The grief just wanted me to know it was there
I’m sitting in the middle of my living room floor, on my yoga mat, as I do every morning. My mind is going at a million miles a minute. I’m feeling all sorts of tightness and pain and twisting of my insides and I’m doing my best to breathe through it. Been working through some difficult things over the last few weeks, and I’m doing my best to accept the emotions as they come, feel them, even if sometimes it’s like a tidal wave and I have no idea what way is up or down and I can’t stay afloat. I’m doing my best to keep up with “The Class”, and the instructor, Taryn, says: “Are you in grief? Love? In the void? It doesn’t matter which, simply notice.” I felt something in me release just then, as it was the first time I noticed and accepted I was in grief, without judging myself for it.
Sometimes doing this work (the meditation, the yoga, and so on) makes me feel like I should be invincible to being a human, so any time a human thing starts to come at me, I immediately feel like I’m doing something wrong or the work I do isn’t worth it, or it’s been a waste of time. I’m slowly learning that I will always feel the emotions, because that is part of this human experience, and the work I do is to help me through it instead of turning to things I would have done in the past that are unhealthy and destructive.
I almost felt the grief smile at me in that moment, which is a weird thing for me to think about grief doing. It was just so happy that it was being seen and heard and recognized, and it just wanted me to sit with it. All it had been wanting was for me to know it was there. I got to thinking that every time there is growth, there is a cycle. Something doesn’t just…appear. A tree, for example, starts with a single seed. A human starts with a cell. Even something like Netflix started with mail order DVDs. And, everything starts with a spark of an idea in someone’s imagination. Then, it goes through phases. What needs to be let go? What needs to change? What skin needs to shed? And on and on. I started realizing that I only wanted the harvest part of the cycle. The feel good part of the cycle. The emerging on the other side of the cycle. But, that doesn’t happen unless the other parts happen. I’m spending so much time pushing the grief away when it is what is healing me, it is what is showing me that I’m letting go of things that are no longer me. It’s a necessary part of the cycle.
The planting of the seed, the watering, the adjustments as the plant begins to reach too much toward the light, the cleaning of the weeds, the tending to it if it has been eaten by animals - all of the things that are necessary to get the plant to harvest are just as important and beautiful as the harvest itself, are they not? I’m the only one who’s putting labels and keeping score. And what does that do? Only makes me hate where I am, and keep me stuck here, frustrated.
In music, for example, when I’m putting together a song, the writing of it, the recording of it, the tweaking of it, etc. I enjoy all of it. So, I want to learn to apply it to my own life.
I’m learning that I need to let myself be. If I need to cry, I let myself cry. If I need to sit on the floor and do nothing, I do it. Love myself through the grief instead of not listening and going about up my life as usual and then just being mad at myself when I can’t keep up. The grief needs tending to. AND, these moments when I feel like being hard on myself are actually the moments that I need the most tenderness and love.
That’s all I got for today. All that being said, I still want to throw a tantrum and complain and play victim. I do my best to simply observe this. Keep peeling back these different layers of emotions and feelings and thoughts and simply observing them as part of this all. Eventually, I know they will pass.
If anyone else is dealing with anything like this, I feel you. Sometimes it’s enough just to know someone else is going through what you are, being able to relate and connect.
Sending you all my love,
Kat
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