Grief Happens
Grief happens.
You have been dealing with Grief since the day you were born.
What do I mean by that? That sounds negative and pessimistic.
While there are different circumstances to every pregnancy and birth, on the day you were born, you left a temperature controlled safe environment where all your needs were met and you entered into a world of extreme contrast.
The world you entered often felt very polarizing. You were fed and happy or your hunger motivated cries of need. A toy you loved and happily played with might be taken away or broken by a sibling and never returned.
If you could look at your life from a distance without too much emotional attachment, you would see that loss and Grief have been there all along.
It is a powerful realization to say: I have been navigating loss and Grief all my life.
We all have. We share this story as much as we share this planet. This is a discussion that deserves our time.
So when did it become so hard for us to address grief as adults?
Are we so burnt out from Grief by the time we leave high school that we make a pact with ourselves not to look griefs way ever again unless absolutely forced to? I believe I made some version of that pact. But for me, it did not work for very long. Well, truthfully, it did not work at all.
I have to say my efforts were noble. I ran from grief by overly focusing on caring for others. Being highly empathic, or a “psychic sponge” as I was labeled, was not helping the matter at all. By my early 20s I finally got myself to a doctor and shared all my symptoms that I was sure were leading me to my early demise, the worst symptom being the tightness in my chest that kept my breathing an ongoing frightening struggle.
After the examination, the doctor announced that I had “air hunger.” The blood drained from my face and I braced myself for the number of months or weeks he would then tell me I had left to live.
It sounds funny now to read those words but at the time I was in deep fear.
The doctor continued, “Have you ever seen a therapist?”
With disbelief yet to become relief I said, “I am sorry, what did you say?”
He repeated, “Have you ever seen a therapist?”
I thought he meant some type of breathing specialist.
“You have extreme Anxiety and I think it would be great if you could talk to a therapist.”
Given this was the early 1980s, I was not that informed about where one even found a therapist, let alone exactly what they did, but this doctor opened a door that gave me hope and insight. If Anxiety — and what I learned later — that enormous amounts of unconscious Grief could literally take my breath away, then I needed a therapist. I needed to talk to someone who was not afraid to hear my story.
How I found the therapist and the journey into my Grief is another writing but until then here is short synopsis of what I learned.
Grief happens.
You don’t fix Grief.
You listen to Grief.
You give it space.
Grief can inspire your life to move forward in amazing ways.
Sometimes it is acute and overwhelming and other times the Grief has been on a slow simmer in the background of someone’s life.
You need to make the Grief conscious.
Trying to ignore or outrun Grief never works. It can be tireless in its pursuit of your attention.
Grief will always be there as part of your life. It brings contrast and opportunity. It is a part of how the energies work here on this Earth and we need to make friends with the messages it brings.
One of the places I like to work with my Grief is by water: lakes, rivers, streams and beaches. In the next petal of the lotus called “When Wisdom Washes Ashore” I describe how water brings wisdom and healing for me.
Years ago, I wandered a beach lost in my Grief and missing the healing gifts this oasis was trying to share with me. The waves had been calm and gentle all day but when I turned my back to the ocean and started to head back to my car, a big wave hit me from behind, drenching me from the waist down. Stunned, I turned quickly to catch the watery culprit that had forged the sneak attack. But the waves were again calm. I stood staring out at the ocean for quite a while as if to challenge the trickster of the sea to try again. At least this time I would see it coming. But the reality is we rarely see it coming.
As I watched the stillness of the sea, I felt a connection to the oneness and rhythm of the waves. The magic happened for me as I realized I was letting go and letting nature replace the Grief. Old repetitive, looping thoughts and worries began to drop from my mind. And with that I heard the wisdom that was the sand, the shells, the birds begin to speak. I suspect they had been speaking all along.
The message of the wave was a reminder that life’s challenges and gifts can come with a wake-up call out of what feels like nowhere. Don’t be afraid of what they have to say. There are people who can help you navigate these times. In turn, you can take this knowledge and experience and grow it into wisdom to be shared with others.
It is called life. And it happens.