I am going through a dark night of the soul. Yet today, upon awakening, I slipped outside on to my porch with my morning coffee, sat and listened. Even the gray-skied Oregon shroud and the blur of cars racing by couldn’t keep the praise of the new day from winging through the trees in song.
Today—what a profound relief—a few inwardly quiet healing moments spent where gratitude could find me. When I arose from the chair, it was with much delight that I could feel the welcoming of it all no matter what or whom is showing up.
The Hebrew term for gratitude is hakarat hatov, which means, literally, “recognizing the good.” Practicing gratitude means recognizing the good that is already yours, because, as my dear friend, Mystic Meena, says, “When gratitude is your only prayer, all begging ceases.”
Nevertheless, I am, this year, recognizing where in my life I have played the part of beggar. More than any other year, it has come to me this year that begging has no place in my life anymore. There are so many ways I could describe how it has manifested in my life.
I hesitate to share, but for the purposes of this blog, I will be brief. I know I am not alone. Many of us share similar stories—a lifetime’s worth, but more recently for me in my 40’s and 50’s (now in my early 60’s), I went through a difficult and abusive marriage and divorce, which was followed by a decade of illness interspersed with multiple major and/or near death surgeries; an immediate family member with severe bipolar disorder I took responsibility for, and thankfully,they are holding their own now. Subsequently, however, my mother dropped into my life fulltime with Alzheimer’s Disease. It fell to me to care of her for six years until she passed exactly one year ago today. There was a period in between my mother’s illness and death of insane traveling combined with the end of a challenging relationship. And it almost feels like too much to even mention, but in the last thirteen months, I have experienced seventeen other deaths both near and far to or from me. It’s more than I can process in one fell swoop.
No wonder I am outright physically and emotionally exhausted—part life happening because it does and part believing incorrectly about where answers laid.
Trauma hides in our organs and brain and skin and shows itself in some interesting ways, comes back to us as fate in illness or loss or poor choices with unfortunate consequences. Three weeks ago, I ended up in the hospital with crushing chest pain.
My overdoing, my attempts to save everyone but me have become my undoing—and thank god! I’m taking the year off. No one to care-give but me; no volunteering; no wounded bird projects. My mother is gone along with so many others. I love her dearly, miss her terribly, but I am free now to play catch-up with me.
Cumulative grief, my hospice grief counselor of the last few years calls it. I have lost body parts due to profound and overwhelming cumulative grief…grief of which I managed to push back down into my body out of guilt or shame or whatever other false notion I had about my life and how I needed to show up in it. My mantra has too often been “I’m fine, I’m fine”, when in fact I was not fine.
I have decided to out myself. I’m working on allowing what needs to surface for healing, surface. My agreement with myself is there will be no tolerance for guilt or shame in myself or through the well-meaning words of friends. What’s done is done. I take full responsibility, give myself complete grace. I’m allowing the imperfection of my life or my choices or what befell me to bleed through, to give in to crying or laughter or sleep. I am holding to the idea of giving up my quest for perfection in exchange for a more imperfect authentic self. There is work to do.
Grief can be an exquisitely painful, surgically exacting knife that reduces one down to their more essential self. It has a way of stripping away the superfluous, the pretentious, and the inauthentic. No less true in my life, I am greatly paring down to what heals, what brings balance and wholeness, or what feels restorative in the most inward parts of me, even as painful memories trigger tears or the sudden wash of anger at current injustices having nothing to do with me. I have allowed so much in order to be liked or loved.
These last months, there is a pull between living and dying. Every moment I am acutely aware as I feel caught in its tautly roped tension between “what’s the use?” and the desire to push through and forward towards my long held dreams and goals—dreams that have dogged my days since I was five years old. I still want what I’ve always wanted: to feel the length and depth and breadth of my days, to feel wholly alive. Most certainly, I’ve had my moments. Profound, they burn inside me. I want to live free from the inside out, maybe for the first time in my life.
There are days I often fail to make a lot of sense to even myself—those days when pulling myself out of bed seems like an insurmountable task, or my legs refuse to carry me. Then there are other days when grace shows up unexpectedly as a beautiful reminder that life is still good no matter what, and I am brought to my knees in gratitude just because.
My most important job right now is me. I am working on my vulnerability, my transparency. I am making the decision, however challenging, to give voice to my secrets, to honor my emotions and my body, who both show up as messengers of what needs more loving in me. Sometimes I don’t feel so okay, yet I am determined to walk this path, ultimately give up my beggar-hood for the deepest practice of gratitude. I have a feeling this may be the most important work of my life yet.
June 30, 2014 at 6:18 pm
These are very healing words. I identify with what you are saying.
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June 30, 2014 at 10:33 pm
Thank you, dear Brandee! This was actually my first week completed assignment in Mark Matousek’s Passion and Abandon class. His take on it was that it was powerful…I got a beautiful standing ovation from him on it. That always makes me sooo happy. He has a way of pulling the best stuff out of me.
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June 30, 2014 at 5:43 pm
Powerful words Susie! Almost a manifesto that I shall reference often. I’ve saved it for further reads. I mentioned the “unveiling” out of my experiences being married to a jew. What I know is mostly memory and impression, gravestones, yada yada not withstanding. And yet, it seems to fit so perfectly as our family is now coming into one year since Buzz’s first wife transitioned suddenly. And, my first husband has Alzheimer’s and is cared for by our youngest son. Oh, my there’ll be stories. So your words speak so profoundly to the need for Self care and honesty, authenticity to sustain each of us on our journey. Thank you.
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June 30, 2014 at 10:23 pm
Thank you so much, Lynn, for reading and responding to this blog. I am SO happy you like it and want to keep it handy. I was talking with a dear friend over coffee today (Mystic Meena), and said I felt that the first 2/3 to 3/4 of our lives are probably meant to be where all craziness, drama and trauma occur, and then the last part of our lives is hopefully the point at which we decide enough is enough and decide to live authentically as ourselves instead of as someone else. I would hate to get to the end of my life and realize that I lived as a false version of myself, and that I never really got around to or was too scared to live fully as myself. Self care is vital to that process! We come from a great light to go through the darkness to come back out into the light again. Some never get to realize that and live within a state of denial of a whole wellspring that lives within them that they could be drinking from. Instead we think that other people’s wellsprings will satisfy us. They only leave us more thirsty in actuality. Death is such a great teacher in this, a wake up call, cause as they say, you never know when it will be your last day.
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June 29, 2014 at 9:52 pm
Susie, I applaud the things you’ve done for others even when your strengh was in a delicate balance. Now is your time. A new start for yourself, perhaps a raising from the ashes so to speak, a phoenix.
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June 29, 2014 at 10:10 pm
Thank you, Tom. You have always been one of my biggest cheerleaders. I so appreciate your thoughtfulness and prayers on my behalf. You are a dear friend.
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