Emergence

In early 2020 Covid-19 crashed upon the shores of our known world like a tidal wave, sweeping away much of what we took for granted: daily routines, the freedom to move about in our community, spontaneous social interactions, arts and entertainment, travel plans, the ability to gather with those we love in times of celebration and sorrow. Gone in an instant. And even as we struggled to adjust, COVID continued to overwhelm us with wave after wave of change and loss.

For over a year, we have been living with loss -- globally, nationally, individually, as families and communities. Even if we have not personally experienced the death of family or friends due to the virus, we have all felt its far-reaching impact on our daily lives. And, for the most part, we have had to cope with massive change and loss while being isolated from our usual forms of support and basic coping activities.

Now we are emerging from that isolation, from our compressed lives limited by the imposed structures and personal habits that kept us safe — transitioning from one unknown world  into yet another unknown world. The long early months of living under COVID’s constant threat were full of confusion and uncertainty, but so are these months of surfacing from that threat. 

We are once again in transition as vaccination brings new possibilities, new dilemmas. Our world is not magically safe, nor anywhere near normal, but we are beginning to have more choices as each of us works out what feels safe, responsible, and possible as we emerge from prolonged isolation.  

It is natural that this time of transition brings both relief and anxiety. For over a year we have been living under COVID's threat, our psyches focused on survival. Uncoiling from our tightly-wound protective stance can be unnerving and confusing, no matter how long we have waited for the chance to do so.

So here we are, emerging from our shelters, looking for the path forward. The path through loss in part is so confusing because the arrows point in both directions: Backward and Forward, Past and Future. Healthy grief demands that we face both directions. We must look Backward to acknowledge what is gone and to draw upon what endures, in order to move Forward with rebuilding our new world. Right now many of us are at that crossroads, the sign pointing in both directions. And it can be pretty confusing.

The hard truth is that we can’t go back to our Old Normal, only forward into yet another New Normal. Anyone familiar with grief knows the struggle of yearning for the Old Normal while having to rebuild — arduously and under protest — a New Normal. As you face this changed world with its challenging array of choices and decisions, you may find yourself asking: “What IS this New Normal? What is MY New Normal?”.

And you may be surprised to find yourself asking: “Who am I?”. Because it is not only the world around us that is forever changed, but the world within us. Every great loss changes us. The tornado hits from out of nowhere and shatters us, sweeps big parts of us away. AND it leaves something in its wake— the pieces from which we rebuild.

Writer Rachel Naomi Remen says: “Every great loss demands that we choose life again. We need to grieve in order to do this…Grieving allows us to heal, to remember with love rather than pain. It is a sorting process. One by one you let go of the things that are gone and you mourn for them. One by one you take hold of the things that have become a part of who you are and build again.”

As you rebuild from your own personal losses, as you begin to re-engage in life after a year of pronounced social disengagement, as you ask “Who am I?”, you may find it helpful to reflect on what is lost, what endures, what is still possible. Perhaps these questions will help you, as Rachel describes, to take hold of the things that have become a part of who you are and build again:

What have I lost during the pandemic?

What have I NOT lost? What endures?

What have I found?

What have I done that I didn’t know I could do?

What if anything, has grown from my experience of loss?

Despite all that is lost, what is still possible?

What is important to me now? What is no longer important?

What am I grateful for in this moment? 

Because I am a grief counselor, I know the power of the human spirit to rebuild from devastation. I trust that process, for you and for myself, as we emerge from one strange time into another. My wish for you is that in moments of overwhelm or struggle, you may remember what is still possible. In the words of Emily Dickinson:

I dwell in Possibility

Read the full poem:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52197/i-dwell-in-possibility-466

Photo Credit: Maria Krasnova on Unsplash

Listening to Spring, Listening to Hope

How quietly the earth breathes forth new life. 

I am listening. 

I am listening to the seeds breaking open, 

to roots growing strong beneath the ground, 

to green shoots rising up from winter wombs. 

I am listening. 

I am listening to the forest filling up with song. 

I am listening to the trees filling up with leaves.

I am listening. 

I am listening to the sky with its many changing moods, 

to flashes of lightning, peals of thunder, 

to opening buds and greening grass. 

