Tag Archives: release

The Secret of Life

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My cell phone’s ringtone is a song by James Taylor, “Secret O’ Life” and when it rang this morning it reminded me of the meaning of its lyrics.  They tell us that the secret of life is enjoying the passage of time…sounds simple doesn’t it?

For me, enjoying the passage of time means that we can learn to embrace life as we move through time.  When we are grieving, we tend to hold onto memories, emotions, and feelings from when our loved one was with us, for we feel that is all we have left of them. 

But, we really have more than that; we simply need to look in our heart to feel the love that lives outside time.  So, when we get bogged down in grief and hold onto what was, perhaps we can move to a place where we can touch the love that we feel right now and release some of our sadness.

The song’s lyrics also invite us to view life as a “lovely ride”, and as such we should enjoy the ride and anticipate what’s around the next bend, and occasionally remember with fondness and love what’s also behind us.  Most importantly though is to be present with where you are, and what you are feeling at THIS moment in time.  For NOW is all we have in the dimension of time.

We really are simply passengers on our “lifeboat” as we move through the waters of time, touching lives, feeling joy and sadness, sharing love and then allowing time’s passage to carry us in its arms to our next destination–while enjoying the passage of time.

Sharon Clark

www.griefinterlude.com

 

 

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Pressing “PAUSE”

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As I was shopping yesterday, the store was filled by the loud cries of an unhappy toddler; I couldn’t see why she was so distressed, but her sobs were filled with passion and unyielding. She was inconsolable it seemed.  Her cries were so constant that I wondered how she was actually managing to breathe through her sobs. After several minutes, her crying stopped, and as her mother pushed her to the aisle to check-out, I could see that she was clutching a new toy; the diversion needed to break her emotional pattern.

As I watched this unfold, it triggered the thought that many times this is exactly how we feel when we experience grief…inconsolable…caught up in the sheer wave of emotions, feeling our loss and locked into an emotional pattern that we ourselves can’t easily break.  Like the little child, we need a “diversion” to interrupt our outpouring.

When our world has been turned upside down and our emotional grounding moved off center, many times we don’t even know how to respond because we are “inexperienced” about the emotion of grief.  Our other emotions, e.g., love, joy, anger, are usually pretty well-developed through simply living our daily lives.  We exercise these emotional muscles on a regular basis through our relationship with others.  We’ve learned how to cope.

But this isn’t so true of the emotion of grief. Of course we have all felt some components of grief—sadness, loss, hurt—since we were babies, and have developed some coping mechanisms as a result.   But until you’ve experienced the loss of a loved one, you probably haven’t felt the full emotional spectrum that is grief.  Nor do we have an innate coping tool as to know how to deal with the complex array of emotions we may feel. 

Sometimes when we’re caught up in this wave of emotions, seemingly inconsolable and not knowing how to cope, we can press the “PAUSE” button.

Using the guided meditations in The Grief Interlude Series can help you do that. It offers a way to step out of your grieving and step into a place of rest…just for a while.  It allows you the opportunity to “break the circuit”, to catch your breath, and to gain some time to restore.  To help you regain your footing, to find your center and to focus on the emotion that will help you make your way through the grief:  love.

Sharon Clark

www.griefinterlude.com

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Letting Go of the Rice

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I recently read an entry from Mark Nepo’s “The Book of Awakening” where he shared a story from ancient China of a method used to trap monkeys.  A hole the size of a monkey’s hand was cut into coconuts, filled with rice and strewn on paths the monkeys traveled.  As the monkeys smelled the rice, they put their hands through the hole, closed a fist around the anticipated meal but found that since their fist was too large to withdraw from the hole, they were trapped by their own making. Those who released the rice and withdrew their hands found freedom.

This story resonated because many times we find ourselves holding onto the “rice” of grief:  the familiarity of its embrace and even the comfort of returning to that space of yearning for what was, may be appealing.  But, just as the monkeys who refused to release their fists filled with rice, many of us grieving who refuse to let go of the grief are also trapped. We may fear that when we release some of it, we also are releasing the love we feel for our loved one. 

We may fear the future.  We may fear finding a way to move forward without our loved one.  And, we may even fear feeling joy again.  Sadly, we may confuse any joy we find with “disrespect” for what we shared with our departed loved one.  This may be an unconscious feeling that feeds our responses and limits our actions.  I would encourage you to see if you are “trapped” with your fist closed around your “rice” of grief.  Opening your fist may also open your heart to new joy.

Sharon Clark

3/09/11

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