Finding the Root

Grounding back to this earth I have been delivered by the angels. My root is that which I took birth for, which is me without my story. I look for writings about what is most helpful or the things that create recovery. Did they get stolen?

There are actually chemical differences in happy and sad tears. They found that "happy tears" are made up of brine, salt water, and not a great deal else. However, the "sad tears" were found to contain the very same chemicals and enzymes that are found in tumors, ulcers, and other such lumps, bumps, and sickness throughout the body. This test concluded that the body, when crying in sadness etc. is literally flushing out all of the toxic chemicals that accumulate in the body and are a part of sadness and the experience of heartache.

I am finding it so profoundly amazing how much the human body is designed to hold grief. It has its own systems for cleansing the toxins from the body and soul, its own management system called shock that regulates the amount of emotion a person can handle at the onset of trauma, and an incredible ability to ‘want’ to heal even in the face of the worst tragedies.

I have screamed out many times, "How will I ever get through this?" I feel sure that the breath I am breathing right then may be my last. The pain seems unlivable, unmanageable, and never-ending, yet one breath falls into another, into another.  They make a chain of breaths that then lead to an hour, then a day, then a month. I am now marking 11 months of those breaths, some only half breathed, some breathed through by a total force of my own will to survive and some only came because the body demanded its right for survival. Most of the breaths this last year came from the deep hyperventilating that comes during or after a good, long, hard, and excruciating cry.   

People always say to me time is the great healer. It just takes time! I know plenty of people who get worse over time or who lose their precious grip on the desire to be here on this earth as time passes. I am beginning to understand now that time will not heal me, but what I do with my time is essential. Mostly I know to do ‘nothing’ intentionally with my time except that which serves the moment I am in. I know not to keep up with the ‘ time’ others in the ‘normal’ world are honoring as it will surely take me beyond my ability to honor my own timing.

I am not afraid of the quiet anymore. I used to be such a busy woman. Most friends couldn’t keep up with all I did in a day and it seemed that I was highly celebrated for how much I could accomplish. Mostly moving around in the world and being “on time” was my way of fixing my low self-image and distracting myself from my feelings.

Well, now I  do not have the luxury of distraction from my feelings as they are a mighty force that is bigger than me right now. To even try to distract from them could mean total emotional collapse. This energy of grief has no patience or timing. It wants what it wants and it will not be set aside and consoled by busy world work. There is no more congeniality with friends or showing up on “time”. Empty “time” slows my breath. It allows me to integrate and honor this rite of passage I am undertaking. Today, I was out walking in the sunshine and the beauty of spring. I found a still point inside for the first “time” in my life.   Deep in the heart where the trauma met my true soul, there was a place where there was no movement, no time, no breath, no grief. It was a place where rest finds rest.  I imagine it is the place that the great ones speak of and call peace. Once the moment of communion passed and my mind re-engaged I knew I had touched the beginning of my recovery.

Time has taught me a few things. I know now I am not going to die from the pain. What a relief that is in some way.   I now know and trust that my body, mind, and spirit does indeed have a way it takes in grief and loss and that if I can learn to harmonize with my inner system, I will indeed not only survive the pain but grow from the beauty it holds. 

Somehow the most huge and painful ‘disharmony’ I can imagine life putting me through is teaching me the secrets of stillness and true inner harmony. Somehow leaving my body and crossing the veils with Koa is teaching me more about being "in-bodied" than I have ever felt before. Opposing forces seem to have such a power to bring balance.

For now, I am not only a human walking this earth, but startlingly aware of how short and fragile life is. I am also extremely, deeply aware that humanity was absolutely designed to handle this pain. I am even aware through “time” that perhaps this total abandonment of how I wanted my life to be is birthing the opportunity to be open to what life is. 

I feel the profound shedding of innocence and willfulness as it is replaced by a stillness that feels like a secret only given to those who dare to touch their pain and “breathe”.

I suppose “time” will tell.

Aho.