Sit & Stay

As much as I dislike grief, in the past several months of sitting with it, I have discovered a gift. The gift of sorrow is that when I actually notice and accept that I am feeling it, I stop. I take it seriously. I find the moment. It is as if there is a part of me that has me in training, sort of like a puppy. I hear a voice say calmly, "Sit. Stay." I have a very kind and loving owner.

Making space for grief is easier than I thought it would be. I never tried before because I spent a lifetime trying to appear busy. Busy people are important and necessary. Busy people are more valuable. Busy people matter. Plus, I liked accomplishing goals. I had proof that I mattered. See this, I did this. I made this.

Busy is fine unless you never stop being busy. Any time I took a break, I felt pain, deep sorrow. I'd feel sad, and think, this is not a good time. I didn't like the powerlessness of sorrow. I liked the powerful feeling I had while being busy. So, I kept busy. I stayed a half step ahead of the pain. You can even stay busy in therapy. I sounded like I was evolving, sharing things that were incredibly painful. I would dump this painful drama, and get some approval. I felt relief on my way back to work.

I would hear people talk about peace and serenity. I thought that peace and serenity was the feeling I had when a project came off on-time and under-budget. I thought peace and serenity was getting awards, getting approval from bosses, parents, partners, anyone, everyone.

About five years into the full-court press, I collapsed. My body, mind and spirit went down. Total shutdown, oh, this must be peace. It was as close as I had ever been. I slept for 2 years. Total shut down masquerading as peace.

I seemed to have 2 speeds.: 150 mph, dead stop. I had 2 choices: change or die. Maybe a third, stay this way for a very long time and wish I was dead. They all sounded bad to me.

I thought I wanted change, but really I wanted to do the busy plan a little less so that I could avoid sorrow and also avoid landing flat on my butt again.

In the last year, two very important women in my life died. One was 93 years old; the other was 24. One was anticipated; the other was a catastrophe. The pain was undeniable. What I needed to do was obvious. The pain made me willing to do it.

Sit. Stay.

The result of sitting and staying is that I have felt a lot of pain. Strangely enough, I have also felt a lot of joy, and anger, and just about every other feeling a person can have. Best of all, I have felt peace and serenity, more than every. Unprecedented.

So the gift of the grief is sitting and staying. My prayer is that I will more and more remember to sit and stay with all the other feelings. None of them requires any immediate action. I can't seem to remember this when I am angry or scared. However, there is progress. I'll get busy with the dandelions or running errands, feel powerful for an hour, get exhausted and sit. The process takes a day or two instead of a decade or two. I actually use my level of business as a clue. If I am really enjoying being busy, I'll ask myself, is there something that I am not wanting to feel?

The only way for me to really figure it out is to sit and stay.