G(r)i(e)vE iT uP . . .

Sometimes, I am challenged in life with being a mom when my kids (or anyone else I care about, for that matter) aren't happy or when they are struggling. I totally want to GET IN THERE and fix IT, taKe care Of tHe PaIn, pRoViDe cOmFort, and make eVerYthiNg better WiTh a Hello Kitty Band-Aid, for ExaMple, or a WaRm bLanKie, or hOt sOup, or aDviCe.

yEstErday, my MagicAl daughtEr was VEry, vErY, saD bEfOre dinner. And she wasn't completely sure why. After talking for a little while, we realized that she wanted something to be really, really different than what it is. We quietly held hands in her room and I brushed away her tears; we talked about what it meant to be sad, and shared stories about when both of us have grieved about something that really wasn't the way WE wanted it to be.

This morning I was processing my daughter's distress. I decided to go back upstairs to bed and read cuz' my kiddos were still sleeping and it's a quiet luxury I don't have very often. I opened up one of my books--The Seven Laws of Spiritual Success (1994) by Deepak Chopra-- and came upon the chapter about The Law of Least Effort:

Nature's intelligence functions with effortless ease

 . . . with carefreeness, harmony, and love.

And when we harness the forces of 

harmony, joy, and love,

we create success and fortune with effortless ease (51).

Basically, what it said is that when we can accept what is, we can truly appreciate the moment, the present, and the people in our lives for the very people who they are. AHA and EurEka:

gRiEf

is

a
hEaLinG sTeP

in

tHe

pRoCess

of

AccEPtANcE
&
cHaNgE.

For a big part of my life, when I have been really, really sad, I haven't been willing to feel grief--I push it down, suck it up, or ignore it--deny it as if I could manage to control the situation or relationship that wasn't what I wanted it to be.

By going numb instead of grieving,
your ego pretends that the loss isn't agonizing,

that the threat is not so grave as it actually is.
You have to go through grief
before you can release it back to the light.

Have patience with your grief.

In this period of necessary suffering
comes a great sense of purification.

The sting of death is no longer quite as anguishing.

The possibility of letting in the light once again becomes real.

~Deepak Chopra

My unwillingness to feel grief is a denial of what simply is, and by judging it and pushing it down, the cycle only grows stronger. As in, "If I don't allow myself to feel grief, I might still have a chance to CHANGE the thing that isn't WHAT I WANT."  My daughter allowing herself to embrace her sadness is actually a first step toward her accepting the reality that something isn't what she wanted it to be.

My kids are my greatest teachers. We have to learn to move through feelings--if we try to go around our feelings  (run 6 more miles, go shopping, play on the Internet, have another beverage, etc. . .) our feelings just come back up as another opportunity to learn to move through them again.