Grief, marooned in the middle of two worlds

Living in grief is like living in two worlds at the same time.  Eternity is awakened in us even as we walk this physical life where others have absolutely no idea what is going on deep down inside us.

The deepest grief is a place where the only one you’ll find is God.  Nobody else has any idea what you’re going through.  Even if you have the cleverest therapist in the world, they don’t have a clue, and you’ll know it because they’ve got the integrity to tell you:

Statements like, “I’ve got no idea what you’re going through,” and “I can’t imagine what this pain is like for you” give you the real sense that you are SEEN.

It’s not necessary that a person steps into your shoes in the deepest pain of your grief.  But what is heavenly healing is when the person knows they’re on sacred ground around you.

That’s when you know they’ve got you, 
and that’s when you know they get it.

The moments we experienced when we first learned that Nathanael had died were beyond this world.  For those minutes and hours we slipped into eternity with him.  Not there with him like we’d always yearned, but into another world entirely where sounds and sights in the here and now passed away for a time, and God’s sweet presence nurtured the ground we walked upon.  Even when we had nothing and no tools to grasp what was occurring.

How do we communicate what it’s like to be swallowed for whole moments and seasons in another time continuum altogether?  I don’t know, but I feel captivated in trying to find words to express all of it!

Living in two worlds just about does our heads in. 
Talk about being betwixt and between!

What answer do we have for a loss or series of losses 
that throws us headlong into the hell of our time?

Consigned to the deathly lurch of satisfying our contemporaries and holding the thin threads of our former lives, we skate between realities never knowing if we’ve even got what it takes for the present moment let alone one hour into the future.

Anxiety upon dread upon the living panic 
of “I cannot do this.”  Friend, you are seen!

There are many who will read these words and seriously 
ponder, “What on earth is this man on about?”

Grief changes you in a molecular way.  No longer do you see as you once saw.  The old life is over and there’s no turning back.  The more you pine for it, the worse the terror gets.  And yet you cannot help it.  To go ‘back there’ is all that’s palatable.

All that appears in the present and immediate future is horror, uncertainty, all-too-much reality, the frightening concepts of time and tasks, sorrow like you previously never knew existed.  Oh, what quadrupling pain!

And yet, for so many of us, GOD.

God lingered there.  He was there and was waiting, knowing that tragedy was about to strike.  His grace was there, always there, at the ready.

Brought to a place where two worlds merged, suddenly in grief is a never-ceasing prayer, and an eternal compensation is that you find yourself obeying God without even trying (1 Thessalonians 5:17).  There are silver linings everywhere in grief, but the enemy hides them from us until we insist upon the looking, searching, scouring.

These two worlds that smash together and stay permanently fused—at least for several months, if not years—are God’s eternity merged with time itself.

The only solace is that God is there.  God or a drink.  God or a drug.  God or some other distraction, idol, addiction, or senseless denial of the incontrovertible.  How flipping useless to walk opposed to reality.  Flow will have us crushed by the reality of it, and living!

Learning to live in these two worlds simultaneously is tricky; it’s designed to break us over and over again, and each time we find ourselves bundled against the rocks of our grief we somehow find, there it is once more, the GRACE that picks us up and dusts us off—to emerge into the loving arms of hope for one more day.

... one more day.  
The secret to living in grace is one day at a time.  
Simple as that.

We are kept between these worlds, straddling both, never able to escape either, for a good and godly reason.  That is to learn a new way of existing, in the eternal reaches of this life now.

Seriously, though we cannot have back what we had, what has come is eternally better.  But it takes time to see it and embrace it.  The paradox is, we must allow our grief its time of human wrestling, the anger, the bargaining, the depression, the acceptance, the denial, as a soup or washing machine, thrown about chaotically for a time indeterminant.

But we do emerge.  We are deepened.  

Somehow, the worst for the best.

I just hope this helps in some small way.

The mental health breakthrough

Sometimes (i.e., not always) our mental ill health is about our lack of insight—we just don’t see mentally, emotionally, or spiritually as we would like.  The proof on these occasions is when the tempest breaks and that build-up of low pressure that precedes a storm, ebbs into a shower, or in other terms, we allow the truth of our emotions to spill forth in honesty.

The mental health breakthrough comes in the moment of insight, which is the precise intersection of truth and humility—our willingness to accept truth, whatever it is.

Insight is the intersection 
of truth and humility.

The mental health breakthrough could be that prayed for moment or day that equilibrium returns after days or weeks of exhaustion, confusion, or unexplained anxiety.  Overwhelm, fear, anxiety, and not coping with stress have double impact.  They expunge the joy, hope, and peace from the day.  They also burn precious reserves of energy that can take days, weeks, or even months to restore.

The mental health breakthrough comes as a solution to the mental, emotional, or spiritual impasse we’ve experienced.  The malaise that we may have been thoroughly sick and tired of, but ironically may not have seen as clearly as we’d have liked.

