result of my desire to have a daily planner that moved me forward in my journey with healing grief as much as it helped me stay on top of my daily tasks.
- Jed Smith
Planner Pages
This 60-Day, Undated Planner Includes Sections For:
- Affirmation - The Affirmation section will help you create and maintain a positive and healing self-conception even when the storms of grief make it hard to believe you will ever heal. This is extremely important because it is who you believe you are, or your self-conception, that largely determines your life experiences. In other words, if you want to heal you must see yourself as someone who will heal.
- Gratitude - The Gratitude section will help you, as Eckhart Tolle teaches, establish “the foundation for all abundance” by focusing your attention on the good in it. Abundance includes healing and well-being. By regularly acknowledging the good things in your life you will plant the seeds for future fruits of goodness to come forth. This is according to the law of the harvest that states seeds bring forth fruits of their kind.
- Acts of Service - The Acts of Service section will provide you with moments of respite from your own suffering by focusing your attention on spreading light in someone else’s life. Don’t get caught up in thinking that for an act of service to be meaningful to someone it requires a significant sacrifice on your part. Something as simple as a text or even a brief online review of a local business can really have an impact.
- Self-Care: Mind - The Self-Care: Mind section focuses your attention on the things you will do each day to care for your mind. If left undirected, your mind will be your greatest source of torment, so keep it constructively engaged. Consider dividing exercises for your mind into two categories: input & output. For example, reading is great input for your mind while journaling is a fantastic way to require output from it.
- Self Care: Body - The Self-Care: Body section provides you with a daily reminder to attend to your physical health. You can approach caring for your body just like you do your mind, by dividing it into the categories of input and output. Obviously, nutrition is the input and exercise is the output. Feeling good and having adequate energy, two things you’ll need very much when healing grief, are a direct result of your nutrition and fitness.
- Self-Care: Sprit - The Self-Care: Spirit section helps you identify ways you’ll attend to your spiritual/emotional well-being by providing input for and requiring output from your spirit. For input, simply be present. A meditation practice will go a long way in seating your awareness in the Now. For output, act upon your creative impulses, doing the things that stoke your fire and bring greater light to the world.
- Task List & Prioritization - The Task List & Prioritization section is a place to create a daily task list, allowing you to scrutinize and prioritize your tasks for the sake of your well-being (not just your productivity). You’ll undoubtedly find stress relief in getting everything you think you need to do out in front of you and then determining, if nothing else, what three things you’ll definitely get done that day.
- Daily Review - The Daily Review section allows you to celebrate the day’s wins. In the wake of losing a loved one it is easy to focus on your losses and completely overlook your wins. This section brings your attention to your wins daily. It also allows you to ponder opportunities you may avail yourself of to continue moving forward on your journey to healing grief.
Bonus: 20+ Page Reference Section
Throughout your journey with grief, there will be days when the pain of your loss is so acute that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to think clearly enough to plan for the day. A reference section has been included at the end of this Daily Action Planner for such occasions. Its purpose is to provide you with ideas and inspiration for each of the sections.