I am listening to the breaking forth of light 

in the vestibule of dawn. 

I am listening to the freshness of the morning.

I am listening. 

This is a beautiful description of Spring, which here in the Piedmont is splashing across winter's tattered brown canvas in welcome hues of vibrant yellow and delicate pink. Finally, after a long gray winter, there is color appearing here and there, rising from the darkness of waiting as this week’s Spring Equinox ushers in the season of growing light and warmth. 

It is also a beautiful description of the healing nature of grief. The growth and renewal that is possible even in the seemingly endless darkness of utter devastation. The insight, compassion, connection, love, clarity and personal power that emerges from that barren ground, that darkest of soils. For more than 20 years I have listened to grief, and I hear what Macrina Wiederkehr hears as she listens to Spring: 

seeds breaking open 

roots growing strong beneath the ground

green shoots rising up from winter wombs 

opening buds and greening grass

Yes, there is breaking — unbearable, overwhelming, meaningless, paralyzing breaking. And there is breaking open, like a seed, something new emerging and growing as the husk is split and shed.

When we are breaking, we need safety, shelter, rest, understanding, time to comprehend the enormity of loss, time to adjust to an unwanted new reality and to begin healing. When we are breaking open, we need to pay attention to what is emerging, carefully tending our new tendrils, patient with the slow uneven pace of growth, trusting the life force stored in the seed, trusting the roots to their underground work.

As Spring arrives, you may be experiencing both of these aspects of grief, confused by the tug of war between pain and possibility, between wanting to retreat and wanting to emerge. As the pandemic itself enters a more hopeful season of greater social possibility, you may be weary of isolation yet reluctant to reengage with a bigger, faster world. You may be eager for something new yet afraid to leave what feels safe and familiar, fearful of the unknown.

Most likely, you are realizing that you are changed. And feeling somewhat unsteady in this new self. After a year of bearing your personal loss within the losses of a global pandemic, you are not who you used to be. You may be confused about who you are now and struggling to imagine who you will be when this is “over." You may see nothing but bare dirt or a tangle of weeds in your garden patch. You may see green shoots emerging but have no idea of how to care for them, unable to picture what they will grow to be.

In such times, listen. Listen to Spring, trusting in what it has to tell you, the ancient story of renewal. In those liminal moments when you sense yourself emerging from the darkness but cannot yet see clearly, trust this season of growing light. Trust the innate power of the seed; trust your own slow unfurling. Trust what I trust for you: that the heart that breaks can also break open.

Find the seed 

at the bottom of  your heart 

and bring forth 

a flower.

~Shigenori Kameoka~

Listening to Spring (excerpts) by Macrina Wiederkehr 

https://healthyspirituality.org/finally-march-im-listening-spring/

Photo credit: Jelleke Vanooteghem on Unsplash

Befriending Yourself In Grief's Lonely Moments

Is it just me, or has February been a long month? Day after day of gray rain and bone-chilling cold — the icy grip of winter squeezing tighter just when we needed a break. From everything! 

And it has already been such a long, long year. A year saturated with loss, touching every aspect of our lives. A year of constant wariness of Covid’s invisible threat; a year of profound insecurity, with political and societal turmoil providing no shelter in the gathering storm. Many of us are worn thin from coping, depleted by the effort it has taken to get this far and daunted by the long road ahead. Even as vaccinations get underway, we mark 500,000 American lives lost to Covid-19. Even as we face a more promising spring, we are beleaguered by winter’s powerful hold.

Anyone familiar with profound grief knows this feeling — beginning to hope that things will get better, perhaps even beginning to feel things getting better, only to wake up to an ice storm where we are suddenly frozen in place, every step challenging in the slippery landscape, our power out. We thought that a certain calendar date meant it would ease up at last — only to wake up to more of the same. We had already had enough — more than enough — and suddenly there is even more.

And, for this past year, most of us have endured this grief alone, struggling to bear our own very personal losses while also having to adapt to a dramatically changed world upended by communal loss. Grief is inherently isolating, but grief during a pandemic means that we are often even more alone, cut off from the very things that sustain us in hard times and help us to eventually rebuild. At times, when we have no energy for putting on a strong face, the isolation is a welcome reprieve from having to meet social norms. At other times, we are swamped by it, in danger of going under. We are social creatures and human connection is our lifeline, a very tenuous one after a year of pandemic isolation. Even if we live with others and sometimes yearn to be alone, our grief is still a solitary invisible burden, a heavy box lugged around with no safe place to unpack.

