“Something is always born of excess: great art
was born of great terror, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities,
and it always balances them.”
—Anaïs Nin
The sure and certain sign of
adjustment out of grief is the forwards-backwards land of the soul as it tries
tempestuously hard to find equilibrium. No longer are there the stark,
sorrowful and numbed moments, hours, and entire days. Gone is the dearth of
expression. Now our problem is a richness of expression as we vacillate in ways
that resemble a mild kind of bipolar disorder.
Then we are relieved to be
reminded that this is all part of the grief process in adjusting to the new thing.
There is a downside to renewed
strength, because our hope tends to outstrip the progress of our reality. The
wheels of progress turn very slowly and we can’t hurry this process of
re-becoming.
More Than Accepting the Bad with the
Good
The cliché burns in the front of
our minds—we have to take the bad along with the good.
Almost as if we are stuck in a
sickening aquaplane where we are madly turning the steering wheel to right the
vehicle toward safety, our down days come almost directly after our good days.
And just like the skidding vehicle we feel we have nowhere to turn, until, that
is, we arrive delivered again, perhaps the following day.
In the quest for balance we may be
afraid of feeling too good, because the fear is, how bad could it get tomorrow?
We are almost prepared to sacrifice some joy so the sorrow won’t be as marked.
But the flow of our adjustment is
the important thing. As we gain strength we are tested by our abilities to cope
with the highs and lows. And balance is always the answer to those tests.
Finding emotional balance is about
allowing the Word of God to speak into our beings.
Wisdom from the Ancients
There are many wise ancient
writings, and many great modern writings too, that can help us gain emotional
equilibrium. As we read our Bibles and varying other encouragements, we gain
access to the wisdom of God. That wisdom speaks into our minds and into lives.
It speaks into our lives during
the highs, keeping us humble and warding us from pride. It speaks into our lows
as well; where we can borrow confidence and encouragement.
The wonderful thing about this
wisdom is that it is sprinkled everywhere, and like a treasure hunt we can
forage and explore. The more we partake of God’s wisdom the steadier our
journey into the light will be.
***
Enduring the rocky path out of
grief requires patience and a desire for balance. When bad days follow good
days we know we are getting stronger. The skill now is balance. The more we
embark on a journey with the Word of God, the more peace and balance we will
experience, because our minds are being nourished to strengthen our souls.
© 2012 S. J. Wickham.
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