Grief – Awakening Through It
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Spring is my favorite time of the year and has been since my earliest memories. The new life that comes in, flowers, bulbs, colors, trees, baby birds, and warmer weather. Not yet hot, however!
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April is also the anniversary of Daddy’s death. It’s been 13 years, that seems like lifetimes already. I often think of him and connect with the very special smile he had. The one that was natural, from the inside out. The one that you smile, before you can catch yourself. That love and presence is alive and well within me and for me. Even as I write about him again, tears flow, with emotions. Is it grief? Is it gratitude? Is it not to be named? Perhaps, even love.
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“Death cannot take love from me. ”
— Martha Creek
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When I first started serving in ministry, people who were strong, capable, and highly functioning would come to me with uncommon challenges. I began asking them, "What death anniversary is it?" They would seem shocked at the question, similar to how I had experienced years prior. What I came to learn is that the unresolved grief, unprocessed feelings, and unfinished relationship business were all carried forward. There is something in our bones and blood, conscious and unconscious, that operates around the many heartstrings we have. |
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In our humanity, we are still wounded, holding grudges, growing resentments, trying to make our past a different one, trying to predict and control a future, which all leads to unloving, self-hating, stress, and so on, need of enlightenment. While we have spawned centuries of people trying to be spiritual and religious, records and behaviors show that on many levels, our basic humanness is quite pitiful --- somewhat untended to and unintentionally, unconsciously running the show. This complicates further the losses, deaths, changes, and unknowns that accompany living.
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“The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you’ll learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to. ”
— Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
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The literal definition of grief: Conflicting feelings caused by a change or end in a familiar pattern.
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Change is normal and natural — so is grief! Pain too. Imagine you just hit yourself on the finger with a hammer. You’re jumping up and down with pain. How helpful would it be for someone to say “Oh don’t feel the pain, you didn’t hit yourself on purpose.” YOU would NOT say that to someone in obvious pain.
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Any attempt to bypass negative emotions can and will have disastrous consequences — it goes into the emotional underground, always looking for an eruption point. |
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Myths of grief that we absorbed, picked up through custom, culture, history, and family include:
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- Happy feelings are GOOD! Sad feelings, negative feelings are BAD! “Go to your room, dry it up, stop it!”
- When we laugh, we laugh together --- when we cry, we cry alone!
- Tomorrow is another day --- likely an attempt to bypass current feelings. “Move on, don’t look back, suck it up.”
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I have to be strong for ____________ (fill in the blank), the kids, my spouse, the family, the co-workers, everybody.
- Keep a stiff upper lip. Don’t show emotions. Don’t be weak.
- Pull yourself up by the bootstrap. My ancestors said it like this, “Get yourself together.” “Pull yourself together.”
- Don’t burden others with your pain, sorrow, and grief.
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How did you hear these messages?
From the “Grief Recovery Handbook,” here are their listed myths about grief processing: Keyword--MYTH. So, let’s practice doing the opposite for the rest of our lives, shall we?
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“To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die. ”
— Thomas Campbell
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Our conflicting feelings of missing the familiar also include being relieved at the changes too. While we are missing the relationship, person, pet, job, etc., there can also be feelings of ease, relief, surrender, or even excitement about the new way. |
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Recovery through grief requires us to take some “little” or large actions. For example: If your car tire is flat, you don’t pull up a chair and watch and wait for air to return into the tire. You take action. Call someone, reach out, look around, who’s available, who can supply some support here. |
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Recovery from and through loss is achieved by a series of small and correct actions/choices made by you the CREATOR! When Olivia died last year, I was guided to do several things to process the grief. They included watching a movie every day for 30 days. I totally resisted this at first, because I don’t watch much of anything. I don’t enjoy “looking for a movie to watch,” I doubted its efficacy, etc. However, I surrendered and took it as a spiritual mandate and followed. It was SOOOOOOO beneficial. I watched mostly true stories, inspiring depictions of grit and resilience in people and families, heartfelt, tearjerker, and hope-filled movies. Every day for 30 days, Yes. I highly recommend it and I’ve included a partial list of them further down. |
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“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard. ”
— Winnie the Pooh
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I also, along with Hadilyn (my five-year-old great niece) who was really missing Olivia (who was like my heart daughter/Wesley, my nephew’s partner) looked around anytime we were eating out for an apparent “family” that was eating together, adults and kids, and we secretly paid for their meal as we remembered and celebrated the times we got to gather and eat as a family together.
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The mind has access only to what it has learned. It cannot use what it doesn’t know. Others are and were ill-prepared to help us deal with losses. We believe that what we already know about loss is “right.” If we can accept the simple premise that we’ve been practicing and habituated in some incorrect ideas, then we can allow us to begin practicing NEW and more correct ideas. Herein lies a very different result field. |
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Check out books: “Grief Recovery Handbook” and “When Children Grieve” by John James and Russell Friedman. Other books, highly recommended, “Awakening from Grief - Returning to Joy,” and “When Prayers Aren’t Answered" by John Welshons. All have been and continue to be helpful/essential in my new path with grief.
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I also have the five-week series on grief videos originally presented in March available if watching those would support you. Click here to watch the 5-part series.
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I’m cheering you on, confident of your divinity AND the unfolding evolution of your humanity – and mine! |
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Martha Creek
502-905-0783
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ps: Below are all of the wonderful Word Gifts I received from all of you on my birthday in arrangements. Thank you!!!!
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My April 2022 Special Gift for You! |
And here is my special gift to you this month.
Click on the box to open your gift.
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Martha's words are wise, honest, real and come from her heart. Each "pearl" opens my heart and mind to possibilities, to a lesson for me told in her own loving, and very often humorous way. They bring laughter and tears, and a deep gratitude for the wisdom that she shares from her own experiences. Martha's precious personal stories bring her experiences right off the page into my world, allowing me to remember stories of my own. Every page gifts me with an idea, a truth or a lesson that I know will bring me closer to the truth of who I am.... and for this I am eternally grateful.
Bunches of love, Mary
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Make choices in the direction of more light.
— Martha Creek
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