Or In Grief
I spent most of my 42nd year and a good part of my 43rd year awash in inconsolable grieving. The extreme, compelling anguish with which I lived was part of the process of ending an intense, symbiotic seven-year relationship in which I had all but lost myself. (See Others' Views and Covers Over Our Heads for more about the relationship, the leave-taking and the grieving process.)
The sadness, the despair, the grief and the waves of depression were a steady undertow that drained my energy. Amazingly enough, I was able to pull myself together to work parts of two or three days a week seeing clients. And, I found
But, most of the time I seemed to be sobbing or near to tears. Breathing was often very difficult. Food was, for the most part, nauseating to contemplate. Sleep and the lush nest of pillows on my bed beckoned constantly. Walks in the mountains and to the streams around Ojai offered some comfort when I could gather the energy to go hiking.
Being with friends and talking with family proved very challenging. Most of the people in my life were greatly relieved that I was finally being able to remove myself from the destructive enmeshment in which I had been caught with my now ex-partner. It was hard for most of them to hear the depth of my pain and grief over the ending when for them it was cause for relief if not celebration.
It was hard for my friends and family to tolerate the upheavals that came with my attempts to stay connected, at least in a friendship, with my ex. This was especially so when each contact with my ex re-opened the wounds I was working to heal. Most of the people who loved me and cared about my well-being seemed inclined to distract me from my suffering, to jolly me into other parts of my being, to remind me what a miracle I was creating in my life by setting myself free. They wanted me to focus on what lay ahead instead of what I was losing, particularly since they didn't see this as a loss of anything of value.
For the most part, I chose to spend my time alone immersed in my grieving. I could not be with most of my friends and at the same time be where I needed to be-in the middle of my pain and sorrow. One dear couple was the exception, as individuals and as a couple; they offered companionship, open ears, silent presence. They were willing-with loving care-to be witness to my up and down, in and out struggle.
They had no prescription for how I should be doing this mourning or this separating. They shared their home and their hearts without needing me to do my process in any way other than I was doing it. They were able to be with my suffering, even when my own actions were intensifying my anguish. They didn't try to advise or fix me. They could let me be in the pit and have some loving company, if and as that might be of comfort to me. They didn't expect that comfort to get me out of my funk. They didn't expect that their presence would make me feel better. Yet and perhaps because they didn't expect or need it to, it often did.
They took me out to dinners, lunches and snacks with them, when and if I could stomach being around food. They didn't expect me to eat unless I could. They didn't try to cajole or push me into eating what I'd ordered when I found that I couldn't. My weeping at the table didn't distress them. They invited me out with them for movies or in for videos if I might want some temporary diversion or a break from the emotional intensity. And, they accepted when I'd need to leave abruptly, often just moments after I'd arrived.
They were a remarkable gift during one of the most difficult passages of my life. Their simple presence mirrored and supported what I was learning. Spirit was teaching me to have the courage and persistence to feel all of my chaotic, turbulent feelings without cutting them off or dimming them down or in any way subverting them. This couple's undemanding presence, their willingness just to bear witness, to not intrude upon or divert my process was a perfect support. It helped to nourish my growing understanding that surrender into the fullness of the dark feelings was the only doorway to my healing. It was a blessing to be able to have some company when I needed it without having to pay the price of lightening up or cheering up when I still needed to be in the blackness.
The culture we live in is seriously dark-phobic. All too often feelings of sadness, despair, sorrow, hopelessness and grief engender enormous discomfort, both in us and in the people around us. When we are sunk in these down feelings, we often feel less-than. We feel that it's not okay to feel badly. We feel that it's somehow shameful, an imposition if we are unable to put on a cheery face for those around us. Yet finding the courage to risk surrendering into these intense feelings, taking the time to plumb the depths of the darkness offers us the possibility of moving through them/it into healing and greater wholeness. To be with ourselves in those places is to honor our wounding, to be tender with our broken hearts, to allow ourselves all the time we need to experience and release our pain.
We might in these times yearn to reach out for the simple warmth of human caring, believing the presence of a loving friend could offer comfort as we go on with our thrashing in the pit. Unless we're particularly fortunate in the people we have around us, it can be difficult to find anyone willing and able to simply be with us without to try to cheer us up or to fix us. It can be difficult to find others willing to accept that it can be a comfort to have their presence even as their presence doesn't appreciably cheer us up.
In these moments, we make a very difficult choice. It's important for us to refuse to pay the price of prematurely lightening up, of giving up being with ourselves in order to keep from discomforting others. To pay that price or make that trade off is to further wound our already suffering selves.
In these moments we learn, instead, to practice reminding ourselves that depression, sadness, grief, mourning, despairing, feeling blue are natural and expectable parts of the process of being alive and growing. We remind ourselves that this is so even when others are put off by these feelings. We practice reminding ourselves that these feelings are as much signs of life as the more generally acceptable feelings of joy, excitement and exuberance. We practice reminding ourselves that all feelings have a trajectory: they reach a peak of intensity, hang out there for a time and then slowly lessen and decay.
As we courageously yield into our dark feelings when they arise, we gradually increase our skill in riding them. We grow more adept at feeling all the way through them. In this process we uncover the knowings and wisdom and truths that our darkness has to reveal to us. We learn that, when we don't prematurely pull ourselves together, we can actually watch ourselves organically come together on the other side of the turbulence.
Consider treating yourself with gentleness and compassion in the dark feelings times.
P.S. So many of your delicious e-mails send appreciations for the affirmation, support and nourishment you receive from the site. When I answer them, I don’t always remember to let you know that having your own deck of the Rememberings and Celebrations cards is a way to bring this same loving voice into your everyday world, to have it at hand as you need to remind yourself of the "real" truth moment to moment in the crazimakingness of the so-called real world!
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The card on this page is part of a set of 64 bookmark-size cards called the Rememberings and Celebrations deck. They can be used as an oracle, a meditation focus or a "book-in-pieces" to kindle and grow a compassionate, gentle, unconditionally loving, fiercely protective inner-Mother to help you carve safe healing space for your emerging self and for the wounded little ones inside.
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