What to do when feeling alone and overwhelmed? Put your hand on your heart and feel the life  — and the love — that is beating there. Trust it. Love it back. Talk to yourself as you would talk to a cherished friend, a hurting child, a beloved pet. Be tender, soothing and validating until the pain eases — THEN offer encouragement and help yourself to get back on your feet. Yes, this takes time — but ultimately less time than the ever-tempting tried-and-untrue shortcut of trying to yank yourself back onto your feet when you are down, ignoring the pain that felled you. One of my clients names this critical self-talk “Drill Sergeant,” a motivational style that might be helpful when training for battle or a triathlon but is rarely effective in grief’s vulnerable moments: You think YOU’RE suffering? You should be grateful for what you have. Get up out of yourself and just DO what you are supposed to be doing!  

But what we are supposed to be doing in these moments is exactly this. Experiencing the grief (or fear or anger or guilt or despair) so that we can move through it and then beyond it. Metabolizing the pain so that it can move through us and then leave us, instead of taking root and reseeding like an invasive weed. As a grief counselor, I have learned to trust this painful part of the healing process. Over and over, in big ways and small, I have witnessed the shattered human spirit, exhausted by determined efforts to “hold it together,” gather itself once again after a necessary time of “falling apart.”

Falling apart is natural as we move forward through life, encountering our loss in new and sometimes deeper ways. When this happens, we are hurting; we need to pause in order to keep moving forward. We need a friend to listen and to stay with us, just as we are, until we are ready to go on. The next time you are alone and feel yourself falling apart, be that friend to yourself.

Begin by placing your hand on your heart to connect to your source of love. Talk to yourself as you would to a beloved friend. Acknowledge the pain that is happening: I’m sorry this hurts so much. I know this is scary. Of course you are tired of this struggle; it’s hard to keep going. Remind yourself that you are not alone: I am here with you. I love you. Soothe and reassure: There’s nothing else we need to be doing right now but this. We will make it through. 

Notice how your feelings shift and eventually dissipate as you pay soft loving attention to them instead of trying to yank them back into shape. Notice how the distress eventually subsides to a point where you can breathe again. And begin again.

You are never truly alone if you learn to befriend yourself. My wish for each of you in this difficult time of isolation is to become the friend to yourself that Henri Nouwen describes here so eloquently:

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.” 

       (Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life)

 Photo credit: Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Learning to Trust Winter

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.” Albert Camus

As the deep chill of January sets in and our nation struggles under the weight of too many months of staggering loss and deadly division, it is easy for hope to wear thin — like a coat that has been worn too long, tattered and frayed.  Whatever has kept you going through these long months of bearing your personal loss in a dramatically changed world may be in short supply after such a long and difficult year. 

In those moments when winter is full upon us and our spirits are chilled to the bone, Camus’ words ring like a bell of hope: In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. How is it that Camus can find summer in the midst of winter’s devastation? How is it that any one of us in our own winter of unbearable grief can trust that summer even exists, much less can exist again for us?

We begin by learning to trust the process of Winter, the process of grief. Writer Katherine Mays calls Winter a “crucible,” a time of alchemy, a time when plants and animals undergo profound transformation to survive the harshness of the season. On the surface, Winter looks like utter devastation —  lush greenery dies back, trees lose their leaves, animals disappear through hibernation or migration.  But, she explains, the apparent devastation is in reality a time of retreat necessary for the renewal and regeneration of Spring. Nature is resting, regrouping, restocking.

This is as true for grief as it is for nature. There are times in the grief process when we are surprised by our ability to move about almost normally  — perhaps even to move forward — and other times when we are so frozen we cannot believe we will ever move again. But like Winter, the apparent utter devastation of deep grief is neither permanent nor complete.  It is a season, a necessary season, a time of retreat crucial for the regeneration that every loss demands of us.

To survive — and eventually, to thrive — we must acknowledge that we are in the difficult season of Winter. This allows us to take better care of ourselves, accepting and adapting to our current limits. It is by letting our grief change us that we survive Winter and move toward a more verdant Spring. As Mays puts it:

Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Wintering is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximizing scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs.

