Life Dance

Grief is something that people talk about as though you can just “let it go”, “move on” and re-establish some sense of normal… but the reality is this; you live with it every single day as though a piece of yourself had been removed. So you apply balm to fill the gap until it heals.

It never fully heals. And you never find the piece that fills it.

And that’s ok.

Grief is also incredibly motivating. After you feel crippled and you can’t walk… then you do. You “move forward”, not “on” but forward. The difference is, that in trying to leave it behind, you only inflame the wound. It burns with an intensity that leaves the body feeling weak, unstable and easily re-broken. Movement is grounding in the body and can keep your heart from atrophying, so you can continue to live, regardless of the fact that you’ve got a hole inside you.

The motivating part happens when we bolster ourselves to keep standing. To keep pace with the pain in a way that gets us up and out of our suffering, rather than sitting there, being consumed. Motivation is to find better ways to live that do justice to the feeling you still carry around daily.

Loss takes on many forms and faces. It doesn’t mean the person died. It doesn’t mean that you will never see them again. Change sometimes brings loss and it can be just as painful to carry on without a familiar person who you will encounter in the wide world in unexpected moments. What they don’t tell you, is that you never know just how to live with this one. Sometimes it feels like it might be better if you had no choice but to miss them because they are gone so completely you can never take in their walk again, or the curve of their face, or the little way their cheek lifts when they smile. This can feel crippling at times.

Find a way through it.

Figure out how to “move around” within the pain. Discover what steps you can take to live with the loss, to lessen it by just letting it be what it is without all of your over-analyzing.

Compromise never feels good to anyone, and I have always hated that word and strongly made decisions that would not compromise my internal integrity and my core beliefs. When you have to grieve or compromise, then grieve. Every. Single. Time. Tears cleanse, but compromise robs us of something greater than that missing piece. It steals our integrity bit by bit.

Reach out in whatever way you can. Leap into the face of your pain and smile at it, otherwise you lose something else. Resilience. Without that, you have no hope to recover. With it you approach the day, ready for a break in the storm, a sunny landscape to blanket your grief, a connection with a trusted friend. You prepare space for a healing encounter and welcome it in so that the grief can pass for a moment. That presence of self can sustain you through the next set of grieving, and the next, no matter how many times it comes at you, no matter how hard you become because of it.

Keep your soft self safe. Nurture her… she can’t be strong without you. Harden only to the ache that prevents you. Keep your heart alive to the love that can still crease your face with the broadest grin. That’s where love lives and the grief that has attached itself to all the happiness. Love and grief can sometimes become synonymous with one another. Live with that. Your life depends on it.