Grieve your griefs as they come

a lesson I’m learning, better late than never. Grieve it as you notice it happening. Fling your heart open, feel every tiny bit of fucking pain as soon and as deeply as you possibly can. Trust me. I’m in all of the griefs I never had time for, or energy, or even just a theoretical flashlight to see my way through that which goes bump in that endless journey of night.

We have no idea, truly, everything we’re made of, what influences us, or how much or how long it takes to heal. We don’t and couldn’t possibly ever know every little thing that animates us... like scanning a colorful page, eye thoroughly caught in a moment, with no conscious path to that image once that crucial moment has passed.

I binge to produce breadcrumbs, I guess, and other biodegradable flotsam and jetsam to mark my path. I can rarely find my way back to that place I need to be without tripping over shit I forgot about, things that make me sad, or pull me out of a lovely time into a time that was less so. I’m notorious for ruining a good thing.

It’s what is referred to as PTSD, and it’s hard to deal with. We can’t always process those griefs as they happen. They’re too jarring, or too big, or complicated or traumatic.

Don’t force yourself if it hurts too much. Be gentle, go slowly, as you would if you were helping a baby go from crawling to walking.

But set an intention to get there, make it your life’s work. It’s invigorating as you go, but if you wait too long and let all just pile up because you don’t know quite where to put it, well, that’s where ya run into problems.

It’s especially difficult with mental illness because that becomes a lens through which we pathologies ourselves and our relationship and assume every reaction springs from misery not experience.

We are taught by so many sources to seek outside ourselves, find a hero, elevate that hero, then deride that hero for falling, a natural part of any process when someone has no idea they’ve been lifted that way. It’s unfair, then, to choose an every day hero, someone who is part of your life. Too much pressure. We need to be our own hero.

We distance ourselves from ourselves by putting judgment on things like grief, because we don’t wish to be a downer.

We must give ourselves the gift, though, of putting the grief through all its paces and juicing it for its emotional nutrients.

Otherwise, and it has been said before, but I’m here to testify to the truth of it, allllllllllll that grief, heartache, regret, it just becomes physical illness. It drains the energy and makes a body hurt.

There comes a time when we need to climb down from that cross we stuck ourselves to. That’s not the example the Christ Consciousness would want us to follow.

It’s better to grieve our losses and then do our best to love ourselves back to feeling better.

It’s not about living well being the best revenge. I don’t like or believe in revenge, except in fiction. It has its place.

I’m live writing this, dear reader, as I’m learning it, breathing, hoping to connect with you.

I’m going to try to be here as much as I can.

I really want to share this experience as it happens, in some ways. It will and is taking lots of forms already.

Thanks for reading. I hope it helps.