Mays’ words stay with me: They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. This is what I witness as a grief counselor day after day, year after year, in every season — extraordinary transformations, life-changing insights, courageous vulnerability. In the midst of howling Winter, the discovery deep within of impossible, invincible Summer.

Every January I find a few early daffodils unfolding their bold yellow trumpets against the drab winter backdrop of a neighbor’s yard. Invincible summer: so much life, bravely asserting itself despite the certainty of freezing nights still to endure. I know from experience that these fragile-looking flowers will survive the deadly cold because year after year I have watched them do so; I have learned to trust that they are made for this, that they have what it takes not only to endure the threat of being overcome but to open themselves once again to the rhythms of life. In delicate vulnerable blossom that is somehow impossibly strong.

I trust this for you as well. I trust your invincible summer; I trust you to find it and to have the courage to bloom again.

“Courage is not the towering oak that sees storms come and go; it is the fragile blossom that opens in the snow.”

― Alice Mackenzie Swaim

Interview with Katherine Mays: https://onbeing.org/programs/katherine-may-how-wintering-replenishes/

Her book: Wintering — The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

Photo Credit: Charles Tyler on Unsplash

Finding Light in the Darkness

Winter solstice — the darkest day of the year, when night comes early and seems here to stay. There are times when the cold darkness finds its way through our protective barriers, seeping through windows and jackets right into our bones. Sometimes, right into our spirits. 

Like grief at this time of year, darkness sometimes threatens to overwhelm us, blanketing the light of day. Anyone familiar with deep loss knows the blackness of the longest nights, when pain seems endless and unbearable, penetrating to our marrow no matter what we do to keep it at bay. Our sources of light and warmth seem lost to us, or impossibly far away.  

Perhaps you are experiencing some of this now, as the surging pandemic and deepening winter make it even more challenging to keep flagging spirits warm. You may be increasingly isolated from family and friends in a season when you normally gather together. You may be forced by the cold short days to curtail already-limited activities that have been sustaining body, mind and spirit. You may feel tired and sluggish, everything an effort, with little motivation to continue rebuilding your shattered world. You may feel fear or despair that darkness is all there is.

In such moments, it may be helpful to remember and affirm that this darkest night of the year also marks the turning toward increasing light. From here, the days grow longer. We are moving back toward the sun. What a paradox, that even as we move into the coldest time of the year, we are moving toward the warmth of spring and summer. We still have to get through winter, but we are already on our way.

As a grief counselor, I know that this is also true for the longest nights of loss. Just like the earth on its ancient cycle of return, we naturally move through the blinding darkness of pain into the illuminating light of possibility. Over and over I have witnessed this: allowing ourselves to grieve, to truly experience the “winter of the soul” instead of trying to avoid it or fix it, is the turning point that keeps us moving toward greater light and warmth. 

As a grief counselor, I also know that it is a very difficult, sometimes unbearable process. That when you are in the midst of your darkest night, it is impossible to believe there will ever be light. That when you feel stuck, it is hard to trust you are actually moving, much less moving forward. That when you are lost, it seems overwhelming to take a step in any direction.

In such moments, remember the Winter Solstice. Just as, on the darkest night of the year, powerful natural forces are moving the earth toward greater light, your darkest grief is a powerful natural force moving you toward the light of healing. In the words of poet Jan Richardson:

This is the night
when you can trust
that any direction
you go,
you will be walking
toward the dawn.

May your dark night be lit with stars of love, hope, and peace — illumination for your journey through whatever winter is upon you.

Photo Credit: Stefano Intintoli on Unsplash

Blessing for the Longest Night, excerpt 
© Jan Richardson, from The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief janrichardson.com

Read the full poem: http://adventdoor.com/2011/12/19/winter-solstice-blessing-for-the-longest-night/

Finding Companionship in Isolation

Late November -- the days are suddenly cold and noticeably shorter, the nights somehow darker. At a time when traditionally we might anticipate celebrating with family and friends to brighten the winter season, many of us are more isolated than ever as COVID continues to complicate and cancel our plans to be with those we love. Weary from a long nine months of living with the losses and stresses of the pandemic, it seems a long lonely winter is upon us.

