The Gifts from Grief….by Sundy Gilchrist

It hit me like a brick wall when my three daughters stepped out of my life, and then just when I was feeling like I had sone semblance of normal feelings back inside of me, my youngest had a baby.

I went even deeper into grief with this event, and now, looking back, I can see that these ‘extra losses’ really assisted me in learning how to be with my feelings and deepening into my capacity to understand myself.

The ‘stuffing away of feelings’, the coping strategies, the distractions and all the things I did to avoid ‘getting messy’ just didn’t work any more.

I went to hell and back, as many of us do when the contact with our sons and daughters stops, for whatever reason.

Weddings
Babies
Graduations
New home, jobs..

If we get to know of them, all bring a return to grief and she leads the way on how to learn to love through the pain. It’s this, I think, this return to grief which brings so much to our capacity, health and well-being

Grief has our back.

It seems strange to say it and yet my take on it is that she shows the way through to our life again …to our love again.

Hardening our hearts and closing down to life…..grief, she does not let us do that to ourselves, and she keeps on returning til we get the message to fall in love with ourselves , through her wisdom.

Of course, when she arrives, we feel huge resistance (I know I did) and if we’ve not felt her presence so deeply before she can feel mighty scary ….

Grief is a type of love
And for me, a path to self love

What with her, and her sister Forgiveness, I’ve stayed open to life ….Choosing Life.