When the tempest breaks and the mental health breakthrough comes, gratitude and counting our blessings is at last seen as possible, palatable, worth the effort.  Motivation returns as insight inflates our hope.  Faith being the fuel of motivation.

When all of life is overwhelm, 
little wonder hope seems vanquished.

Life in balance, however, is a gift of seeing straight 
however hard things are.

With insight, adversity is manageable;
we come to courage and choose.

The moment the breakthrough comes, you’re aware that re-writing the narrative is all before you, but at least you have an authentic, trustworthy insight to draw upon.  You take a big deep breath as you enter a new day with a newfound faith despite its known hardships.

Courage needs humility as much as confidence, 
humility and confidence in equal measure.

We endure difficult journeys 
when we have humility to keep us from self-pity, 
and confidence to keep us from giving up.

In terms of faith, confidence is trust.

A lot of the time, in the breakthrough, we’re just thankful that the ‘real us’ has returned and that the thunder cloud that seemed to hover over us is gone—for the time being at least.

Sometimes we didn’t even see that thunder cloud hanging overhead until the tempest has broken—this, too, is evidence that our insight is returning.

~

Those who have struggled with their mental health usually don’t make assumptions of others’ mental health.  Suffering teaches an innate empathy useful for the care of others.

What’s learned are simple fixes 
don’t resolve complex maladies.

A deeper appreciation of the intricacies of grief 
that can’t be denied tends to mature a person.

~

‘MENTAL (ILL) HEALTH’ OR GRIEF?

We may not ask ourselves the question, but determining the source of our struggle is pertinent.  If we find ourselves in an unavoidable situation of suffering—through any varietal of loss—our problem isn’t confined to poor mental health alone.

‘Mental health problems’ usually don’t function in isolation.  Circumstances conspire against us, and the grief that occurs outbound of loss is an unavoidable process of adjustment.  Adjustment leading to acceptance or forgiveness.

Everyone grieves losses.
Nobody is saved from this form of suffering.

Loss is not limited to losing a parent, 
a child, a sibling, a pet, or a dear friend.

It includes the dreams that are crushed, 
the career we lost,
relational betrayal or breakage, 
the material loss of a house that went up in flames, 
diminished capacities, and disability, etc.

~

BREAKTHROUGHS CAN LEAD TO HEALING

When hope returns, no matter what is still ahead in the grieving, insight carries us to the valley of decision.  Will we enter or continue on the fuller journey of recovery?

Gathering our resources on a day when we’re feeling a little stronger, we can calculate our capability, we can plan, we can prepare.  We reflect on who we are; who we’d like to be.

Resources are those things we have at our disposal to help us on our journey.  Some of our resources are within us—our knowledge, our belief systems, our motivation, etc—and some of our resources are external—loved ones who might support us, mentors, and knowledge that we might glean in the present and future.

Notice just now how these experiences of suffering are the bricks on which another person will build their recovery.  Just as we build our recoveries partly on the bricks others are supplying right now through their love, care, and wisdom.  In our suffering, we are learning how we will help the next person, even as we recover.  No suffering is ever wasted.

The mental health breakthrough is a catalyst, kickstarting the hope that takes us further toward healing and wholeness.

Every journey toward healing and wholeness 
involves restorative and fortifying processes.

The restorative process makes sense—we are back to who we are.  The fortifying process is taking inventory for what we’ve learned and how we’ve developed.  The restorative process is about maintenance, and the fortifying process is about improvement.

~

The end game in processing grief is reaching acceptance or forgiveness.

Acceptance is a blessing when we can accept 
the thing we cannot change.

Forgiveness is a blessing when we must accept 
a relational situation we cannot change.

Both acceptance and forgiveness 
can feel like mysteries,
but faith resolves them in time,
and with openness of heart.

In effect, loss is something hard that has occurred that we cannot change.

Given that many, many things in our lives occur that we do not like and that we cannot change, learning to grieve our losses by accepting and forgiving them is a key life skill.  The mental health breakthrough is usually the catalyst to help us get started on this work.

“Can someone please help me – I don’t like myself”

Some of you know that I’m involved in a ministry for men called “Momentum Australia.”  Recently our team received an enquiry as follows, and we were asked to comment.  My response follows the enquiry:

“I have struggled to like myself since a child. It basically forced me to abandon myself and look to my ‘betters’ to find out how to be lovable and acceptable. I had given up on me being okay right from the get go. I do know I need God’s view of me. Obviously, to really know I was good and accepted by God is a great thing. I’m 50 now. I’ve known God for 10 years. I do have a clearer picture after 10 years but there are times when it’s as if I have total amnesia and I’m lost again. I often dont know what I want to do because I’ve never valued my ideas or opinions highly. So I’m always left wondering , why am I doing this? As if I had no say. And essentially I felt I had no say. My voice in steering my course in life has probably only surfaced a few times in my life up to age 40. People say I’m a deep thinker but I’m just trying to figure out where I’m valued in this world. So far it was not found in jobs, money, marriage. All of which was very disheartening of course. It seems this is the most I can articulate my position at the moment.. knowing truly that I am good and loved by God is probably more caught than taught so to speak.  I guess I missed that growing up but I’m still alive and learning . I’m learning that I’m crippled by this emotionally . I would say I have been stepping out to follow my little voice more now that I see God.  I am in Mens groups but they all seem to be still at my stage. I’m not happy with just status quo. Someone must be ahead of me on this who has wisdom to share.”

