At my meditation group there is a friend who has had to deal with a lot of death lately. She was exasperated and wondered aloud how long she would have to deal with this. “For the rest of your life” was the response.
And this is so true. I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately as I’ve been going through the grieving process. This has been one of the most painful things I have ever been through. And the worst part of it is the thought that I will, most definitely, go through this again. It is inevitable. That seriously sucks. I’m sure that it won’t get better with each new experience. I’ve experienced the death of a loved one in the past. My Grandparents. I still think about them almost every day and they’ve been gone for twenty years. I even cry sometimes when I think about them.
At the same time I’m ok with it. I have to be ok with it. It’s going to happen and I can’t fight it. I guess when it happens I’ll deal with it. I will experience that pain. But rather than dwell on things that haven’t happened yet, I will enjoy those who are with me right now completely and fully while I’ve got them.
I think you’re right on here. Something I’ve been thinking about lately is our tendency to rail against emotional pain. We attempt, in every way we can think of, to force emotional pain away from us. Every single attempt is doomed to fail in the long term. There’s something often spoken of by spiritual leaders within Buddhism in regards to this. They talk about the need to stay “in the pain” or “in the moment.” We can’t remove ourselves from it, and if we learn to accept the pain of this event in our lives as a part of the grieving and eventually a part of the healing process we are better for it. If we push against it, it returns in an even stronger fashion.
It seems counter-intuitive to us, but sometimes we need to embrace our pain. It’s a piece of life, along with joy. It’s part of what makes us who we are and we’re foolish to fight that.
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yes! you totally get what I’m saying. It’s been a strange lesson to learn
these past few months since, like you said, in our society we are
conditioned to just push it down and go on with our lives.
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Moni, what a beautiful post. Grief is so hard. But I think never loving anyone enough to grieve their loss would suck worse. I think there must be a balance – something about grieving without attaching to the grief, and without adding to it (guilt, self-doubt, loss of identity, fear and anxiety). I think you hit the nail on the head with “I have to be ok with it.” I mean, you don’t have to be but you may as well be. Its all the same to the universe, right?
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Thank you so much Emilie. That balance is key. Sometimes I’m afraid I’m
attached to it. I wonder if being there to watch it happen traumatized me a
little bit. But I’m working on it. Meditating helps a lot. I’m so glad I
have you guys at Mediation group. You all get me thinking and that’s a good
thing 🙂
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From Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem In Memoriam:27, 1850:
I hold it true, whate’er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
‘Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all
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I love that poem! absolutely true and beautiful.
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I totally agree that sometimes we need to embrace the pain – see it for what it is and realize that it’s okay to hurt. It’s not a weakness or something to “get over.” It’s just a part of the process. For me, at least, it makes it easier to deal with the hard stuff when I look at it that way. And enjoy the good stuff too.
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