“I am wondering if grief has become my excuse for not returning to life.” they said as we checked in.
Wow! Talk about awareness of being in their own tomb. This person really had begun to ask empowering questions.
As those of us who moved through Holy Week know, there is no resurrection without the crucifixion. As the Rev. David Alexander reminded us at New Thought Center for Spiritual Living on Easter Sunday morning, the last of the seven phrases Jesus spoke from the cross was: “It is Finished.” He then went on to ask us, what old habits, beliefs and realities in your life are you ready to say ”I am finished with THIS.” I discovered doing my own work on Easter Monday with my Practitioner that I AM finished with the pattern of not asking for help. So many, many people see the value in this work, am I asking and then allowing, accepting and receiving help?
What I know after meeting with a widow support group last week is this:
When you don’t finish with grief as the dragon of your life, it will finish your life for you.
We agreed in that group that we’d all been in phase I & II of Grief. Some were still there.
Phase I- the tsunami where grief as emotions of overwhelm, panic and fear flood the tapestry of our lives. When our head is swimming in confusion, we are afraid we will die from the sobbing and life is black.
Phase II – the rushing river of emotions and whirlpools of thoughts where we are dog-paddling like mad so we don’t drown from the constant undertow of grief. We look fine to others some of the time so they have no idea how miserable we are. Except our hearts, minds and bodies do. We suffer in silence. We feel lost, alone.
I was struck by the physical change in one woman from eight months earlier. Today in Phase II she was walking with a cane. Her life was literally ‘off balance’ because of she was living in grief’s grip.
So when I shared my experience of Phase III, they agreed that grief never leaves AND we can move beyond it to live with aliveness and love again. For me Phase III occurs when grief is a quiet, underground stream (not I did not say river which in my experience is much deeper, swifter and wider) that bubbles up like a spring or even erupts like the powerful Yellowstone geyser, Old Faithful on the Memorial Date when our beloved spouse died, our house burned down or we moved away from beloved friends to be closer to our grown children.
I invited them to consider were the questions were they asking themselves about their grief empowering or disempowering?
| Dis-empowering | Empowering | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| What’s wrong with me? | What would I like to have happen now? | ||
| Why did this happen to me? | What is the most kind and loving thing | ||
| Will this grief ever end? | I can do for myself right now? | ||
| Why Me? | What can I learn from this Grief? | ||
| What is Grief telling me right now? |
What is Grief telling me right now?
When we chose to discover the power within us by asking powerful questions, we are no longer victims trying to avoid being drowned by the undertow of grief.
We concluded our time together by pondering the question “What is the benefit of staying in grief?”
I invite you to ask this empowering question of yourself wherever you are in your grief process.
So will you help a woman who has lost a child once born or never born? Who is suffering possibly in silence and share this with her? Thank you.