~

My response:

First, I feel as if I am not just writing a response you, but that there might be a few people who could resonate.  What you’re describing is actually a common phenomenon, it’s just that we can feel so utterly alone—like we’re the only ones—feeling this way.  Perhaps many of us felt like this one time or other in our lives.  I know I have.

Secondly, I applaud your reaching out!  Your question and your heartache speak for more than yourself!  You echo others.  Others need the same answers you do.  Others have the same question on their mind and heart but don’t have the courage to ask it, so thank you for your leadership in this.

Sometimes it takes a lot of courage to reach out like this, or perhaps you have reached out before, and you still hold out hope that some piece of information will be “the game changer”.  Maybe you don’t care anymore what it costs you to reach out—which is an awesome expression of faith.  You may not be that impressed, but there are people like me you inspire.

You refuse to believe the possibility that your life won’t get better, and I can tell you, as a pastor, that God sees your faith.  He will give you more satisfaction for yourself, or perhaps it’s more peace with yourself that God will give you, or more joy, or more hope.  It’s good to explore each of these, peace, joy, hope.

What does you liking you look like?

I can tell you that different people have different thoughts on the same question.

Other men may seem happier with themselves than you are, but the truth is it isn’t just you and them, or “us and them,” because we’re all different.  The folly we all need to reconcile is that comparison is neither true nor helpful, but as human beings we’re more or less stuck with a comparing mindset, though certain techniques—like a practised gratitude—can help alleviate problematic thinking like comparison and complaint.

I think you know how loved you are, that God loves you infinitely, beyond what you can grasp.  The struggle may be that your head or mind accepts this, or you know it at that level, but your heart hasn’t fully received it yet, in that your feelings haven’t caught up.  Or maybe you’re still on a journey of your mind accepting it?

Yes, I’d venture to say that you’re on a journey.  As a nearly 56-year-old man, myself, I can tell you that you’re in the best decade so far.  I love the sense of leaving-things-as-they-are in my fifties.  For me, it feels like the fifties are a time when I accept, and even prize, my imperfections more than ever.  I think this is important.  I’m after a little spiritual progress and have given up on spiritual perfection.

Another way of looking at this is humanity commonly has three kinds of idols it struggles to overcome—popularity, performance, possessions.

We want people to like us (popularity), we need to achieve (performance), and we feel identified in what we have (possessions).  The Christian life is best when we don’t need these, and our identity is fused to Christ.  That’s a journey for us all.

You know that you’re loved and that you’re lovable, and in the present context, you’re likeable.  You probably know people who like you just the way you are.  Are there elements of who you are today or younger versions of yourself that you like?  What is it about you that God REALLY likes?  This is about discovery because it’s not about “if”.  God likes you!

One thing that is highly likeable about you off the bat is your honesty.  Your honesty is exactly what other men need.  We need places where we can talk about inconvenient truths and awkward facts about ourselves.

None of us likes all of ourselves.  We all need reminding that God loves us.

Life on the other side of Lament

“God’s anger is only a moment,
His favour, however, lasts a lifetime,
weeping lasts all night long, 
but there is shouting for joy in the morning.”
— Psalm 30:5

In my article “Christian faith answers suffering best when it has no answer” I give a stark analysis of the darkness of grief and the relevance of lament.  It would be easy to imagine that all of grief is lament, and there is no hope, but that would not be true.

I know there are many who can attest to the truth that there is life on the other side of lament, and indeed deeper joys than we’ve ever experienced.  The longer we bear and endure the deepest griefs, the more certain we also grow the capacity to relish the deepest most grateful joys.

Above I have set out Psalm 30:5.  It’s my interpretation from a cursory look at the Hebrew and the English translations.

Notice the connection between the temporal nature of God’s anger—that brings conviction to our heart to confess sin—and the salvation peace in the favour that rests on us eternally, with the temporal nature of a solitary night, yet the permanence of morning flushed with joy.

And yet as we juxtapose these extremes of time, the temporary with the eternal, we also get a glimpse of the length of one night, in context of the dark night of the soul.

The dark night of the soul is not just one night, it’s a series of nights, and sometimes it’s years of nights.  Nights that are darker than pitch, where hope is vanquished, and yet by faith, those who trust learn the presence of God in God’s apparent absence.