Isolation and loneliness is especially challenging in grief. Many of you are bearing your own devastating personal loss through this time of national and global loss, and know well the disorienting sense of living all alone in a world invisible to, and radically different from, those around you. You know the loneliness of masking your pain because it makes people uncomfortable. You know the fear of being judged or “fixed” by someone who does not get it. You know the ache of words unsaid because those around you aren’t able to listen to your pain. 

You know the longing to have someone listen, just listen. And accept you just the way you are. And offer words of compassion, affirmation, and solidarity as you search for the strength to continue.

When you are feeling most alone, consider writing. A journal is a ready listener: open-hearted, non-judgmental, able to take in whatever is troubling you for as long as you need to talk. Writing is always available to you: in quarantine, when a friend is too busy or stressed, when it’s too cold for social distance visiting, when you lie awake in the middle of the night. And, as we are about to see, writing can also be a way to offer ourselves the solace we are seeking.

Even if the word “journal” evokes guilty images of one more “I-should-but-probably-won’t” coping tip, or the thought of writing makes you cringe, take a couple of minutes right now — yes, right now — to try this writing exercise. It may seem silly, but the results are often quite profound.

• Find something to write with — pen and paper, journal, computer, phone.

• Imagine you are making a diary entry. Start by writing the date, then “Dear Diary” (or Dear Journal, Dear Friend, Dear Listener — whatever works for you.)

• Set a timer for two minutes. Begin with “In this moment I ….” and write freely without pausing, whatever feelings and thoughts come to mind. Anything goes! Don’t worry about spelling or legibility or grammar; this is only for you.

• When the time is up, finish your thought if needed, then give yourself a little space on the page before resetting the timer for two minutes.

• Allow your Diary to respond to you, addressing you by name (for example, I would write: “Dear Mitzi, ……”) Again, write freely without censorship, letting words flow onto the page.

• When the time is up, finish your thought if needed. If you want to go a little further, ask your diary: “Is there anything else you want me to know?” and let it respond.

• Look over what you wrote. What do you notice? Did anything unexpected happen?

Many people who (bravely!) try this kind of writing are surprised to find within themselves a voice of understanding and encouragement, even humor. If this happened for you, I invite you to practice this whenever you need a listening friend.

“I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn” wrote Anne Frank from her severe and prolonged isolation. Writing allows us to be present to our pain when no one else can be, to release our sorrows and to find renewal. Ultimately, writing allows us to BE the loving friend that we are so longing for when we feel most alone.

May you find writing to be a welcome, inspiring companion on the long road we are all walking.

Season of Loss, Season of Harvest

Autumn is a season of loss, especially evident now as woodland trees fringe gold and scarlet, sidewalks crunch with fallen leaves and acorns, and the verdant garden dies back. It is also a season of harvest as we gather in what will nourish us long after the garden is gone — pumpkins piled at roadside stands, farmers market tables laden with sweet potatoes and apples and winter squashes.

As a grief counselor I know the paradoxical truth that loss and harvest go hand in hand, whatever the season of the year. Whatever the season of life. There are times when loss rips through us right to the core of our being, leaving us shattered, exposed and vulnerable. Yet the devastation reveals, and can ultimately strengthen, our bedrock, our essence, our innate resilience of body and spirit.  “When loss rips off the doors of the heart” as poet Danna Faulds says, we discover what is still there. Like a farmer gleaning the nearly empty fields, we search for and gather in what will sustain and nurture us through the long winter ahead. 

In the midst of all that is gone, how do we discover what endures? We begin, paradoxically, by allowing ourselves to name and to grieve our losses. Loss teaches us, through the absence of something important, what is most important to us.

Writer Toko-pa Turner calls this painful process “the soul’s acknowledgement of what we value.” This suddenly clear, intense connection to what we value begins the harvest, our gathering of sustenance and nourishment for the new season that is upon us. In Turner’s words, “Grief is the honour we pay to that which is dear to us. And it is only through the connection to what we cherish that we can know how to move forward.”

As you carry your own personal losses while finding your way forward in a world radically altered by COVID-19, it may be helpful to name those losses — as well as to affirm what is NOT lost. To fully acknowledge what is gone, AND to allow yourself to glean what endures. 

