”We are Marshall”, the movie, touched me.
It was difficult to watch the images of a town socked in the stomach with grief after the loss of its university football team, coaching staff and civic leaders in a plane crash. The rawness of the shock portrayed hit home.
The early days and weeks after the sudden death of my first husband in a motor vehicle accident on Christmas Eve in 1999 were so painful.
I remember shaking. I remember walking around feeling like I was caught in a very bad dream and couldn’t wake up. I remember the feeling of my heart breaking, the difficulty I had breathing as life shattered around me.
I watched the movie with deep empathy for the suffering people experience when their loved ones leave them suddenly. When there are no good-byes. When stories of love and life go permanently unfinished. When tomorrows dawn drastically altered and we are helpless to do anything but to wake up and live them.
And yet. And yet. It was heartening to be reminded that we do heal. Always. Some slower. Some faster. Each in our own way. Yes, grief changes us irrevocably. But we have much to do with the direction: inspired and enlightened or embittered and broken.
In the movie, Matthew McCoughnehey plays an unpretentious, down home coach, long on humor, short on words. He’s not afraid to go quiet in the face of unspeakable grief. But frankly, what he knows to do is focus on the healing of the town, rather than its exposed woundedness.
I’m reminded of a story of another tragedy from the book, Mystics, Magicians and Medicine People:Tales of a Wanderer by Doug Boyd. Boyd describes watching with his sister, a nurse, as a motorcyclist is mowed down by a VW bus in New York city. Dropping to her knees next to the terribly injured man, Boyd’s sister begins whispering in his ear: The accident is over. Forget it. It’s done. The injury is in the past. You are already healing. Focus on that. The healing. It’s all that matters.
When we are injured in the contact sport of life, healing begins instantaneously. I KNOW that from my own experience of grief. The trick is not getting in the way of that healing energy. And that takes a willingness to GENTLY shake ourselves free, moment by moment, from the thoughts that take us away from the experience of peace.
As you read this, I feel certain you are experiencing loss at some level. It’s just part of life. I’m aware of missing my husband, who has gone to work. I’m aware of an energy building that is likely to catapult me through another big life transition. I’m aware that my body is changing, moving in fits and starts through menopause. Some of you may be dealing with really huge losses, like I did after the death of my first husband.
As a fellow human being who has lost and won through, I’ve found that there is a process for moving gently and creatively through loss.
For me that process boils down to four simple reminders:
Keep a quieter mind. Don’t take seriously any thoughts that interfere with being at peace.
Life from a beautiful feeling. (calm, love, peace, joy, wonder, curiosity, etc.)
Listen deeply for wisdom, a felt sense of knowing what is right and true.
Watch for synchronicities to confirm any course of action.
The first reminder is crucial; the rest flow gently from it. As we are able to keep a quieter mind, our natural well-being, our innate health and creativity are more able to bubble up into that purity of stillness. In that state, we are often able to move forward and heal with confidence and competence.
Not sure about that? You might consider signing up for my e-course, Transcending Loss, soon to also be available as a downloadable ebook. I feel confident that if you can be open to understanding several principles that show us how we create our experience of life moment to moment, you will glimpse a way of living, of moving beyond loss, that is heavenly.
Posted by Linda Sandel Pettit on 01/22 at 04:11 PM in Transition |
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