The Time Is Here to Grieve

During an artist residency sponsored by the Kentucky Foundation for Women and the Sisters of Loretto, and inspired by rich conversation with wise souls, I wrote the following piece.

While still at Loretto, in a sweet little house surrounded by pasture and curious cows, I recorded the poem, which you can listen to below.

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The time is here to grieve. 

The time is here to open up  to change, to loss,  to “I’ve never lived in this world before.”

What do you know?  Practically nothing. 

What do you want?  For the pain to go away. 

 Then you must let it go. 

Holding onto the fear, the hurt, the sorrow,  stuffing them down into your body,  only inflames your being.  

Grasping at what cannot be contained  only exacerbates exhaustion. 

Clinging to the known,  even as it slips away,  only prolongs despair.  

Allow yourself despair.  Let it flow through you,  washing you,  dirty, clean,  wearing away your edges.  Softening. 

You cannot know the next life  while you are clutching.  You cannot see it  if you are only looking backward.  

Look around.  Who is here with you?  Who holds your hand?  The gentle, warm touch  may change nothing  except to remind you  that you are not alone. 

Look ahead.  Do you tremble at the fog?  Do you tense with every  “I don’t know“?  Are you willing to  step forward anyway? 

Look to Mother Earth.  Notice that She is steady  under your feet.  She is all around you,  cradling you.  She will not fall away,  even if you betray Her.  She will sustain you  with her tender-fierce  maternal care. 

If you let her. 

Stomp!  Wail!  

Fall to your knees  in the  relief  of  surrender. 

The time is now to cry.  The cry is now to Time.  

More time!  Mourn time.  

Grief flowing transforms.  Grief stagnant petrifies.  

What do you choose? 

River or fossil?

Allowed to Feel It All

About a week ago I was feeling all the grief, not about COVID-19 (for once), but about having to create a strong boundary with a person I care about. I shared my situation with a couple of people who listened compassionately, but even with their attentiveness, I couldn’t shake it. The grief still wanted to be heard. In the evening I was texting with another friend about it, who told me that I shouldn’t take on someone else’s grief, especially now, that it was even unhealthy to do so. My friend used the analogy that you may have seen by now- we’re all in the same storm, but in different boats. The point my friend was trying to make was that because I wasn’t in the same boat as the person with whom I needed to create the boundary, I shouldn’t have feelings about the other boat.

At that suggestion my grief turned to rage. Rage at the idea that being in the different boats meant I shouldn’t have feelings about the other boats. Rage that the person was telling me that feeling these emotions was unhealthy. Rage that my friend didn’t get that the point of the boat analogy was actually encouraging empathy, connection, and understanding rather than squelching them.

Rage feels a lot more powerful than grief and I was grateful for the energetic change. The conversation  ended shortly after that and I opened Untamed, Glennon Doyle’s latest memoir. I happened to be at the chapter in which Glennon wrote about her heartbreak at learning of immigrant family separations happening at the U.S.-Mexico border and the ways that she responded to that situation. As I read, my rage turned back to grief and then to relief. She understood. I felt heard by a stranger who hadn't actually even heard me. 

Being in different boats doesn’t mean we don’t get to have feelings about the other boats. It also doesn’t mean that if we’ve got a good sturdy boat with room for more people, we just wave at the folks in the leaky canoe. “Sorry about your luck! See ya later!” If we see and can do something, hopefully, we'll do something. That's a topic to explore another day. 

I kept reading. I allowed myself to feel whatever feelings arose.

I am allowed to feel it all. You are allowed to feel it all. 

That night I shed a few tears. I put down my book and I slept well. I woke up feeling lighter because the grief was no longer stuck in me. It had moved through.

Many of us have been taught that some emotions are good (joy, gratitude, relief, hope) and others are bad (loneliness, disgust, anxiety, confusion). Some of the “bad” emotions are even gendered by societal norms. Men can feel angry and express it, but women can’t. Women can feel grief and express it, but men can’t. Then there’s shame. Most of us have been told to feel shame at one time or another (“You should be ashamed of yourself!”), but few of us want to admit to feeling it. It’s too scary. Fear and shame, shame and fear, both are adept at disguising themselves as something else. Often it’s anger. And so we allow some emotions to surface and try to keep others from seeing the light of day. We feel the stress of holding them in our bodies, then we disconnect from both the emotions and our bodies because the accumulation becomes too painful. And...or...at the moment we least expect, all the emotions erupt out of us; we become the storm leaving wreckage behind us.