The dark night of the soul is the exact image of the cast of lament.  It is a state of being where we have nothing, we hope for nothing, and we simply sit in the nothingness.

It can seem over and over and over again that there will be no morning, even though we hope for it to emerge.  Indeed these extremes being poles apart—a seeming eternity of dashed hope with the faith of a thread that cannot let go—are building for us joys we cannot comprehend.

As much as the dark night of the soul seems incomprehensible, unfathomable is the joy set before us for the suffering we have endured.

How can either of these concepts be adequately explained?  They cannot be.  They are in the realm of the Lord God, and just as God’s ways are higher than our ways, and his thoughts are higher than ours, we can grasp neither, yet we live them both.

The greatest hope a person can know when they’re in the deepest pit of anguish is the faith that tells them to “hold on, for it will be worth it.”  It is the faith that will carry them to joys unspeakable.  The definition of faith in the darkest night is to keep stepping despite hideous realities in the sure knowledge that restoration does indeed come.

On the other side of lament are the beautiful and meandering vistas of a spiritual peace beyond words.  Imagine possessing a joy that requires nothing outside of oneself and you begin to understand what it is like to experience true joy.

Such a joy when it is possessed can never be taken away from a person.  It is an eternal possession, just like that morning sun looks like it will go on forever.  Yet even though it cannot be taken away, humility teaches us that we must nurture it to retain it, for in that is maturation  That glorious morning sun that shines hope on our hearts, gives way to evening, and in our human condition we return at times to doubting and loss.

But once we’ve been to the dark night of the soul, once we have been crushed and have lived in brokenness, the opposite has also been given to us.  What we may not possess every single moment is no less a possession.

One of the great possessions of the Christian faith is the dipole between lament and joy, even as much as one informs and teaches the other.

The stillness of lament is faith that prepares a person to experience depths of gratitude symptomatic of joy.  Indeed, such a confidence is learned in the pit of despair if only we carry a blade of hope with us by faith.

 

From your depths you shall rise

January 1, 2004, I received this bright drawing from one of my three daughters.  She was 8 at the time.  I got many gifts like this at the time from each of my girls.

Nineteen years ago, having lost everything that meant everything to me, I was often in a very dark place; a sort of experience you never think is possible, it’s so painful.  I was in that place for several months, and the full crisis lasted a lot longer than that.  Yet I knew with no doubt whatsoever that God was there with me every step.  He was present in and through my daughters and my parents.  Those five individuals kept me alive.  Them, and two sponsors (mentors), a guide, a pastor (who until recently was still in Baptist ministry in Mandurah), and a growing list of others as I began to trust people as the Holy Spirit led me.

I could never have imagined when I received this sunrise drawing how life would actually turn out. There were still many dark days ahead for me, the darkest was actually six weeks ahead from that point.  I still had days and hours and moments ahead of me (and I still have them now) when I felt like giving up.  And I have realised that, for me, this is normal, and in God’s sight, acceptable.  Perhaps God’s love shines through all the more when we’re at our rock bottom.  And this has been an untold blessing for others I’ve been privileged to minister with.

Don’t ever feel like you’re not good enough if you’re tempted to give up.  The most courageous people are the very ones who were tempted to and almost gave up.  And for a time, some do give up, but that’s not how the story ended.  

Don’t feel you’re a disappointment to God when you never actually learn a key lesson, ever.  God is supremely patient.  He just loves our effort.  Our “success” doesn’t please God as much as our humble approach to failure does.  What delights God is what is in our hearts, not the outcome.  

Don’t underestimate God’s ability to surprise you 
with something like a blessed sunrise drawing.

All through this 2003-2006 season of lament and dark night of the soul, God continually showed up in the most unexpected of ways.  And it’s been the same in similar seasons in my life since and in the lives of others I’ve witnessed who have journeyed by faith.

Don’t forget those who were there for you... those who are there for you now.  Trust those that God places in your path who only want to help, and who are positioned to help.

Don’t feel you ever have to have your life together.  There’s abundantly more glory to God in our brokenness than there ever is in our apparent perfection.  And believe me, perfection is a mirage.  

Don’t feel you’re a burden on others you need to trust for support.  Most people love to be called on from time to time to support those who are struggling, especially people who have been through similar struggles.  Don’t be a burden and you won’t be a burden.  The key is to find a few who will support you, so you don’t lean on just one or two.  But use your discernment so you don’t end up trusting the wrong people.

Don’t forget that God walks faithfully with us no matter where we’re at.  As we keep looking to Him, as we cry out without answer or help, He helps.  He gets us through till morning.

And don’t forget that if the mire is now, 
now will not always be a mire.

