Wed, August 25, 2010
Today I was on Lynn Serafinn's Garden of the Soul radio show. I was a guest to discuss the topic Transforming Grief.
We were discussing how grief is a process of self-discovery and the gifts that appear as we heal. I talked about the experience of the death of my son and two weeks later the birth of my daughter, Hannah. It was one of the most powerful moments of experiencing the teeter totter of emotion. Cooper died on Jan 15, 1993. His memorial service was 8 days later on Jan. 23 and Hannah was born on Jan 30, a week later.
I was 8 1/2 months pregnant when my son died.
The idea bursting forth was similar to a blog I wrote a few weeks ago about the experience of the caterpillar dying while the imaginal cells of the butterfly begin to awaken. It is a common theme in our world right now. If you are not personally experiencing a death or rebirth within yourself, you are probably witnessing it in a friend, your community or the world.
Anytime we experience a death and a rebirth, we go back and forth between positive and negative emotions. I hesitate to label them with those words, but in our linear world it is the way we understand and view them. Negative emotions would be sadness, loss, disappointment, grief, anger. Positive would be joy, excitement, happiness, hope and freedom.
A few years after my son died, I was exploring and healing more of the grief. I saw an acupuncturist who told me I needed to stop associating the death of my son and the birth of my daughter together. He thought that was the answer to my healing. As brilliant as he was in many of our conversations, I disagreed then and I strongly disagree now. The more I have experienced and learned about grief I know the answer is to learn to embrace and flow between the various emotions, like the sideways 8, the infinity symbol. A never ending flow.
There will always be moments of joy and sadness present as part of each day. The death of my son can make me sad. The thought of his laughter makes me happy. In a matter of seconds I can move to the sadness and back to the joy and to the sadness and to the joy and ...
The gift of that time period was a lesson in exercising an emotional muscle. It was the muscle of the heart. I could feel great loss thinking about my son and then shift into joy as I looked at the little angel face of my daughter. I began to learn to appreciate the richness in each experience and to dance with the contrast.
We are all experiencing this contrast right now and more than ever, it is time to learn the dance.
If you are interested in listening to the radio show, here is the link. http://bit.ly/dDjFvb
