What Grief Taught Me

All my life I’ve wanted to help. I’ve wanted to take my pain and turn it into something helpful. I think most people want this, it's one of these human nature tendencies. We share to help other people not endure the same fate, to bypass the pain. I do think the need to be helpful sometimes gets overshadowed by the need to heal properly. There is this beautiful space right after we go through something terrible where our chance to heal and grow is ripe. It’s not an easy place to be but it’s a place (some people call it rock bottom) where our only option is up. Because we are in such a depressing place, we lose faith in all of our crutches and get down to work. We dig through the shit we’ve been avoiding and it’s where the healing happens.

I’ve been there. In fact, I visit frequently and I hope many of you have too because while it’s a destination you don't wish for others, it’s basically a prerequisite for life. Because I've spent lots of time there, I know the temptation to skim the surface. To touch the bottom but then rush back up to the top because you don’t trust where this is taking you. When we rush back up to the top we miss out on the true healing, the stuff that lasts a lifetime. The real change that occurs. 

Most people want to know how long this takes, and that's something no one can answer for you. The time frame depends on you. It could be a day, a week, a month, or for some of us (*raising hand*), it could take years.

When we teach from the place of the scar and not the wound, we’ve done the work. We let the healing take over and we can look back on the situation with eyes we didn't have before. When we try to offer help from a place where the wound is still fresh we risk pushing our pain on others. Our head thinks we can, but our hearts are still bleeding. 

Take the time to heal, no matter how long. It doesn't mean you can’t help it just means you have to help yourself first.

jodi xx