“Never once did we ever walk alone,
Never once did You leave us on our own,
You are faithful
God, you are faithful!”
(Never Once, Matt Redman)

Being free to enjoy the work of your passion and calling

Far too much has been made of our “identity” devoid of our purpose, especially when there are definite personality types that are geared toward, and driven by, purpose.  For too long, much has been made of such purpose as a weakness, as if it, our work, our passion, cannot coexist as part of us.

I love the trendy word, “flow”.  It’s that state of being you’re in where you love doing what you do.  It gives us energy, motivates, and inspires us.  We tend to be talented in those activities where we’re in a state of flow.  There’s a symbiosis between what we do and who we are, and the ‘who we are’ (our calling) is gratified in being efficient and effective, and where there’s seemingly little effort.

I love writing these articles because I’m often in flow when I get an idea to write on.  I find it’s as if my fingers or voice commands can struggle to keep up with what God’s revealing to be written and it seems to come out without even a great deal of thought.  I’ve found it inspiring over the last 15-years to write 400-words in 20-minutes, or a 1,000-word article in an hour, especially when there’s very little editing to do.

Another thing that brings me into flow is meeting with individuals, couples, and families in the pastoral counselling space.  I’ve found counselling gives me energy and doesn’t deplete me.  It doesn’t demand too much of me as I don’t take on people’s stuff, whilst I have the spiritual gifting, the heart, the ability, personality, and life experiences for it.  Unfortunately, of recent, I’ve not had the time to invest in counselling, and that’s okay, for the time being.

Writing and counselling have kept me afloat over the recent years when I’ve had to work in secular roles that don’t allow me to get into flow, roles that are not my calling.

I’d imagine that you are probably like me in that you may not have the luxury of accessing flow in your main paid role.  So many people work in areas of skill but not in the areas of passion, and that’s okay when access to work you’re passionate about isn’t there or can’t be supported vocationally.

This is where Christian service allows us to work in areas of calling and gifting.  More and more people are working in their areas of calling as volunteers these days.  It can satisfy deep longings.

The thing is we should all be able to enjoy the work of our calling without feeling guilty about it, without feeling like people think that our work is part of our identity in problematic ways.  Conversely, flow-state work IS part of our identity because it is our service, and central to service is our passion.

It delights God when we are in a flow state in our work, when we are doing what we were designed to do, and when we are lost in our work, absolutely in bliss in our mind, heart, and soul.  It brings intrinsic joy and is God-provided.

A huge part of who we are is what we can do, especially when it’s a labour of love.  And all labours of love are glorifying to God.

I sometimes get suspicious about people’s motives when they call into question how much “rest” people get because when we work in our flow states, we’re more replenished than depleted.  The trouble we all have is getting enough opportunity to work in our flow state.

We live in a culture that prides itself on being busy whilst also disdaining hard work.  Our culture has a confused relationship with work, making toxic what is blessed.

We shouldn’t need to worry that we’ll “burn out” when we’re engaged in our passion and calling.  In our inner being we’re affirmed in ways that are intrinsic to our being.

We should be careful, however, when we’re working hard in areas that we’re not called in.

Where the motivation is extrinsic, we’re more likely to be anxious, stressed, frustrated, and distracted because we’re not passionate about what we’re doing.  This will explain why you feel the way you do in your work if you’re not passionate about what you do.

There are some vocations we’re called to that will be inherently straining, like parenting if we’re parents.  The calling is in keeping our children safe and helping them grow, but for so many reasons we most often won’t be in a flow state because of the external source of the many complexities involved.

But I want to encourage you to break the shackles of other people’s expectations around your calling, gifting, passions, and service.

A lot of the time our need of rest comes out of the tasks and activities that drain us, that we loath and despise.  Or when our calling extends us farther than what is sustainable, it can jade us in our calling.  Discovering our callings and passions, and spending more of our time doing them, is central to our life’s purpose and provide much meaning for life.

Being thankful for being touched in our grief

If anything in this life touches you, you are blessed.

Just so you know where this is coming from, I write this in tears, but my tears are NOT tears borne of pain.  My tears are of remembrance of my mother, and they’re not tears of pain, they’re tears of being touched.  I’m playing the song that she and Dad would occasionally weep to when they remembered their daughter, my sister, Debra Leanne, who they lost to stillbirth in 1973, an era that did not allow couples to adequately grieve their pregnancy losses.

I don’t think I’m alone in noticing that there is something cherishable in being touched.

We are touched when we fall in love, when we receive that awesome job offer, when something wonderful happens to us.  But just as much we’re touched so very deeply in our losses, and this is because love conflates the situation with pain because the situation cannot be resolved.  When love and pain coexist, there’s the basis for being touched.

If we’re not afraid of the effect of being touched, and we’re not ashamed of those tears that will run down our cheeks, and those messy nostrils, if we’re able to find a safe way of expressing what the heart certainly feels, we will be blessed.  If we can go there and even allow for the occasion when we’ll be lost in our loss, we will be blessed in it.

