As light shone through the crack in the curtains I snuggled deeper into the bed covers. My face was still stained from the tears of last night's cry and as over all “weighted” sensation pulled through my body. I did my best to pull myself up and onto my feet through the haze of emotional fatigue and the late night talks with the Universe. Why? What now? Why now? I remember waking up in pain, walking through my day in pain, trying to put a smile over it but each night it would be there waiting. Heartache in any form is it's own beast. It can't be conquered, overthrown or mastered. All you can do it go through the centre of it and come out the other side. For those of you brave enough to love deeply you'll feel it's loss all the more and yet our entire culture expects us to just carry on. So we do. Burying this pain as best we can and trying to move on. When I look back at this time in my life I can hear feint whispers of how I used to think and it's frightening to know how dark things got. It's also strange that for a time that was so emotionally impactful that I have no emotional memory of it now. I couldn't conjure up that pain within my body if I tried. It's gone, I've moved through it and I've been out the other side twice as long as I was ever within it.
We all have those times when the bottom falls out of our lives. When the pain hits and flattens us completely and without mercy. Most people will try and coach you into being strong in a way that helps you to fight or combat what's coming. I take a different approach. I welcome it and let it have it's way. I allow the pain in and try to experience it fully. I give myself full license to be crazy, unapologetic in my vulnerability and authentic in my moment to moment experience. If I feel like crap then I let myself feel like crap. Of course that's not all I do. I still engage with my community, I still reach out, I still self reflect, self soothe and self care. On the days when I did fall to pieces I let myself go there but I didn't let myself stay there. It's the fighting against the pain that allows it to stay in your system longer. Grief, heartache, loss of all shapes and sizes has the same pattern no matter how intense the experience. You have to let it in, let it flow over you and then let it go. It will come in waves, it will come in cycles and it will come unexpectedly but it will be there until it has done all it's needed to do and taught you all it's needed to teach. And then one day you will remember that time, long ago when you were so hurt you didn't think you were going to make it and then you will smile inside the truth that it is no longer your now.
What I do during these times, because we all have more than one, is learn to celebrate the small things. Some days all you have to celebrate is that you got out of bed and got dressed. Validate each step you take. Sometimes you will celebrate that you let yourself cry for 2 hours without hindering it. Some days you will celebrate making a choice to heal. Whatever you have in front of you to rejoice in, use it. Use every inch of it. Each of these moments become stepping stones to help you walk through whatever it is you need to walk through. Strength is not the capacity to withstand pain, it's the ability to allow pain through your body and then stand fully inside the person you have crafted through it. Take it one day at a time. One step at a time and please, be easy with yourself.
Thank you for reading,
Big Love,
Ryan James x
www.facebook.com/psychicswansea