Griefing and Grinning A Look at the Dark Side of Minecraft Animations

How can we honor the memory of our dear loved ones and live the life we put on this planet to live, even as we grieve?

At first, to outside eyes, we might seem to ‘have it all together’, but soon—like Alice following her infamous fall down the dark and strange rabbit hole—we enter a dark, confusing world where competency is replaced by ineptitude, normalcy has disappeared, and our sense of self is overturned.

We’re too big, we’re too small, and we feel odd, like we have a dark inner secret and we no longer fit in.

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And like Alice, in the isolation of our oddness, we cry a boat-load of water and almost drown in the pool of our tears.

“Either the well was very deep, ” writes Lewis Carroll, “or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her, and to WONDER what was going to happen next.”

And when she begins to shrink so small that she just might disappear, she is nervous, but instead of engaging panic, she

It's About Grief And Moving Beyond Grief

“ And she tried to fancy what the flame of a candle is like after the candle is blown out, for she could not remember ever having seen such a thing.”

Throughout Alice’s story, wonder transforms her challenges into adventures, and wonder helps to keep her inner-self intact until she can know her full size and worth.

And so—because of her habit to wonder and not worry—by the story’s end, she can brush away her antagonists, and dismiss them as a ‘deck of cards’.

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Even in our darkest grief, we too can mitigate fear when we apply curiosity and wonder to the world around us and within us.

When we set the channel of our brain to its ‘wonderland setting’, then like Alice, our fears can be right-sized, and our mind re-set to resolve issues rather than be beaten by them.

We can use “wonder” to buy ourselves a little brain bandwidth—a bit of a mind-adjustment— that can help sustain us through our hardest days.

Learning To Grieve

Like Alice, even in our darkest grief, we can mitigate fear when we apply curiosity to the world around us and within us.

It can seem like a minor thing to do, but a simple brain re-tweak—when we’re worn down by grief—may give us the needed brain-bandwidth to:

As modeled by Alice, the act of wonder is not an act of denial, but an act of empowerment that can help us to move through hard times, intact and resolute.

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We can say a “wonder phrase” when we wake up, and we can say “wonder phrases” all through the day, and we can wonder our way into a better day (and no one will ever guess we’re engaging a wonder-hack!).

Why not emulate Alice, and create our own personalized prompts to “wonder-hack” our way to beautiful moments during the hardest of days?

When we set the channel of our brain to its ‘wonder-setting’, then like Alice, our fears can be right-sized and our mind re-set, allowing us to resolve issues rather than be beaten by them, even as we grieve.

Black Women Get Real About Grief

I made it for you to enjoy and to share with others, so that you—and those you love—may live the precious few days you have on this planet with wonder and joy.

P.S. You don’t have to do this alone! Instead, join our Readers Club where we’ll explore time-tested wisdom and how to apply it to our 21st Century lives (

And Content Creator for the WisdomLibrary and Blog. Gemma earned her Masters Degree in Clinical Social Work from Columbia University andbrings over 20 years of direct client experience to her educational platform, combining clinical knowledge and analytical skills with time-tested wisdom so that today's men and women, like previous generations, may transform their lives by healing their grief. (Explore Time-Tested Wisdom with Gemma in our Readers Club. Learn More HERE)Tears shed for another person are not a sign of weakness. They are a sign of a pure heart. – José N. Harris

The Dark Side Of Innocence: Growing Up Bipolar: Cheney, Terri: 9781439176245: Amazon.com: Books

Pick up The Mindful Word’s Words of Wisdom Writing Journal when you need some wise words to motivate and inspire you as you write. BUY THE BOOK>>

Someday you’re gonna look back on this moment of your life as such a sweet time of grieving. You’ll see that you were in mourning and your heart was broken, but your life was changing. – Elizabeth Gilbert

In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory. – J.R.R. Tolkien

Nothing But Blackened Teeth

Once you had put the pieces back together, even though you may look intact, you were never quite the same as you’d been before the fall. – Jodi Picoult

Without you in my arms, I feel an emptiness in my soul. I find myself searching the crowds for your face—I know it’s an impossibility, but I cannot help myself. – Nicholas Sparks

She was a genius of sadness, immersing herself in it, separating its numerous strands, appreciating its subtle nuances. She was a prism through which sadness could be divided into its infinite spectrum. – Jonathan Safran Foer

The Seasons Of Grief

Metamorphosis, published by The Mindful Word, is a writing journal featuring quotes that’ll encourage you to think deeply about your life. BUY THE BOOK>>

You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp. – Anne Lamott

God, but life is loneliness, despite all the opiates, despite the shrill tinsel gaiety of “parties” with no purpose, despite the false grinning faces we all wear. And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter—they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you so long. Yes, there is joy, fulfillment and companionship—but the loneliness of the soul in its appalling self-consciousness is horrible and overpowering. – Sylvia Plath

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Perhaps this is what the stories meant when they called somebody heartsick. Your heart and your stomach and your whole insides felt empty and hollow and aching. – Gabriel García Márquez

In this sad world of ours sorrow comes to all and it often comes with bitter agony. Perfect relief is not possible except with time. You cannot now believe that you will ever feel better. But this is not true. You are sure to be happy again. Knowing this, truly believing it will make you less miserable now. I have had enough experience to make this statement. – Abraham Lincoln

If you’re looking for more quotes on healing, you may want to browse through our HEALING QUOTES: 25 touching quotations about surviving hard times»

Demystifying Grief: A Covid 19 Conversation We Need To Have

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