As we allow ourselves the space to grieve our loss, the Good Lord meets us in that attitude of heart and gives us a depth of a touch of his presence even as we wrestle with the paradox of love’s voluminousness with love’s inability to be met.  Somehow, in the truth of allowing that truth of our loss to melt us we’re broken in the most redemptive of ways.

I would go so far as to say that a part of the intent of James 1:2-4 is to inspire us to dig deeply into the truth of those first four words, “Consider it pure joy...”

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.  Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

Twenty-first Century Christians tend to be transfixed in a bemused way by James 1:2-4, but those who suffer find themselves transfixed in an entirely intrigued way, for when we suffer and we have faith, we cannot help but search.  James wrote to an audience that had an intimate understanding of suffering—for the culture of the time, for one’s faith, to mention just two.

We really have nothing to be afraid of with our cognitions and emotions that are connected to loss.  Indeed, these “uncontrollable” nuances of attitude that come out in the unavoidable behaviour of brokenness are a great blessing because they help us to be more authentic—more human, not less.

There is another fact of loss that makes grief something we can be very thankful for.

Because the grief cannot be resolved, because it cannot be avoided, and because the loss cannot be overturned, and because it will remain a loss for the rest of our lives or for an indeterminate period, we are held in that state of vulnerability that will compel us toward the growth of change.  We cannot remain as we are, and whenever we’re touched by the grief, especially as we connect with that unrequited love that cannot be reconciled the way it wishes to be.

The truth is, that grief insists on being heard, and if only we won’t deny it, it will touch us and it will heal us.  We just need to be actively passive and let the grief do its work.  We need to step out of grief’s way as it will heal us if we’ll let it.

Being so very thankful for our grief is a cherished state to experience especially as we consider we so often feel we’re trapped in the pain of grief.  This grief can touch us as much as it can pain us.  It’s time to sit with it and allow it to touch us and heal us.  It will if we let it.

S.A.D. grief in a season of ‘peace and joy’

Whilst there is the phenomenon of seasonal affective disorder that affects so many people this time of year (and at other times of year as well), there is also the phenomenon of penetrating grief for losses intruding on people’s Christmas season this year and every year.

Of course, grief is a seasonal catastrophe where loss has ripped through the heart of a person who has no answer for what life has come to be.  It is ironic that seasonal affective disorder has the acronym S.A.D.  There is no worse sadness than the compound depression, anxiety, fear, amid panic attacks of that grief season that engulfs the person and consumes their hope, particularly as the annual season approaches and the descent is made once more into an abyss.

Grief is what we feel when we experience loss amid a world that is celebrating.

What a scourge it is for the lonely and overwhelmed.  There is no way to make the loneliness lonelier than ever than to put the lonely in the presence of the joyous.

And a person only needs to live this reality once in their lifetime to be convinced that it’s the worst time of year for those who are grieving, for those who are triggered, for those battling their S.A.D. grief, than Christmas.

When everyone is getting together and having wonderful meals amid the merriment of Christmas, or Thanksgiving for that matter, it sheets home the calamity, and the strain and stress of that struggle cannot be communicated with words.  The affect is polarising.

Loneliness is a riveting kind of grief that sends a person into the estrangement of disconnection when a simple intimacy would do wonders.  Blessed are they who genuinely appreciate and like their own company, but if there’s too much of it, or that aloneness is forced upon a person, it means all agency is taken away, and that can be incredibly disempowering.

Christmas can be the worst time to be reminded of what you don’t have, especially when it’s so apparent that many people seem to have all their lives together.

And because Christmas happens exactly a week before New Year’s Day, it’s a double whammy of peace and joy that are missing, plus the fresh hopes of a new year dashed at the prospect of more pain.  Then there’s the quietness of new year which paradoxically can prove just as much if not more a burden especially in our loneliness than the ‘feeling lonely in a crowded room’ scenario the lonely face at Christmas.

If it’s you who is quietly reading these words, perhaps teary because they’re all too true, know my empathy goes out to you, for I had 2003 and 2004 as my worst Christmases.  I was beyond lonely, and it didn’t matter how much family I had around me.  Indeed, with family around it was too much of a reminder of what I was missing out on, not that it was their fault.

For those of us who are enjoying life, those for which life is great, we could spare a moment, a prayer, a kindness, a reaching out, for the one who is struggling.  We may not be able to do much about another person’s pain, but at least we can connect with the reality of their pain.  It is something.

Whether it’s true seasonal affective disorder or a seasonal bout of grief for a fresh or ongoing loss or the annual cycle of loss on repeat matters little.  The pain of grief is astonishing, as much as loss is strikingly the loneliest of states.

De-mystifying the complicated “unlearning” journey

I think we all sense that moving on with our lives—whether it be from loss and grief, or the sadness, disappointment, and even betrayal of relationship breakdown—relies upon accepting change.  And especially change that happens to us, that we have no control over.

