ONE thing I learned during the years of intense grief (will reveal the title and book cover for my memoir soon) … was to “let the world go by.” What does that mean? For me, it meant not trying to keep up with the expectations that swirled around me, explicitly, or implicitly. It meant sinking into silence, sitting with nature: avoiding anything that was measurable or goal-oriented. That may sound easy, but in our crazy culture, of go and then go some more, it wasn’t!
- Finally the word STOP … helped me to step back, allow things to proceed without me … whenever or wherever I could.
I didn’t really have the energy anyway. But we are trained to push ourselves from day one, it seems. So part of me wanted to keep up the pace … part of me wanted to do what so many seemed to think I should do: move on. Ridiculous, of course. The need to slow down is inherent to the process … deep sorrow feels like there is something thick, murky traveling through your veins.
- All we can do is learn not to resist.
Here again, though, from our earliest days most of us were taught to plow through … somehow. But the beauty of grief is that we get to relearn (and change) all the silly things we once thought were true.
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” ― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
Plowing through is inevitable to a point, of course. Just getting up, moving about, when you feel like not moving at all is a form of plowing through. But forcing ourselves to feel something we don’t … to simply resume the path we were on, pretending like nothing ever happened … won’t help us in the end. At some point, I simply had to admit that path was GONE forever. And I had to let the world go by.
- I still try to do this now and then.
So SunnyRoomStudio will be on a late summer break until mid-September.
I’ve spent seven years (probably needed nine, or so!) on the memoir, and it is time for a short break. But the good news: very soon, I hope to show you the book cover and let you know the title, as well. I think you will like both very much.
Thank you all so much for being part of this journey since 2010 … here in this sunny space for kindred spirits.
- I want to leave you with a few more words from Elisabeth Kübler-Ross:
“It is not the end of the physical body that should worry us. Rather, our concern must be to live while we’re alive – to release our inner selves from the spiritual death that comes with living behind a facade designed to conform to external definitions of who and what we are.”
- IF you missed my guest post on Kathy Pooler’s blog, please stop by. Here’s the link for WHY GRIEF MATTERS.
- See you again on Friday, September 25th, as I continue to focus on memoir — the genre, the path, the point of it all.
- Always Returning: The Wisdom of Place is a book about digging into our surroundings to unearth an organic, timeless wisdom. If you’re looking for inspiration or want to lean more about a landscape, a place, that helped me unearth my spiritual roots, this may be a book for you. We are ALL much wiser than we think; it’s just a matter of tapping into what we already know. Enjoy!
Blog by SunnyRoomStudio: all rights reserved.When we value the journey itself, new realities are revealed amidst the old.