You may wish to write as you reflect on the following questions. Allow yourself to speak freely, without censoring or editing, naming whatever comes to mind: people, relationships, activities, beliefs/values, aspects of yourself. Big or small, it is all important. 

In this moment, what is lost? 

In this moment, what is not lost? What endures? What still matters?

In this moment, what might grow, is growing, or has grown from loss?

In this moment, what are you grateful for?

If you are writing, circle anything that you want to “harvest” — anything that speaks to you, that can nurture or sustain you in your loss. Set a timer for 5 minutes and write freely about whatever you have chosen.

Why is this kind of personal harvest so important? So that we can learn not merely to survive, but to live again.

Last week a deeply grieving mother shared with me Simon Lambert’s striking image of a severely injured tree finding a way to continue to live, bent and twisted yet growing into the radiant sunlight. The resilience of the tree resonated with her own resilience, a vivid affirmation of what endures as well as what is still possible. It called to mind Black Elk’s invocation for his suffering people, my own hope for you in this difficult time.

It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives.

Nourish it then

That it may leaf

And bloom

And fill with singing birds!

Danna Faulds quote from “Allow”, in Go In and In: Poems from the Heart of Yoga 

Toko-pa Turner quote from her book Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home

Black Elk’s Earth Prayer: https://www.indigenouspeople.net/blackelk.htm

Listening to Autumn: Finding Balance

Autumn is slipping through summer’s branches
and I am listening.
I am listening to the dying
flowing forth from autumn’s being.
I am listening to the life
hidden in the dying.

I am listening.

We are swamped in loss and it just keeps coming: a pandemic with no end in sight, wildfires ravaging land and lives, devastating storms churning the seas, a beleaguered nation more than ever in need of one another yet divided in increasingly drastic ways. All of this in addition to the very personal losses each one of us is already struggling to bear. When so much of life has changed, when so much that we hold dear is gone or threatened, how is it possible to have any hope, much less see that there is “life hidden in the dying”?

In a world that feels so off-balance, I am pausing to note this week’s autumn equinox, a moment when the world is actually in balance. On September 22, just about the time you might be nursing a morning cup of coffee in this part of the world, the sun is directly above the Equator, making day and night equal in length. In our northern hemisphere, this is the beginning of fall, a season of dying; in the southern hemisphere, the beginning of spring, a season of life reborn. 

Hold that image in mind for a moment: the sun poised above opposing but connected hemispheres, shining equally on each side. Balancing darkness and light, uniting loss and renewal. Illuminating the “life hidden in the dying” — the coexisting opposites that together form a whole world, the planet that is our home. 

As a grief counselor, it strikes me that this is one of the constant challenges of loss — finding our balance among the confusing opposites that form our new world, often a world we did not want or choose. This is what I call learning to live with “the bothness” of conflicting thoughts and emotions, honoring each one (no matter how uncomfortable) and allowing them to coexist because together they tell the truth of our new life. 

Perhaps you have experienced this “bothness”:

• as a caregiver, wishing for the suffering to end while desperately wanting more time together

• after the death of someone you love, yearning to be normal again while feeling this is betrayal of that love

• in the midst of grief, feeling lonely yet no desire to be social

• in an unhealthy relationship, feeling you are right to set healthy boundaries yet wrong not to keep trying 

• when an unhealthy relationship ends, confused that you can miss someone who hurt you so badly 

• in this troubled time, feeling deeply grateful for your personal wellbeing yet deeply uncomfortable with your relative ease in contrast to others’ suffering

• even in life changes that you choose and orchestrate, acutely missing what you have chosen to change

Our culture prefers to keep things simple, assigning black-and-white, either-or values to thoughts and emotions. We are steeped in a legalistic, argumentative, right-or-wrong, you-or-me way of approaching life — and one another. Our impatient society highly encourages and values multi-tasking but certainly does not encourage “multi-emoting.” We are pressured to feel or think only one thing, and to dismiss anything else as unworthy.

