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Finding the Sacred in Everyday LifeNancy BallingerThe Guest House
I just got off the phone with a dear friend. She is going through a very difficult time right now with her health. She has enough self-awareness to know the depression she feels is normal and will pass. Yet, there is a strong wish to be done with it all and feel joy again. This time of year, during and after the holidays, can be a rollercoaster of emotions. We may find ourselves filled with unexpected ups and downs - highs and lows. If we are experiencing grief, some days seem like a breathtaking slope we fear we won't survive. Even losses that happened long ago may come to the foreground. Feelings that have been on their best behavior and hidden during the rest of the year suddenly appear like a bunch of thugs, trying to bully their way inside. In the poem above, Rumi tells us being human is like a guesthouse – with a daily arrival of different emotions. Like visitors at a guesthouse, these feelings don't take up permanent residence, but come and then leave when their stay is over. He goes on to suggest, we can be grateful for whoever comes, to welcome and entertain all of our emotions and even "treat them honorably." For the most part, this is not our customary way of thinking about our emotions. We have the idea, for some reason, that we are supposed to be happy all the time. We believe that if we feel sad, lonely, empty, angry, or anxious we must immediately suppress and deny the "negative" emotion and feel "good." However, this way of thinking robs us of the opportunity to learn and grow from whatever we are feeling and harms our body, mind, and spirit. Whether our grief is in response to divorce, death, a lost dream, declining health, or the myriad little losses we experience each day, we are often not encouraged to allow its healthy expression. Well-intentioned friends and family often encourage us to get on with life after a loss - to focus on tomorrow, and forget the past. As a result, we keep our "unacceptable" emotions inside, feeling isolated and alone. Expressing our feelings through the healthy avenues of writing, creating art, playing music, talking with a friend, planting a garden, crying, laughing, walking in nature, sitting in silence and prayer are a few ways we allow our grief to "grow us." When we honor all the emotions we experience, acceptable and not, we honor the strength of the human spirit. In this, we confirm that deeper capacity within each of us to not only endure and survive, but also to grow and expand through our grief. There is a story of a woman approaching the Buddha and asking him to bring her child that died recently back to life. The Compassionate One tells her if she can find a certain seed he will do as she asks, but she must find the seed in a home that has never been touched by death. The woman knows the seed is a common one found in every household and runs off on her search. At each home the grieving woman asks if the resident has the seed she needs, and after they say yes, she inquires if death has touched their home. Neighbor after neighbor shares how their home has experienced a death and she tells them of her loss. At days end, the woman returns to the Buddha with the realization that death and loss are universal. In sharing her loss and hearing the stories of others she has begun the process of healing. I'm turning 60 this month. In preparation for this birthday I went into the antique cabinet where my journals are stored, and began reading through them. I found one written twenty-five years ago. There, while trying to understand my first major loss through a devastating divorce, I had copied a quote from the French author, Leon Bloy. He wrote: "Man has places in his heart which do not yet exist, and into them he enters suffering in order that they may have existence". Grief changes us. It requires us to find places inside ourselves that we don't know exist until we must delve deep and go beyond what we think we can. Often, in our pain, we don't know that healing will come or that we will be stronger and better. Yet, with each loss, we learn that we not only survive and endure, but also grow. Judy Tatelbaum, in The Courage to Grieve: Creative Living, Recovery and Growth through Grief, advises: "Just as whole forests burn to the ground and eventually grow anew, just as spring follows winter, grief can become a positive turning point in our lives where we grow, deepen and expand. It is nature's way that whatever we suffer, through it we can keep on growing." That is the grace and redemption in grief, heartbreak, and loss. In living fully, honoring and welcoming all aspects of this human experience, we open ourselves to the delight, joy and mystery that is also present and ever waiting to express.
Rufous Hummingbird image on banner by Mike Baird. |
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