Week Two – Lesson Two- Releasing Fear

Week Two – Lesson Two – Releasing Fear

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Prelude

During the last week, you spent some time in a dark place, or to quote Dante again:

In the middle of the road of my life
I awoke in a dark wood
Where the true way was wholly lost.

We might conclude that wherever we are in biological age, deep, severe loss always occurs in the middle of the road of our lives.

So penetrating is the event that we are called upon to acknowledge the crossroads at which we stand motionless, equally distant from where we came and to where we are going.

As someone once reminded me, don’t rush from that dark wood. Look around and discover the treasures that are at your fingertips as your vision adjusts to the dark.

Think of the treasures as those who might appear without warning to listen to you – not badgering you with their experiences and solutions, but rather those who voice a very sacred phrase, I carry your pain in my heart.

In Armenian, the phrase is tsavet tanem andconveys the depth of emotion equal to the pain and suffering of the Armenian people through the ages. As such, the phrase is used with caution and reserved for the most special friends.

What about the coincidences that preceded your loss that serve now to sustain you; insights that touch you with a clarity you might have missed earlier; moments of relief that you have not earned?

Perhaps, you can recall a walk in a driving storm where the rain on your face actually refreshes you or the aroma from a mug of coffee that you had not noticed earlier; a venture inward unannounced and for which you did not prepare, where prayer become the silent groans of your heart.

Make note on a continuing basis of the treasures to be discovered in this dark chamber.

At first, only shadows might form. Be assured in the fullness of your timing, you will distinguish what is before you and close.

We also considered in Lesson One why loss always seems to occur in the middle of the road of our lives in that we stand equally distant from the past and the future, that is, where we are going.

We created our own unique matrix to track the swing of our emotions following our loss.

We assessed our current emotional state and jotted notes in our journal.
We also considered instances when our decisions were spontaneous; and reflected on why this was so.

We embarked on a creative journey, and tried our hand or heart at composing Haiku.

Here is copy of a lithograph of Basho (1644-1694) who served as our model, and another of his poems to emulate.

An old silent pond…
A frog jumps into the pond.
Splash! Silence again.            

Part One – The Grip
It seems to be a paradox; at least it was for me, when you realize that grief has elements of healing within the bleak, desolate sense of despair that descends upon us at this special time in our lives.

 It was not long through the healing process that I uncovered this truth and wrote the following:

Grief releases, as we are ready, the grip of the past and the anxieties about a future; stimulates in retrospect a passion to embrace a hurt from which to grow. And in their place we experience the eternal in the present moment.

Notice I did not write if we are ready. Among so much you control in this period is timing. Your pace for healing is up to you. And let me offer a thought.

Seizing responsibility for your own healing and addressing grief directly speeds the healing process.

Like fear, grief dissolves before your direct gaze – as courageous an action you are called upon to commit.

And no one is empowered to stand-in for you – after all, your grief is singular to you and your special loss.

As I discovered, I found myself at a crossroad, standing inert, speechless, except for the groans that escaped as relived my loss.

The journey before you does not lend itself to retracing your steps.

From the moment of your loss, you are a new person, shattered emotionally you might add, bowed beneath the sadness that envelops you – but a new person none the less is emerging – however hesitantly.

What’s more, you are responsible for defining this new person.

Since you can’t retrace your steps, the journey you had planned with all the maps, preparation, and even the savings you accumulated with your loved one no longer apply.

As I wrote in Lesson One, I held a challenging position 15 miles from the mountaintop home my wife was designing; construction was to commence four days after my spouse passed.

In an instant, I woke up in my dark wood and discovered in time – when I was ready – that I stood at a crossroads in the middle of my life where the past with its loss was truly an illusion and the future with all its anxieties a delusion.

It was for me to fashion a new plan, or more accurately, to reinvent myself.

So I introduce a theme for this course that while we are working at healing our grief, grief in turn will lead us to a healing and even joy that we had not experienced earlier, prior to our current loss – the cause of our grief.

Before proceeding further, how about beginning or resuming the process of defining the new you?

Take an inventory of who you are now as it relates to your –

Also, consider those changes you are willing to initiate, like a career change, or moving to a new geographic location, should not be precipitous, but wait the prompting of your heart.

