“Is There an End to This?”
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Debbie writes: “I have been doing a great deal of focusing and tapping huge wells of sadness and grief. Does it ever end? I seem to grieve the same thing over and over and over. The end of my marriage and seeing how it ties to my relationship with my parents. I have also noticed that I have a persistent drainage and stuffed up nose. Not really a cold, but perhaps an emotional detox? I also have noticed that no matter how much deodorant or perfume I use, my underarms smell. Both have been with me since I began grieving. Do you think it is a coincidence or have you heard of this happening before? I can feel pathways being reached in my body which have been closed off for years. So interesting and yet a part of me yearns to have some sort of ease from this grief. Do you have any experience of this kind to let me know there is an end to this? “
Dear Debbie:
First, it’s quite possible that your body’s participation in your grieving process could affect the odor of your sweat and your nasal emissions. It’s all one system.
And you can FEEL pathways being reached in your body that have been closed off for years. That’s real, and important.
AND part of you yearns to have some sort of ease from this grief. This is indeed part of you, but a part that is easy to identify with. I think it was that part of you that is asking me the question about whether there is an end to this!
Of course there is an end to this, everything changes. But something in you that is having a hard time holding the space, needs also to be heard. Something in you has a hard time trusting the grieving process. It’s all about trust, I feel.
It can be trusted, I assure you… and yet something in you that doesn’t trust it, can also be listened to, allowed a space to be heard for how it feels.
Patience and Presence
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Healing takes time; grieving is a healing process, like many others. No one knows how much time it will take, but like all healing, it takes the time it needs.
When I burned myself a few weeks ago, I didn’t expect the burn to go awway instantly. I knew there was a healing process in the tissues that had to take time. And every day I could see and sense the process happening.
Funny that it can be harder to trust our healing with emotional process. There is a part of us that is afraid this will NEVER heal, and sadly, identifying with that part can actually block the healing.
The way through is to say hello to the impatient part, the one that doesn’t trust, so that it too has room to be and breathe– but it’s not what we identify with. Now the healing has room to take its own time.