Loss, as unspoken of has meant to me that for so long I was afraid to be happy. I sometimes think I unconsciously made the wrong choices so as to make myself unhappy. For being happy meant I am alive. And life for so long despite of what was apparent on the outside was scary. I became so fixated on the pain in the story because being happy would have meant I am brave enough to believe that I deserve happiness without them around; how can I be happy if my Mum wasn't here? How can I be happy if Dad wasn't there? And what if they will never come back? How can I be happy when I don't have them to share all the stories of failures, love, smiles, friends and successes ? What is the meaning of anything I do or become if they were not there to witness me thrive? Is it really true that I will never share a cup of tea with them ever again? How can the world be so cruel? And does this mean everyone I know is going to be temporary? Even me? Even everything I am making for my life? what reasons were going to be stronger than my grief and loss, to convince me of happiness without fear, of love without pain, of peaceful days without tragic news like the news of my parents fatal illnesses.
I have had very few moments of surrender and openness to the true meaning of joy and happiness. In my head I would be making catastrophic ending scenarios and disasters every time I find myself happy or even in an okay mood. It is a traumatic response. I was protecting myself from feeling that heart shattering pain again..so why not make up some scripts in my head that would ruin the moment for me so I wont believe it so much. And if I don't believe it so much maybe it would not hurt that bad if I lost it. I have had few traumas in my lifetime. I am now able to put my head above the clouds and smile in the face of the sun. Not that all the healing necessary is done. But because I can now see a version of me that is healed way more than anything I have ever known of me. I see people around me who were not necessarily in love or attached to their parents like I was. I wonder what made my parents so special to me; their true love to each other is all that echoes back.
Sometimes I think there is pain on both sides of the story, children who had wonderful parents will eventually suffer the pain of loosing them, and children who didn't have such a great parents’ story, will suffer the pain of never having them as they needed them to be. The world is designed in a way that does not really take our wellness seriously, it is inevitable that humanity will keep choosing its ties, attachments and limits. Life is not all that black and white. The most beautiful things about life I have found to be in the grey…the ordinary days…the simple times…the psychologically informed connections…
Years ago, my one month of silence retreat in a Buddhist temple has taught me that attachment is the cause of all human suffering. So I started learning to let go of all the losses that weighed me down. Grief ebbs and flows, but fear of loss is what remains. It is a void that has grown in my heart in so many ways…some harmful and some not, until I was finally able to water it, nourish it and grow it into a garden. I am still learning to be a skilled gardener and certainly still learning to trust happiness more, allow it in, trust others more, trust life, the ordinary moments, my everlasting search for simple details & pleasures; trust myself and get in the hang of loving despite of life’s most inevitable change strategies “loss”.
In few days I turn 45. A long journey of heart labour. I am grateful to the dragons I have learned to befriend and tame. I am glad I am in the here and now. I am grateful to the challenges of the here and now and the blessings. I accept all of it, all of me and though I let go of the past I am grateful to the journey of the past, the present and the future. I am grateful to my parents and specifically my mum, who have given me the love they were capable of and that made up the backbone of my healing for so many losses. I am grateful to letting them go. I am blessed with 45 years of gratitude in re-seeing and re-defining every meaning I was given. I am grateful to the moment I decided not to buy into the inheritance of conditioning, meanings and definitions that we come into this world to find it all set up for us. That moment changed my life. I am still a work in progress. And I am grateful for that too. I welcome abundance in all that is in me, all that is around, above, below & beyond me. My intentions are set on peace, fulfilment, love, freedom and kindness the way I choose to make them happen.
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