Room For Change: Dance in Grief and Loss

What do you hear from others within the loss experience? " Move On!" "Get out in nature." At the same time you hear comments of " Don't change anything during the first year." "Never move or sell your home." Keep your distance from this or that experience.

 Nothing is complete in grief and nothing is static. Loss teaches us the lightness or heaviness of each moment  and even creates pockets of numbness and observation.

The country song, with lyrics of " one step forward, two steps back" echoed as a gift to my ears in grief.
Other lyrics of " Life's a dance , you learn as you go, sometimes you lead, sometimes you follow" inched me along.

Friends and loved ones' intentions  are meant to keep you moving. Your loss is often their loss too maybe of dreams, friendship and the continuity in their lives.

Acknowledge where you wish to be placed and at imagine at what moment you wish to be there.

Grief , the dance, sometimes you lead, sometimes you follow- It's all good.  Move where you wish, forward, backwards, sideways , up or downwards.  Just Move.   Someone will be beside you.

Your partnering may change but keep moving. You are worth it!

Room For Change: THE GUEST

                                                       

Welcoming the Guest
He has been with me
from the beginning


I have served the others
knocking
I have left the doors wide
open for others to come in


Yet I neglected to 
welcome the Guest
The God within me


From which shines
everlasting peace
not only within me
but through me


Welcome Yourself to this, Your Table


Blessings   Susan

Room For Change: Crossings and Crossfires

Crossing Across
Crossing By
Crossing Under
Caught in the Crossfire?


Life full of Crossings
Full of Catches
Full of Tosses

When I observe, nothing is tossed nor caught... It is like that majestic fly ball that keeps going and going, keeping everyone in blissful awe... because it just is.

No one knows if it will be caught, dropped or in fair play.. It sails and is observed in its precious moments.

Too often I place myself in imagined crossfires, instead of crossings... Tossing myself into unimagined dramas or unimagined ecstasy.

With this thought today, I may just have to pick up a ball and bat and give life a swing again.

Play ball and heads up!

The Keyhole

Coming through the keyhole
You look
You remember and your soul sighs.
It is here you belong.


Now you remember the door was never locked.
You peered to where you felt you should be-
You shrunk , you pushed, you ever changed form.


What you had been given, has always been and will always be.  Here, complete and all.


The key to wholeness is within your reach and never more peered through but experienced in full.

Room For Change: In Outlook and In Growth

The Book of Isaiah speaks about the Lord settling international disputes  and about how all wars will stop and military training will come to an end.  It speaks of walking in the light of the Lord.

I often turn to the scriptures in times of weariness, to find the respite  I need or  for the acknowledgement of better times to come.  The above reference in Isaiah 2 was very comforting this morning, yet I also  acknowledge that  God  is within me and that what starts within my own soul or being goes outward.  ( It is quite the opposite of what goes on in Vegas stays in Vegas!)

Further reference in this scripture is "beating swords into plowshares" and " beating spears into pruning hooks" as all warring is dissipated.  Those of you that know how I "see" in pictures , this vision came alive in an instant.

How does this have anything to do with grief, loss and change?   Why talk about assault and growth at the same time or even try to change the outlook of the world.? No, I have not gone mad and I am not claiming world peace to come within the next 6 months!

 In loss and grief, our world and emotions feel like the entire world.  Everything that ever challenged our comfort zone amplifies in loss and grief.  The boxing gloves come on and the gnashing of teeth starts!   After my husband and father's death, I wanted to accuse everything and everybody.

Time can heal, but the site of the wound may be there.  The site can also be viewed as what was excised to bring us closer to whole or closer to being the holistic individual of Divine creation.

The swords are turned into plowshares to cut the furrows to plant the seed.
The spears are bend into pruning hooks to remove what is superfluous and trim for bigger and fuller and healthier growth.  What encouraging words in grief and loss and change.

So whether the Bible is a source of your solace and support or not, the image of the " imagined" cruelty in loss still pierces, still stings.  Yet, with time, with repurposing and reflection, the pain and the infliction does  reinvent its initial purpose.  The scar may be there, but the wounding can be lifted.


In grief, let your burden be shared, let the new seeds sprout in small ways and never underestimate taking away what is superfluous for you today.

Those of us, in grief and experiencing loss and its changes in our lives, can be like the bamboo plant with its resilience, humility and uprightness.  It bends, but is seldom breaks.

Redesign and repurpose what you have for your renewed outlook and growth.   You are resilient!

Blessings. Susan

Room For Change: Ode to Opening Your Heart

              

                               OPENING YOUR HEART


Opening your heart
      arms wide stretched-but do
        not take the "beating" this time




Turn the other cheek-but do
        not be bruised by the strike




Forgive your assaulter- but do
         not assault yourself


Opening, turning, forgiving and loving
         now is forever
         forever is now

Room For Change: Good Grief or Good "re-Grief"

I had not readied myself for the upwelling of feelings.  I had commanded the appointments, followed through with scheduling and now was returning for a follow-up medical procedure to the initial follow up medical procedure.

I have attended to many of these similar procedures when my late husband's diagnosis lingered and continued until his analogous stem cell replacement failed.

I had complained about the wait in the waiting rooms.  Mumbled under my breath about "cool" receptionists and old magazines and people waiting for your name to be called like a number in line at the deli.  This time I was alone for my testing, without my late husband, without being the security for myself, like the security I felt I had lent to him.

There was no need to feel scared or concerned.  The procedure was known, the terminology understood and protocol made sense.  Rationally I was doing just fine... good grief, there was not a terminal diagnosis, but "RE-grief"came up big time.   I viewed the sterile surface in the testing room and my hands got weak.  The smell of the alcohol and betadine, made my stomach squizzy.  All I wanted to do was crawl up into a warm blanket until it was all over.

It was not my procedure but my body remembering the pain, the languishing waits and the protocols that my late husband had endured.  It was followed by my father's hospitalization and death the following year.

How could I remove these memories from welling up again, when I did not even know they were dormant barely under my skin?  Make new ones... for myself and for others.

1.  Be kind and extra kind to the receptionists.. Think of anxious people that await them each day ..

2.  Thank staff about "service" that reassured you or other ways they tried to be clear and less clinical.

3. Bring in a few new magazines and leave them for others to view.

4. Smile at others and acknowledge their presence.

5. Take yourself out for lunch, an ice cream or to a bookstore after your appointment.  Reward yourself in small ways.


Re grief is simply Re Thinking.  Remember how you care for your loved ones and be kind to yourself on your solo protocol days.

Someone told me to go get a drink after my test, but I went and got a huge chocolate cupcake with tons of frosting.  Think that will do for today:)