One way of converting loss into growth is by embracing the unlearning journey.  That is, the concept operationalised in our lives of starting over, of departing from known schemas, of reinventing ourselves from a different mindset.

This, of course, is one of the hardest things to do, or at least it seems like a hard thing to do.  It is hard to the extent of breaking old habits, forming new attitudes, leaving behind what was.  But it is easier if we imagine the freedom that comes from willingly and joyously walking not the opposite way but another way.

This essentially is adding a loss upon a loss because unlearning involves departing from what we know, and that can seem like another loss, when in loss we want to maintain as much of the status quo as we can.

In unlearning and unbecoming we give ourselves 
a chance of living something we’ve never lived before.

When we have experienced loss, maybe the last thing we want to do is take a risk.  But in the nexus of loss, in the pivot point of grief, is the opportunity of a lifetime to put the old schema aside and build a new paradigm—because we are in control of that.

Think about it for a moment.  There is probably no better time than to be either locked in and paralysed by the thought of change, or to be inspired and motivated to let go of the past entirely.  In grief, we can experience both polarising states of being.

The best way of moving boldly forward is 
agreeing to be at peace with leaving the past behind.

The process of doing might be more complicated
but at least our attitude is aligned with unlearning.

I recall those earliest and darkest moments of divorce, and how dreadful those moments were.  Times I felt like I was dying of anguish, heartbreak, and fear.  No hint of exaggeration.  And yet, there were times in that season where I was ready to launch into something uncharted, and indeed my steady climb out of the abyss of marriage failure relied upon embracing elements of a life that I didn’t yet know would be good.

Trusting movement in those vulnerable days may have been hard, but provided I moved in good faith with courage, these moves were always blessed.  Going to AA, recommitting my life to God, choosing to be a school mentor, becoming a totally devoted parent, accepting the call of God in my heart, etc.

Catholic contemplative Richard Rohr OFM says that spirituality is essentially about letting go.  He quotes ancient mystic Meister Eckhart who says spirituality’s much more about subtraction than addition.  It reminds me of Job (1:21) who having lost all his livestock, servants, and all his children, nearly 4,000 years ago said, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.”  It reminds me that the nature of loss is to lose, it’s to have something subtracted from our life, but it’s also the invitation to unlearning the old way, as the “new normal” takes hold in our lives and we gradually learn how we can shape it.

A lot of unlearning is in letting go or forgiving what’s happened.  That can seem unconscionable.  Especially where there’s a strong element of injustice.  Anger is something that needs to be processed.  Being honest is key no matter how unpalatable the issues at hand are.

Forgiving and letting go involve tremendous patience, 
gentleness, and empathy with oneself, 
but when we believe it can be done, it can be done.

The quest of spirituality is in the letting go, of unbecoming, of losing, of unlearning.  When we can subsist gratefully in loss, in having nothing, literally nothing can crush our hope, and that’s a fervent, pulsating, cogent spirituality.  But, of course, it’s a spirituality that cannot be simply imagined, it must be lived, and living it is easier said than done.  And when it is lived, it’s the most confident and contented life.  A truly spiritual life is lived.

Maybe the best affirmation and confirmation that we are on the right track spiritually is we can contemplate letting go of what was to embrace what is.

If we’re not there yet, that’s okay, but it’s something to conjure in our imaginations, it’s something to hope for and strive for.  It’s simply about having an openness to the concept that will ultimately bring the concept to bear as fruit in our lives—eventually.  As a spirituality, that’s faith in a nutshell.

The process of unbecoming is part of the process of becoming, and that takes years, and realistically it’s a decades-long, lifetime work.  Knowing that, knowing that there’s no hurry, we can be gentle and patient and empathetic toward ourselves.

The exhaustion buried beneath emotional vulnerability

“Sometimes we can do more for people in our absence 
than we can do for them in our presence.”
— Ruth Haley Barton

Having endured the past few very challenging years, and perhaps having also endured some variety of other challenges or hardships in life, you may have arrived in a season where your emotional vulnerability bleeds out from within into your external world.

It may be frustration, irritability, fear, sadness, loneliness, a loss of hope, the need to withdraw in ways that neglects those who depend on you or, just as bad, violent behavioural responses of rage.

Not all our emotional vulnerability is due to exhaustion, but a lot of it is.  Exhaustion comes from ‘being strong for too long,’ from being too accessible, from saying ‘yes’ too much, from being unbalanced for an extended period, from compromising far too often.

Exhaustion drives down into our soul and ultimately it leaves us spiritually dry, and it all manifests in patterns of emotional vulnerability.

There’s a good reason why Jesus often withdrew into the wilderness.  He needed to reconnect with himself and be in communion with his Father.  Jesus modelled what we all need to do.  We all need our “ME” time, and we need a rhythm of it.  Such timeout isn’t just for introverts.  Such timeout isn’t selfish.  It’s a spiritual discipline we sorely need to engage in.

