No one can face what is yours to face or feel what is yours to feel. The hard truth is that we will all love and lose. Even harder, no one knows why. The more we use a plethora of ways to avoid it, the less love we will live.
Knowing love and loss is the mystery that brings us deeply alive.
The way our culture deals with grief is broken, mostly because we are afraid to feel. Pain and loss are not to be “fixed” but tended to.
Loss forever changes our landscape, no going back to that place of “normal.” The only way forward is making a new map. This happens when we open up to each other in the depth of this human journey. Ultimately, the healing and bond of love is knit by how we experience love and loss together, without judging, pushing each other or drowning in the need to rescue each other from a baptism of soul. It is entering each other’s pain and recognizing ourselves inside of it.
Our job is not to minimize the pain, but to investigate what these life-changing incidents are opening in us.
To be broken is no reason to see all things as broken. This new existence restores what really matters and allows us to love deeper.
Everything will not be “all right,” but the suffering will be woven with life again in the forever changed landscape.
Until after the trauma and grief of losing my daughter, I couldn’t have imagined being thrust into an entirely different world.
I discovered that in this “different world” most will feel judged, shamed and corrected in how we grieve – “put the past behind;” “move on;” “everything happens for a reason;” “they’re in a better place.” As well-intentioned as these attempts to comfort are, they dismiss the depths of such great pain into greeting card one-liners.
When we most need love, support and space, we don’t feel freedom to talk about it and resort to pretending I’m okay. That only handicaps us from carrying the love forward following this new map.
This is the result of centuries-old beliefs that grief is a terrifying, messy emotion that should be cleaned up and put behind us as soon as possible. Counselors are trained to view grief as a disorder rather than a perfectly normal response to deep losses.
The worst part is that in our suffering, we don’t have a clue how to care for ourselves. If we truly want to love and care for ourselves and each other better, we have to humanize grief, talk about it, and accept it as a normal process, not something to be shunned, ignored or covered.
It’s OK that you’re not OK!
I’ve been the one wailing, unable to eat, sleep, or tolerate being in public. There is such a big difference in trying to talk someone out of their grief and supporting them living through it. That can only happen when it is validated with loving support when horrors erupt in our lives. And they will!
So let me validate your pain. There is pain and grief you cannot be cheered out of. You don’t need to move on, you need someone to see your grief, acknowledge it, hold your hand as you can hardly breathe, staring at the hole that was your life.
The world splits open and nothing makes sense. Time has stopped, your mind replays the events, hoping to wake up from the nightmare. Everything you see becomes a symbol of the life that used to be and might have been.
Grief is a natural extension of love and it can be excruciating. But it doesn’t mean it’s not healthy. It’s impossible to grieve something you don’t love. It is love for life, love for self, love for others.
And it doesn’t mean there isn’t a big, beautiful life mapped out for you!
I want to let all of you know that because I’ve come to deeply understand how broken these principles are, I have planned to host a retreat for all you who have suffered your world being split open. I will be releasing details very soon.
Loving deeply,
Ruthie