This note today is not about interior design of your home, of space planning for activities or color to enhance your lifestyle. This is about good old grief.
How long do you hold onto it?
How might it affect your personal health?
How can you keep tabs on it in relation to other things in your life?This February is a big month for me. No, not the anniversary of the death of my spouse or father or other relative. No, it is not the fact that I am single again this Valentine's day.
This month I have choices to make that appeared from nowhere. I did not view or consider them on the horizon. Like the loss of a loved one and am rebounding from the information.
I have been diagnosed with breast cancer. Not me, my head and heart echoed. But yes. Six months ago I was cancer free. Now my body is working hard to defend itself from an invader. Grief invades too. Most of us have felt that invasion of grief into our lives, into our choices and into our dreams.
Metaphysically speaking, the left side of the body is the receiving side or female Metaphysically speaking the location of the tumors are in a part of the breast aligned with self esteem issues. Another part of the breast in associated with abandonment issues. Does this make sense? Does this even matter?
I have used this as a tool to assess what have I held onto in my grief journey. Have I diminished my thought of usefullness and importance because my role of wife, mother and daughter has drastically changed? Have I felt all alone too much of the time and not accepted or received the outreach of others?
What I know it this, I am grieving for a part of my body that I will relinguish, but this time in grief I know the gains. The gains of compassion are one and maybe this time more compassion for myself! The gains of unexpected and new personal relationships and the discovery of a new us in all of it erupts from grief as well.
In your grief, where is it carried in your body? Mine was deep in my left breast, close to my heart. It is not the reason my body has created these foreign cells , but it calls me to look at grief on a different level. It is causing me to view how I can support myself and accept support from others. We are a community of souls working as a whole. We often forget our relationship to others in grief and feel our function in life lost.
I am thankful that my body gave me this heads up. I am thankful for health providers that remind us of preventative care. Grief, it shows up in all forms, but it can provide us with that gentle reminder of self care. We have often cared so much for others, it is now our time.
This Valentine's day I will be solo but thankful of what grief brings up, namely opportunities to improve our relationship with ourselves and others. It is unexpectedly beautiful. Happy Valentine's Day.
If you believe any of what you have written, you know that it is time to make friends again and to make peace, with the one you hurt as well as with yourself. Apologize if necessary - but you have to make peace. Without such peace, the facade of words falls away only to reveal grace decomposing into a mere lie. Without walking the talk, sooner or later all who hear the words will recognize the stain and integrity will rot as well. The remaining chance is slipping away. Friendship shines like the bright shards of glass while cold-hearted apathy rots all who carry it and all who suffer it. You know that it is the right thing to do. It is really that simple. It is never too late, it just becomes more difficult with time. In the stillness of this temporary hurt, let the soul remember something better than what is currently on the table.
ReplyDelete