I was recently reading a blog (http://www.marcandangel.com) I go to at times for inspiration and I came across this message
"Yes, there are lots of inherent events in life that occur completely independently of you – birth, death, loss, sickness, aging, and unexpected changes of all kinds – but these life events do not have to cause ongoing confusion and suffering. They happen, you experience a little stress, you adjust, and you move forward. The problem occurs when you don’t adjust and move forward, when your mind clings to these events in a negative light and intensifies their significance into perpetuity. If your mind does this, of course, it completely overlooks the subtle feelings of excitement, adventure, love, and joy that come from the essence of overcoming a new challenge."
While there is a lot of wisdom in these word and some things I really appreciate, I am first going to point out that calling those life events "a little stressful" is obviously minimizing. The death of a loved one causes more than a little stress. I have a little stress when I am running late for a meeting. I am internally shattered at the loss of my baby. Still I was able to read between the lines and take away a couple of really helpful things from this post. One of them being the fact that you allow your mind to turn your pain, your grief and your loss into a state of perpetual agony. I told someone recently that I do not want sadness and grief to be what connects Mateo, I want love to be. Oh, the thought of being perpetually shattered. It is just that, a thought. Everything we are is thought.
Lately I have been struggling with anger. I once told someone I don't do anger. I don't allow myself to get angry. They told me, that just means " you do anger, you just don't do anger very well". While a rude thing to say, it was also very honest. I do not do anger very well. And as long as I keep saying that, and thinking that then that will always be true. I have been exploring different ways to work through that hurt. I have the things that always help, writing and talking it out with a friend. I am trying to tie in physical activity and maybe thinking through some new ways to get things out. A friend who is a dancer was telling me about the connection between therapy and dance, and how it is used as a medium for everything from physical health to mental health. I might not be ready to dance my heart out but I am open to creative and artistic ways of expressing my pain. I may not dance very well, but I gotta be better at that then I am at anger.
The second thing I really liked from this post was the reminder to not miss out on excitement, adventure, love and joy. I have a picture of myself with a good friend hanging on my bedroom mirror. In this picture I am being hugged tightly, my eyes are closed and I am laughing incredibly hard. I remember how I felt that day. I look at that picture every day and wonder if I will ever close my eyes and throw my head back and laugh like that again. Maybe not like that. I can't go back. But can I laugh with every cell in my body the way I grieve with every cell? I am so easily emotionally winded. I will be fine one moment and with just the slightest provocation I am set off to shut down. The slightest thing has me recoiling and wishing for shelter, for the comfort of my bed. The silence and solitude. Neutral ground. The trouble is that in the safe places there is no laughing so hard with my eyes closed that I can hardly stand it.
The same blog post also had this quote:
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” ―Anaïs Nin
"Your life will begin to improve when you define precisely what ‘improve’ means to you. The agonies and frustrations will start to ease only when you have something real and positive to replace them with. Be specific. Happiness is not a goal, it’s the result of a life well lived. The question is: How do you want to live going forward?"
What does improve mean to me? I can't improve death. I cannot make the undead happen. What can I make happen? The line that really struck me was " the agonies and frustrations will ease only when you have something real and positive to replace them with" Now I had to sit this for a moment. My first thought was, I can't replace Mateo. But this isn't asking me to consider that. It is saying the agony and frustration around losing him will start to ease when I redirect myself in a real and positive way. Nothing I do can replace my little guy. Not even having more children. I am not trying to replace him. I am trying to replace the pain. He is mine forever. all the anger and frustration and pain from his loss, I don't want to hold on to them as tightly as I hold on to him. They aren't a packaged deal. So, what positive, real, and specific things am I redirecting my life towards? For one, personal growth. I am being proactive in my grief. Doing as the Buddha advised and instead of hiding from it, I am walking right into it. I am also exploring new ways of growing. Meditating. Sharing my pain with others- this is a hard one for me. Allowing the people closest to me so see me as vulnerable and letting them care for me. This is why I am doing this walk on the 27th for the March of Dimes with friends instead of alone. Really working on those relationships new and old so that I can be sustained through my pain and be there for others in theirs. I am also challenging myself to try new things. Really random things. Calligraphy class. A summer kickball league. I am not looking to just fill my time for the sake of it, or as a way to never be alone with my thoughts. I am challenging myself to come out of my comfort zone in such a way that I can't help but grow. I am taking things I find challenging, or have always said I am not good at, or I could never do that, and saying I might as well as try. I might as well try and grow, try to figure out how I want to live going forward? I know what I don't want, but I'll never know what I do until I attempt to live a life after child loss.
"This moment – right now – is your life. Say yes to it. Don’t ignore it by pretending that you’re living in some other time and place. You aren’t – doing so is impossible. The only life you can live is the only life there is – the moment you are in right now. Ignoring this fact is reckless. Ignoring it is denying reality, and denying reality is rejecting the entire process of living."
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