The grieving of my grief got me here
With each death, I died
Only I didn’t know I was dying
Until too much death and loss caught up to me
Until the stench and heaviness found me one day
And when it found me it gutted me like an animal and left me to heal in the open air
I was gutted by grief
There were days and months I didn’t think I would find my insides again
There were days and months I didn’t want to find my insides again
I was either going to rot in the hot, baking sun of my soul exposed or I was going to heal
And there were days I prayed for the former; I prayed to be released from the pain of this human life
Too much love
Too much death
Too much loss
It finds you
You can run
You can hide
You can pretend
You can distract
You can dress pretty
You can use your mind to create a false reality
And, Someday
It will find you
Someday
It will pull you to the ground, gut you, and leave you to rot, and to heal
This is what a life of un-grieved grief did for/to me
So today
Here I sit, on the other side of it
I am not fully healed
I don’t think I ever will be
That’s not the point
There is no perfectly, perfect healed life
There is only healing
A conscious, deliberate grieving of one’s grief
Finding the quiet spaces in the day and sitting with the grief
This is it
This is the way to get into the rot that loss has caused the soul
This is the way we give light and air to the dank, smelly, gruesome parts of our being that haunt us
We have to get quiet
It’s the quiet we avoid too well
We are masters at it
We have too many distractions, devices, and darlings to keep us busy with the external world
But you know
You know that you need to get quiet
It terrifies you
It terrified me
And, it sort of excites you too
You know what you have to do
I will not tell you it is a beautiful, fun, enlightening experience
It is not
You will resist the quiet for a very long time (years likely)
You will flirt with the idea for a while—you are good at flirting so this will sustain you for a while
Life will move on
There will be many highs to hold on to
There will be a few lows you will tiptoe through (tip-toeing because you are begging God and the universe that this one won’t take you down)
There will be more flirting with the quiet
There will be more life lived
There will be some confusion, suffering, and some crises to get through
You will survive these (you will also pray that these don’t take you down)
But you will survive these
Life will move forward
And then
Then, life will happen
Perhaps it is a family crisis
Perhaps it is another loss
Perhaps it is another silly decision you made that comes back to haunt you
Whatever it is
It will come
When it comes
It will finally, and inevitably tip you over
You will:
Run
Hide
Scream
Cry
Curl up in the fetal position and gasp for air
You will choke on your own snot
You will feel like someone set you on fire with your guts submerged in alcohol
You will beg, pray, and plead for relief
Only you know better this time
You now know that you have to do this
You have to feel it all
You have to set your soul on fire
You have to smell the putrid fragrance of your old pain and loss burning away
Burn it away
Burn it out of you (not literally please)
Feel it
Feel it all
And slowly
Day after day
Month after month
Year after year
You will emerge
You will wake up from this pain
You will look down on the ground, see your healed guts and you will want to start re-assembling them
You will slowly start to put them back together
You will emerge
And when you do, it will feel like you have new flesh
It will feel like someone hooked your cells up to a generator and hit the on button for the first time
It can only be described as a re-birth
Only this time you get to feel, see, and remember your birth
This time you get to choose your birth
This time you get to choose your path
Your grief will kill you a thousand times
And your grief will birth you once and for all
Let it kill you
Then choose to let it heal you
The greatest power in our lives comes from choosing to heal ourselves naturally
Choose death, and then choose life—your life
This is the greatest thing you can do for yourself and your health
Cheers to your health revolution,
Dr. Shanna
Photo Credit: Will Van Wingerden
