Traveling Through the Pain

This morning I lit two candles and laid on my yoga mat feeling tired, achy and frustrated. I didn’t want to be there. I definitely wanted to be somewhere else . . . anywhere else than where I was . . . I laid there in stillness with a shallow breath and waited . . . hoping that something would change. I soon realized as I continued to lay there that it wasn’t being somewhere else that was going to make a difference; it was that I wanted to feel something else; anything else then what I was feeling.

I laid there a little bit longer, hoping that the small insight might have been enough to change my state of heart . . . but it wasn’t.

Begrudgingly, I began to move clumsily without any coordination or plan. Before I knew it tears started flowing. I started to see that this feeling of loss and heartbreak is hard to be with and that it is no wonder why I wanted to be somewhere else. 

I mentioned in my blog last week that one of my dearest and most beloved friends who I had companioned for the last few months died tragically to suicide. I am in the tumultuous waves of grief and loss.

As I cried, a little bit of space opened up in the places that I am defending against; the places that miss her; the places that wonder how she is doing and where her spirit is.

I am having a hard time being human right now. Mostly, I realize that I have a part of me that believes because I am doing the right things in my grief, the pain shouldn’t be here. Another part of me wants to be on the other side of this heartache. A deeper wisdom inside of me knows that I won’t be here forever. And yet, I long for the wisdom of what this pain will teach me.

Today reminds me that we are human first. Part of being human is the inclusion of what hurts. And that hurting is not an indication of weakness, of not having it all together, or a reflection of how well the tools and practices are working, but rather it points to the fact that we love and care. 

A wise mentor shared with me that we are wired for suffering. Human beings were designed to be able to suffer. She is right. In just saying those few simple words, we began to talk about all those right now who are heartbroken just like me, suffering just like my friend was and all the others around the world with more horrific and never ending anguish and pain. There is wisdom in that we need to include and transform our pain with the collective pain that others feel too. 

As I sat down to write, a dear friend reached out to check in on me and sent this. 

The Uses of Sorrow by Mary Oliver

Someone I loved once

gave me a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand that

this, too, was a gift.

Liz Newman says, “Grieving varies from person to person: it is not linear, and the timing for healing varies from situation to situation. But as we travel through the pain, with time, we will start to be able to see the beauty that can come from even our most heartbreaking seasons—the perseverance that can grow despite deep suffering.” 

The wise part of me knows that this will take time and cannot be rushed. The wise part of me knows that in the midst of pain, there are also joys. The wise part of me knows that this is life.

Heartbreak is a part of all our lives.