What if we allowed ourselves to feel more instead of stuffing, denying, numbing? What if we could name the feelings in all their nuance and even recognize when we were experiencing a whole slew of feelings all at once? What if, when someone else told us how they were feeling and it made us uncomfortable, we could both live with our own discomfort and also honor the feelings the other person was having?  

Since I’ve been practicing Compassionate Communication, I’ve gotten in much better touch with my feelings. I notice that they’re happening in the first place. I give myself space to explore them. I allow myself to be with them without judging whether they’re good or bad.

Noticing, honoring, and tending to emotions are practices. They are practices of connecting- to ourselves and each other. I believe these are lifelong practices. May we lean into the spectrum of emotions. May we lean into each other as we tend to them. 

Riding the Roller Coaster Together

On April 1 I posted this question on Facebook: Who else had been hoping to wake up this morning to hear that the last few weeks were all just a sick extended April Fool's joke? 

Of course, it's not. This is very real. The most apt analogy I know is that of a roller coaster. A very long emotional roller coaster that none of us chose; the entire world is in its cars.  

Some of us are terrified all the time, whether we're upright or upside down, moving quickly or slowly. Some of us are angry that we were forced onto the ride. Some of us are anxious because we don't know what's ahead. Some of us are anxious because we have ideas about what's ahead. Some of us are grieving the things we can't experience while on the ride. Some of us are grieving the cars that derailed. Some of us are sick. Some of us are excited about certain parts of the ride. Some of us are hanging on tighter to our co-riders. Some of us are distraught because we're the only one in our particular car and we can't reach anyone in another car. Some of us feel calm, even though we've never ridden this ride before, hopeful that we'll get through it.

For many of us, our emotional state depends on where we are on the ride- going up a long slow hill, at the peak about to speed down in a seeming free fall, sideways going so fast around a curve that our body is jolted, upside down hoping our restraints don't fail us. Our emotions can change from high to low in the blink of an eye- from calm to anxious to angry to sad to hopeful. Sometimes we experience seemingly contradictory emotions all at once. This is a normal response to not normal times. 

Regardless of where we are on the ride, remember that we are all doing our best and sometimes our best looks fan-frickin'-tastic and sometimes it looks bleak. Our best doesn't always look the same.

Regardless of where you are, you are doing your best and sometimes your best looks fan-frickin'-tastic and sometimes it looks bleak. Your best doesn't always look the same.  

My deep hope is that we will be gentle with ourselves. My deep hope is that we will be gentle with each other. We are all in this together. 

We are all in this together. 

We are all in this together. 

As my mind cycles through scarcity and abundance thinking, I offer myself the above reminder a lot. Many times a day. We are all in this together. We are all in this together. I trust that as I offer care in the way I'm able, I, too, will receive care. Maybe it's easy to trust that because of my many points of privilege. In my life, I have always been ok. Whatever the source, I will continue to practice trusting. It is a practice. An experiment.

The roller coaster is giving us all sorts of opportunities, some welcome, many not, to practice and experiment. With meditation and breathing practices. With new was of connecting to loved ones we can't see. With new ways of disconnecting from our family or housemates when we're spending far more time together than we're used to. With finding activities that bring us joy when things we'd normally do aren't currently available to us. With finding new routines for our days. With finding balance between caring for ourselves and caring for others. With so many areas of our lives. 

As you are experimenting and practicing, I imagine you're also looking for guidance. I know I am. Recently I read this article, Why You Should Ignore All That Coronavirus-Inspired Productivity Pressure, and offer it here as I found the perspective helpful and you might, too. 

And if you're needing a bit of beauty for your ears, I offer this rendition of Imagine. 

Wherever or however you are, I hope you are finding what you need to sustain you. Know that I am here, ready and willing to listen or offer what I'm able. 

We are all in this together.