REIGNITING A SENSE OF VITALITY

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.  JRR Tolkien

This week there was a lot of productive writing about health, finding balance, self-protection etc., but it was Julia’s section at the end of the chapter that had the most impact on me – using pain as energy.

I’ve been thinking a lot about pain and grief over the past few months.  There’s so much of it going on around me –  not just friends and family who have lost their spouses, but their jobs, financial and family related issues too.

It made me think back to those horrible two years after my husband left me.  How I floundered and wondered if I would ever find stability – let alone contentment – again.

I will always be so very very grateful to the friends and family out there who allowed me to express my grief, and didn’t tell me to ‘move on’ or ‘find yourself a new life’.  They gave me time and support, allowing me to acknowledge my sense of grief and loss and that everything wasn’t okay.  They didn’t chivvy me along, but let me talk and just ‘be’.

Someone I was talking to this week put it so beautifully.  She said she discovered that trying to deal with her grief on a surface level – I’m fine!’- caused her more harm that good because ‘the surface of the water is where the waves are’. Bouncing from one wave to the other, she had no chance to deal with her pain.  She discovered she had to allow herself to dive deep into her grief, to go down into the darkness and quiet, and allow herself to grieve properly (not the same as wallowing!!) in her own way and in her own time.  Only after that was she able to rise up to calmer waters.