Our beautiful lives

Are you starting to notice that the light is shifting? More light in the day can really elevate our moods. So often over this winter, with storms raging and darkness falling early, I found myself saying, “We’re in the bleak midwinter.” But I saw my first snowdrops last week!

We’re always evolving.

These beautiful lines from Ecclesiastes say it so well:

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted...

a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance...

Sometimes in the winter we get more in touch with the sadness. Have you experienced that? As a therapist I hear so much of grief and loss. It’s been said, actually, that all therapy is grief work. Clients don’t come in thinking they are “grieving.” But there may have been a loss of connection, a loss of internal connection or function -- all part of the human experience. 

What can we do about grief or sadness?

    1.    Recognize it. And name it as grief, so we don’t have to be blended with it. Acknowledge and release it.

    2.    Witness it. I witness my clients' grief, but most importantly, I help them witness their own. Grief can be so painful; but while painful, can also be sublime, even transcendent. And our self energy, which is timeless, can hold it all. Expansion happens when we find out that we can hold what we are experiencing, and it doesn’t have to take over. And if it does take over for a time, it’s kind of like waves -- we don’t have to drown.

    3.    Release it. It’s not a banishment; it’s a healing.

The experience of being capable, of carrying what we have, and letting go when it’s time to let go, and having the courage to step into a new experience of life enriched and deepened by our grief is quite amazing. It’s really, really beautiful, our life.

And here come the snowdrops!