Fix Your Face!
Recently, I received a gift from my dear friend, Holly --- a t-shirt that says: “Sorry for what my face says.” Holly and I were colleagues for more than twenty years at a university, and there were several times, in meetings, where my facial expressions showed what I was thinking --- and it usually wasn’t favorable to the intellectual crowd in the conference room. Many times, she saved me from needless arguments and lengthy heated discussions when, from across the room, she mouthed these words to me: “Fix your face!” I can read lips well. I got the message. The t-shirt is testimony to her wicked sense of humor and common sense.
In the eight years since my husband passed away, I’ve had to “fix my face” many times --- outside the university conference room. There have been so many great moments in the past few years after Tim was gone: weddings, births, family and friends’ milestone occasions. But I have sometimes had to work hard to enjoy them. Why? Because I’m caught up in missing my late husband. Those who grieve know that happy occasions such as these can be fraught with mixed emotions. We are supposed to be celebrating with family members and close friends. But grief, the nasty and relentless thief that it is, can rob anyone of the joys that these occasions should bring.
Thus, sometimes, when I’m in the middle of a family celebration or a gathering of friends, my first thought is “Tim should be here to enjoy this, too.”
But he’s not. And there’s nothing I can do about that.
A first thought like that makes me realize that it stinks to miss out on a joyous celebration because I am missing someone. That means that I will miss two things --- my husband, and whatever happy news is there for me to experience.
Yes, for sure, I miss Tim, my husband of 38 ½ years. There’s no question about it. I live with that ache every day. What’s more, in my family and circle of friends, we are all missing him --- his chuckle, his bad jokes, his storytelling, and his constant words of wisdom that we didn’t realize at the time were so smart.
Bittersweet moments such as these definitely call for fixing my face. And one thing I’ve learned about smiling and powering through is that, believe it or not, it often works. As I described in my book, Grab Life by the Bungees and 50+ Other Ways to Find Humor, Hope, and Happiness After Your Partner has Died, “the act of smiling actually triggers our brains to make us feel good, rather than the other way around” (p. 29). The James-Lange theory of psychology offers this idea, explaining that the physiological human body can help to inform the brain about emotion. Thus, if I physically “fix my face”, and maybe give myself a smile, eventually, my grieving brain also gives me a small relief from grieving. I feel better, if only for just a moment. And sometimes, that’s enough.
If you’re grieving, I encourage you to give it a try. I’m not advocating a denial of your grief. Especially at the beginning of your grief journey, it’s possible that the hardest thing you’ll ever do is to accept the reality of this pain. And accept it, you must. But I’m saying that it might help to give yourself some momentary relief, especially during those special occasions that mean so much to you and your family and friends. That might mean to smile through those moments that hurt.
I found that fixing my face allows me to leave my pity party and join the joy. I hope you can do the same.
References
Martin, L. L., & Lefcourt, H. M. (1983). Sense of humor as a moderator of the relation between stressors and moods. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45(6), 1313–1324.