“ME” time can sound like selfishness, but if I don’t look after me, I have little resource left to care for the person who depends on me—and we all have people who depend on us, just as in any healthy life we depend also on others.

So, we can look at this “ME” time in the frame of whatever it is that replenishes—noting that much selfish “ME” time is NOT oriented toward renewal but sloth.  Time to reconnect, be it with a book, or time in nature, cherished fellowship with a mentor, exercise, journalling, or any other productive use of time is vital for each of us.  Good self-care requires diligent effort to plan and execute.  Blessed are those who take responsibility for organising this time.

When we find ourselves in a pattern of emotional vulnerability—and this is most underscored in the final analysis as anxiety and/or depression—we might be genuinely encouraged to identify the reason: exhaustion.

I say encouragement for this reason: we customarily condemn ourselves as less-than when everyone undergoes the same thing when exposed to a sustained overload of stimuli, whether it’s burnout, a cacophony of loss, conflicts that can’t be reconciled, abuse and trauma, and the like.

There’s no reason to feel alone in being emotionally vulnerable.  Given the same circumstances that you face, the next person would feel the same way.  And besides, there are just so many people who are emotionally vulnerable, again, because of degrees of exhaustion.

~

Here are ten sources of exhaustion, which is an adaptation of the work of Ruth Haley Barton’s Invitation to Retreat: The Gift and Necessity of Time Away with God:

1.            BEING TOO PLUGGED IN

It’s the curse of the modern social media and email age.  Most of us spend far too much of our lives connected to devices.  Without tempering this excessiveness of electronic stimuli, we risk burnout simply because we have a fear of missing out (a.k.a. FOMO).

2.           TRYING SO HARD AND JUGGLING SO MUCH

Few of us truly want to disappoint people, because, let’s face it, even if we’re selfish, keeping people happy makes life easier.  We’re often prepared to do more just to keep the peace. And just because we do this doesn’t mean we’re “people pleasers.”  It’s often just strategically wise to keep people happy.  But the more we say yes, the more exhausted we become, unless we ensure that we always chisel out time to replenish our resources.

3.           FUNCTIONING OUT OF A SENSE OF OUGHT AND SHOULD

This is about listening to our language, or even what we’re saying to ourselves about making needs out of wants.  We place a lot of pressure on ourselves.  We should do this, or we ought to do that.  If you’re exhausted, you know how it goes.

4.           FINDING IT DIFFICULT TO RECEIVE HELP FROM OTHERS

It is far easier for us to do things for others than to “owe” people.  But if we can’t receive others’ help, we will find life exhausting.  It takes humility to allow others to love us.

5.           LIVING MORE AS A PERFORMER THAN THE PERSON GOD CREATED YOU TO BE

We are human beings not human doings, but all the same, we act as if all that matters is our performance.  I know how hard this can be having had employers that I found impossible to please regarding performance—yep, just didn’t know how.  I know that conditioned me to see my worth in what I do and what I have to offer rather than seeing my worth as who I am.  God is far more interested in who we are than what we do.

6.           FEW OR NO BOUNDARIES ON OUR SERVICE AND AVAILABILITY TO OTHERS

Priding ourselves on saying yes to everything, without ensuring we have recovery time, is the sure road to burnout.  Let me just leave that there!

7.           ALWAYS FEELING YOU SHOULD BE DOING MORE BECAUSE THERE IS ALWAYS MORE TO DO

There will ALWAYS be more to do, and the more we do, the more we SEE the things that need to be done.  We don’t need to be the ones to do what needs doing.

8.           CARRYING THE BURDEN OF UNHEALED WOUNDS – SADNESS, UNRESOLVED TENSION OR CONFLICT, TOXICITY IN RELATIONSHIPS

This one’s loaded.  Grief, unforgiveness and untenable relationships will do us in if we let them.  We will have grief.  We will.  We must take our sadness to God.  And we must find ways of resolving tension (which takes intuitiveness and courage) and putting in place boundaries in toxic relationships—or ending them.

9.           INFORMATION OVERLOAD WHERE MORE IS NOT BETTER

Just about every adult alive at this time knows a world where information bursts toward us like out of a firehose.  We need to protect ourselves against the relentless deluge.  We need to be discerning about what information we let in.  Not only are we to say ‘yes’ less to people, we need to say ‘yes’ less to the plethora of information 

10.        JUST BEING PLAIN WILLFUL (AS OPPOSED TO BEING WILLING)

This speaks to our pride.  Yep, it’s in us all.  Only the ones who can see it, who acknowledge it, who are aware of it, are those who are probably low on the narcissism scale.  Most of us know what we want and, if we’re honest deeper down, we insist upon having it.  Rather than being insistently willful, a reflection of good mental, emotional and spiritual health is simply having a willing attitude—being willing nurtures gratitude, hope, joy... peace.