The tools that I have been utilizing on my grief and healing path have been integral to my health and sense of well-being. Some of them have been constants while others are fluid and changing as I grow. When I’m feeling out in the weeds chances are it’s time for me to be deciding which tools are sustaining me and which ones have served their purpose and need to be tossed aside and or placed on the shelf. In my early grief walk I had to have some kind of routine and what that meant for me was to get out of bed and encourage my body to move. I had an elliptical trainer that kept me going on cold, winter days when getting outside to walk was not always feasible. Showering, making my bed, keeping myself fed and hydrated these kinds of the most simple tasks sometimes felt like climbing Kilimanjaro, yet I knew each were necessary so I kept utilizing them. An energetic day might find me making a phone call, attempting an extra load of laundry or cleaning out a drawer. Truly, I was using every ounce of my life force energy trying to remain grounded while wrapping my whole self that felt reduced to rubble around an impossible loss. I did not know anyone personally who had lost a child and a friend of mine gave me the number of someone she knew. I called Sandy, nine months later as I believed I was ready to discover how to live with this enormous weight of a loss that was seeping into the gaps between my bones. We met for coffee and she was five years on this path and I marveled at how she had moved through and still was the loss of her son. Her words mattered not, it was her physical presence I was studying as a first year student. Sandy displayed every emotion, her eyes filling with tears, a smile, laughter, a listening presence, all of those human like qualities that this shell of a woman, me, worried I might never feel again. Sandy and I met for several months and she offered me a quiet hope that it is indeed possible to learn how to carry such a life shattering and horrific loss by learning how to live my life as it is and not as I had always imagined or hoped it would be. After my year of firsts I felt more invisible because surely I was okay now as surely I should be having navigated them. Not anything in my world felt okay or remotely close to it. I stumbled upon a support group of women who heard my heart for over a decade and I will BE forever grateful for everything I received from them. Most of what I heard were words that created containers that I could store within me, pull out as needed or place lids upon when I needed to pause. I might pull out something like: ”You are not alone, one breath and moment at a time, there is no right or wrong way to grieve, there is only your way, there are no timelines, no goals to reach as this is not a sprint, yet a marathon to be experienced.” Douglas’ name was said, women asked me to share my memories of how he lived his almost twenty-five years, perhaps still one of the single most healing tools I have in my toolbox. Tender days were acknowledged such as Mother’s Day, his birthday, the day he shed his earth suit and I was reminded to take gentle care of myself and to feel my feelings, all of them and to try to not harshly judge them, yet allow them to simply BE and to inform me. This is indeed a work in progress, yet as I reflect and gaze into my rear view mirror I do notice changes, even if they feel subtle, they are present. Today some of my tools include: reading, all kinds of literature, listening to podcasts, getting out in nature and digging in the dirt, moving my body every day, meditation which is a newer practice for me and has been soul shifting, journaling and being in community with those who hear my heart. Working with a mentor who challenges me and affirms my growth both in the same breath and hopefully, when the green light appears back to body work such as deep tissue massage and CranioSacral. What is vital for me to remember is to check in daily several times a day to ask myself what I’m needing? I implement the tool(s) that will serve me best in the moment. They are not in my toolbox to make me feel guilty if I’m not utilizing them, they are there to remind me that if I have a need, pick one of them up and see what happens. My desire is to continue to go within and ask myself what I am in need of and I have been surprised often at the answers. Releasing how I think it should be looking and moving into what is possible has been life giving. This path that I did not choose, yet find myself on has been made bearable as I have allowed myself to be companioned and to companion. The author, Glennon Doyle, reminds us that We Can Do Hard Things and living with loss is just that, hard, yet possible when we can feel a hand in ours and see a light shining just to illuminate our next step.
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