To find our balance when loss throws us off-balance, we need to accept and value our multi-emoting. We need to be like the sun at the equinox, shining the light of our awareness (mind, heart, and spirit) on the opposites that make up the whole of our experience, trusting in the hard-earned wisdom of the whole rather than the short-cut convenience of the either-or. We find balance by allowing ourselves to think and feel what seem to be opposites but turn out to be complementary — essential pieces that fit together to form our truth. A truth that is uniquely our own, and uniquely healing.

I invite you to begin by listening to autumn. What do you hear?

I am listening to the song of transformation,
to the wisdom of the season,
to the losses and the grieving,
to the turning loose and letting go.
I am listening to the surrender of autumn.

I am listening.

Excerpts from the poem Listening to Autumn by Macrina Wiederkehr

Entire poem: https://www.annsplace.org/new-page-1

Photo credit: David Monje on Unsplash

Finding Self-Compassion, Losing Self-Pity

Late August. As the Piedmont summer heat begins to relent somewhat and the days grow noticeably shorter, I feel a shift inside me that mirrors the shift of the earth on its axis, away from the sun. I feel the sudden passage of time, a visceral knowledge in stark contrast to the strange dream-like monotony of “pandemic time.”  

I sense this change of season with a familiar pang of loss, as the fullness of summer gives way to the dwindling of light and warmth that marks autumn and winter. Having already encountered so much isolation and loss since March, here comes more. Just when we need something to stay the same, more change is in the air.

As a grief counselor, I know many of you feel this same inner shift at this time of year. It may show up as a fear of increased isolation, a vague dread of longer nights (often the hardest time of day for those in grief), deep yearning for those you love and cannot be with, anxiety about the looming holiday season where loss is highlighted, increased impatience with those who don’t understand your needs in a very changed world. You may feel on the verge of tears, more irritable than usual, more sensitive, less able to care about other peoples’ problems. You may feel frustrated that you can’t seem to get anything done despite having endless days with nowhere to go and nothing much (or way too much) to do.

And you may feel guilty or selfish or weak for feeling this way, thinking your particular suffering is small compared to so many others in this time of acute national and global suffering. You may be trying to “snap yourself out of it” by telling yourself to stop wallowing, to stop focusing on what is lost and be grateful for what you have, to stop holding a pity party, to get off your pity pot, to put on your big girl panties (or big boy pants) and deal with it. 

How’s that working for you? 

My guess is, it isn’t. Dismissal of painful emotions is a tempting shortcut that most often leads nowhere. Your suffering is your suffering. Your loss is your loss. And the only way through is — through! We cannot talk (or berate) ourselves out of it. As Earl Grollman says, “Grief is not a disorder, a disease or a sign of weakness. It is an emotional, physical and spiritual necessity, the price you pay for love. The only cure for grief is to grieve.”

However loss is showing up for you today, acknowledging your pain is both healthy and necessary. And HARD. And often, frightening. You need comfort and reassurance, just like a small child who is hurt and doesn’t understand what is happening.  

Does it help a tearful child stop crying if you demand, “Stop crying!”? Does it help a frightened child calm down if you command, “Calm down!”? In moments of overwhelm, we don’t need to be told to stop feeling what we are feeling. We need to be told: “This is hard. It hurts. It’s OK to cry. I’m here for you. It’s OK if you can’t figure it out right this minute. You will get through this.”

Can you do that for yourself? Many of us find it much easier to offer such compassion and comfort to others than to ourselves. Perhaps it feels indulgent, selfish, too much like self-pity.

Heather Stang reminds us that compassion for our personal suffering is not self-pity that isolates us from the “real” suffering of others; in fact, self-compassion helps us to be in community with them: “One of the key differences between self-pity and self-compassion is the acknowledgement that suffering is a common human experience. Self-compassion is uniting rather than divisive. We know we are on this journey together.”

Earlier this month I wrote about acceptance as the key to moving forward on this journey, this pandemic marathon through a very changed world of loss and uncertainty. We begin this work by accepting not only our changed world, but our changed selves. Our more vulnerable, less productive, profoundly tired, sometimes-floundering selves. 

For Heather Stang, acceptance means that “when the unthinkable happens, we honor our self and our experience with dignity and kindness. Rather than turn our back on our own suffering, we treat ourselves as we would a beloved friend.”