Speaking of hearts, let’s take a pause at this point by viewing and listening to Ryan Bingham’s The Weary Kind the theme for the film Crazy Heart for which Jeff Bridges won an Academy Award. Cut and paste the link below.

http://showhype.com/video/ryan-bingham-the-weary-kind-theme-from-crazy-heart

Focus on the following words and apply them as encouragement, preparing you to continue your journey in healing.

And this ain't no place for the weary kind
And this ain't no place to lose your mind
And this ain't no place to fall behind
Pick up crazy heart and give it one more try

* * * *

From Crazy Heart to Scripture, the following is a Scripture verse that has served to remind that what is not clear now will be made clear in the fullness of time.

Now we see but a poor reflection in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. (1 Corinthians 13:12)

How can this Scripture quote possibly apply to your suffering?

How can it serve to stimulate an eagerness to read carefully the unfolding pages in your life?

First, let’s consider time. What does time have to do with it?

Let me answer addressing the dimension of time – whether it is a past filled with regret or a future about which we are anxious. 

Months after my spouse passed, I recalled an incident many years earlier when I was in Germany on assignment. I was walking on a familiar path along the Rhine River to attend a lecture given by Corrie Ten Boom . Corrie wrote, among other books, The Hiding Place, a story of how her family gave refuge to a Jewish family that was hunted down by the Nazis during the occupation of Holland during the Second World War.

I realized once I was underway, so familiar was the path, that I would not arrive on time, given my late start. So, I just relaxed in the pace, freed myself from the anxiety that time can create,  if we allow it.

I became detached, freed my mind to wander as I trudged along. To my surprise, I arrived in plenty of time for the lecture. I thought then and remember till now that it was as if linear, or chronological time, had folded into a dimension of timelessness in the present.

The Greeks speak of the two as kronos – chronological time – and kairos – presence or being present in time. 

I too came to realize that time had lost its previous significance. If someone had asked then, if Donna had passed the previous week or months earlier, it would have been difficult to explain how it did not matter. Now, over seven years later, it would be even more difficult to explain the insignificance of time for me.

At the crossroads of my life in my grief, motionless in the stillness, I began to sense that a veil that once separated me from the past and the future was parting ever so slightly, allowing me to catch a glimmer of eternity, and to my surprise I discovered that I was growing in my grief.

Now we see but a poor reflection in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. (1 Corinthians 13:12)

Let’s conclude part one by listening to Vangelis’ Eternity, a melody I heard first soon after her death, feeling at the time she was communicated with me. Only later did I discover the selection is entitled Eternity. Cut and paste the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2lGNkfyrKA&feature=related

Part Two – Being present

On the day that was to mark a deep loss, but prior to learning of the loss, I prayed that I would recall instances when my prayers were answered even though my prayers were not much more than a groaning heart.

I remained still in my reflections and recorded the following thoughts.

Such silent prayers occur when you are in a quandary and must admit that you find no way out of even a routine dilemma of life. It’s as if you were given a book and at random a key chapter or the concluding pages are missing. You are that book and your life are the pages – even the so-called missing pages. Yes, other readers when you have passed on will think that they have the complete book and will read it, commenting on its structure and quality.

Yet, the reality is that you have a book in your heart and that is your journey. As it unfolds with each challenge, joy, sorrow, or celebration that is held in the bright light of dawn, in a downpour on a wintry day, surrounded by friends, or alone in the solitude of a flickering candle, you know that life eternal, a length of days forever, has been granted to you.

And these days forever are the profound answer to prayers that are not uttered, that emerge in soundless groans of the heart, that exhibit profound compassion, love, relentless faith, are indefatigable in the press of life, do not search for answers in the past but embrace the present moment of grace and are filled with hope.

Four hours later, I learned of my loss.

Reflect now on signs that you might have missed prior to your loss.

It could have been a last conversation, words that were spoken by your loved one that take on new meaning; or perhaps a dinner together or attending, as we did, a spiritual gathering where my eyes keyed on the words from Scripture taste of death and its transitory nature, assuming their significance to my father’s death only weeks earlier when in fact they touched me deeply when my spouse passed weeks later.

Enter into your journal what you can recall of the time leading to your loss, even when the loss was not as sudden as I experienced.