Try it. The next time you notice yourself struggling and are tempted to dismiss your suffering, imagine a beloved friend in this same distress and how you might respond. Talk to yourself as you would talk to your friend: “This is hard. It hurts. It’s OK to cry. I’m here for you. It’s OK if you can’t figure it out right this minute. You will get through this.” 

Notice how it feels to respond to your distress with loving compassion instead of criticism; notice how the distress eventually subsides and strength returns. You may not be able to hug your beloved friend in the midst of COVID-19, but it is perfectly safe — and you are hereby invited — to wrap your arms around your own struggling self, either literally or in your mind’s eye or in your heart.  In this time of social isolation when safety precautions limit our ability to “be there” for one another, be there for yourself. Whenever YOU need YOU.

Earl Grollman has written many books on coping with grief:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/28500.Earl_A_Grollman

Heather Stang writes about grief and mindfulness:

https://heatherstang.com/about/

Photo Credit: Roman Kraft on Unsplash

Finding Power in Powerlessness

When I first started writing these reflections in March, I expected the worst of the pandemic to be over in several months — a few weeks or months of challenging uncertainty and isolation, and then resumption of more-or-less normal life. I thought: “We just have to do this for a few months. Surely by summer things will be more normal.” 

And here we are, August. Things are far from normal. And not even settled on a “new normal” as we continue to be a nation divided in its response to the crisis, and as new dilemmas present themselves to us daily forcing us to weigh safety vs risk: economic needs vs safety needs, physical health needs vs emotional health needs, individual needs vs family/community needs. And no one can tell us how long it will last.

Although part of me knew right away that this global pandemic was a life-changing event with effects profound and long-lasting, I could at first only imagine a few months of living in such a radically altered world. In the chaos of sudden change and busy with the immediate challenges of survival, I could not fully grasp that my radically altered world was in fact my new world.

As a grief counselor, I knew what was happening to me. I knew that in the wake of a profound loss it is impossible for the brain and the heart to comprehend the myriad ways that life is forever changed. We learn the reality by living the reality, hour after excruciating hour, day after endless day, night after sleepless night.

So now, five months into living the reality of the pandemic, the profound societal change has taken on a very personal shape for each of us: from lost loved ones to inability to gather together for comfort or celebration to cancelled social calendars to dwindling activities we normally turn to for self-care in times of stress. Our losses are large and small, individual and societal. The effect of these accumulating losses is that reality is sinking in. As Phillip Picardi says, we are “grieving the lives we once led, and perhaps the loss of hope that we may be able to return to them soon.” 

And that can be exhausting. Daunting. Overwhelming. We may feel depleted, like we’ve used up all of our resources — just as we are realizing that what we thought was a 5K is actually a marathon, with many long miles still ahead of us.

Yet the acknowledgement of the new reality is a necessary and crucial step in coping with any profound loss. It is in itself another loss — we have to give up what we have been holding onto to survive — but it is ironically the magic key that frees us to adjust to our changed world, to find new meaning and new ways of being that will nurture and sustain us for the long haul. It is the missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle, that, once found and put into place, becomes the focal point for fitting the scattered (some would say shattered) pieces back together.

We shift our focus from what was (or what should be) to what is; we divest our energy from the impossible so that we can invest it in the possible. We move from being powerless to being powerful. All by accepting what is. Just as it is.

Until that happens the brain works overtime, trying endlessly and fruitlessly to solve an unsolvable puzzle, mentally moving the pieces of life around to try to make it work. Once we acknowledge it is not working, we can set the worn pieces down and turn our attention to the rest of the puzzle, discovering the picture that emerges bit by bit as we fit first one, and then another piece together.

By accepting what is out of our control, we regain control. By accepting the change, we become agents of change, able to see more clearly, empowered to find our way forward. Step by step. Piece by piece. 

This is a difficult process. You may feel anxious, depressed and tired as you grapple with acceptance. But I trust this process for you because I have been privileged to witness it over and over in my many years as a grief counselor as I have seen shattered lives rebuilt from this very place. And now I am having to trust this process for me — and for us all.

Phillip Picardi quote from his article “What to Do With the Sadness You're Feeling Right Now” https://www.gq.com/story/david-kessler-on-grief-and-sadness

Photo Credit: Ross Sneddon on Unsplash