When you are ready you too can probe deeper into a significance overlooked.

These recollections might help you to see the connectedness of life beyond time and space

Part Three – Time Doesn’t Heal

Early on the in the healing process – or was it the grieving process – I realized that I could not rely upon the passage of time to heal.

I came to see time as a snapshot of my progress or lack thereof, but I came to understand that I could not relinquish the pace of my healing, or the healing itself, to the passage of time. Time became rather difficult to define and hardly the vehicle in which to ride.

What is time? See how Deepak Chopra explains it:

There is only a single instant of time that keeps renewing itself over and over with infinite variety.

Four months after Donna’s passing, the principal at my son’s school offered in condolence, “Time is a great healer.” I nodded agreement, but I wanted to say that it isn’t time that is healing me but the support of friends and family and the inner stirrings of my soul through God’s grace. After all, what is time—the clock on the mantel piece, the watch on my wrist?

My father was in deep mourning from the moment my mother died in 1987 until his own death in 2003. He provided the perfect teaching that I choose not to follow—someone waiting in vain for time to heal.

Between the sixteen years of my mother’s death and his own, he only talked of life in the past tense. “I had it all,” he would declare and go back to his reflections, ignoring the vibrancy of the Now in all its presence.

Therefore, I suggest that you seize your moment, your timing, for healing, and don’t relinquish that responsibility to another, however, close to you or loving that person or persons are; don’t look at healing as a time piece on the mantle to be observed in the passage of time.

Be engaged in the process.
 

Take a moment to explore whether there is something holding you back from taking responsibility for your healing.
What is it, or who is it? Perhaps, loved ones who would know better, is inhibiting you.

Cut and paste the link and with eyes closed listen to a second Vangelis offering, entitled Missing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5a9Z05XgOhU&NR=1&feature=fvwp

Then, take out your journal and record your thoughts related to your notions of time.

Part Four – Creativity and Healing

I have turned to writing poetry for insights overlooked in the healing process. Invariably, the words that spring forth are birth in the depth of my heart where words fail to offer description or explanation except in poetry.

I encourage you to discover your own method of creative expression. It could be tending to a garden plot design to recall the love for the one who has passed; writing or learning to write haiku; embarking on a new endeavor – be it a course of study, a trip long planned; sketching a favorite scene – a sole fishing vessel plying the waters beyond the breakers, or a marina where masts and jibs form intricate patterns for the heart.

Here is a selection I wrote one afternoon when silence overwhelmed me and seemed to drown out my surroundings, when my life grief seemed reduced me to silence. The poem is appropriately entitled Silence.

Silence

Something’s missing,
Except in echo
Above a piercing
Silence that speaks

Of desert drift,
Absent your touch,
Smile – care – concern,
Or is that unfair?

Silence enshrouding,
Except for plaintive pen
Scratching thoughts across
A blackboard of doubt.

Part Five –

As we conclude the lesson, here are some suggested exercises and activities for you to complete.

A Sufi asks his student, "Who were you before your mother and father were born?"

What better question to plumb the timeless and space-less dimension of eternity.

This was the question that I asked a dear friend who was dying of cancer and sought consolation, seeking a confidence for which a successful career did not provide or prepare him.

Describe in your journal an experience where time seemed to lose its hold on your attention.

It might have been when an anticipated incident was unfolding, a moment of fear that seemed to last an eternity, or one that was over in an instant.

The purpose of this exercise is to break the bounds of time, the control the watch on your wrist holds, by demonstrating its insignificance in the wake of the truly memorable moments in your life, be they good, frightening, or joyful.

Think, remember, and express yourself now.

If you are still not sure how to begin, imagine you were talking or sharing your thoughts with the Creator.

Dreams contribute to your healing.

If you have not considered reflecting upon your dreams previously, or – like my father – insist that you don’t dream, try the following when you can recall even a fragment of a dream.

The acronym to help you remember the process is T-T-A-Q.

T represents Title – Give a title to your dream, even if only a fragment;
T . . . Theme – Write what the theme of your dream is, for example reunion, separation, loss;
A . . . Affect – How you feel reliving the dream;
Q . . . Question – What question does the dream ask you – so important for you to consider?

Finally, check in with your matrix to discover whether there are any changes to register.