Enduring the Conscious Agony in Grief

I wrote the following poem and accompaniment ten years ago, which was also ten years after the time I was experiencing the conscious agony of grief in the grave hues of the dark night of the soul.

A poem called, “When I Awoke, All There Was, Was Pain”

Dark clouds they emerged from the horizon,
As if the enormity of despair weren’t nearly enough,
In my unconsciousness there was serenity,
But now I’m awake ‘life’ returns and it’s tough!
In slumber there was no hell that suffocated me,
But now I lay here bewildered and glum,
Times like this I wonder why life came to be this way,
Times like this I just feel so totally numb.
Then years wore on,
And I got over my grief,
I went from strength to strength,
Because I found my relief.
But one reflective moment,
In my mind’s eye,
I’m back there on my bed,
Feeling like I’ll die.
I’ll never forget,
The sorrow of pain,
To lay their speechless,
And feel I was going insane.

The pain of grief is torture – as is manifest in waking up to reality, yet again.  In that living hell which is the panic received in awakening to the nightmare that life has descended to, there is hope, but only in God, a God who comes close by faith.

But there is no answer that comes close.  The only thing we can do is wait-out or out-wait the pain – to endure it – and the only way we can do that, with sustainability, is to go to God and go to the people of God we can rely upon.

But it won’t be easy.  It will be the hardest thing we ever did.  But we can endure it by simply enduring it, a day at a time, a moment, one moment at a time.  We must allow the pain to break us and in that, let God reshape us.  There is no sense in kicking against the goads.  The goads are to our advantage if we don’t resent them!

WHAT TO DO WHEN WE CAN’T SLEEP FOR THE REST OF OUR LIVES

We can’t sleep for the rest of our lives, though in the depression of grief we will tend to oversleep or drastically undersleep.  We are understood and forgiven for wanting to sleep through the dark night of the soul, and not being able to sleep is its own cruel torture.

Getting up and getting on with our lives is about recognising that things can still be done, even though life, for a time, is hell.  There’s no disputing it.  But reality is gracious enough to allow us to plod away and make some headway, even if it feels like we’ve been thrown into the pit forever.

Grief is long, it is dark, it is tough, it is despairing, but it also causes us to reach out in desperation, prepared to hope for anything to pave the way to life.  Grief can motivate to innovate in climbing out of the pit of depression.

If we are wise, we will congregate around people we find supportive.  Just spending time with them, as individuals and in psychologically safe community, with those we trust and feel safe with, will help an enormous amount.

We know we can’t bury our heads in the sand.  There are times for wallowing a while, but there are times also for breaking out and taking a risk.

We know we need to get on with the business of life at some point.  Gently, we set little goals and we receive encouragement for the little things that are a big deal in the context of recovery.

In the shock of grief, in the despair, when we don’t want to wake up, but we know we must, it pays to do little things to survive, and to get close to the people we know and trust and feel safe with.

Bearing graciously the injustices of life

Good things happen in all our lives, yet it’s only a matter of time before the good things we are given are taken away.  The nature of life is just until it isn’t.  We may either be thankful or feel entitled to the good things we get, yet inevitably, we are challenged when injustice strikes, because it always feels unfair.

It feels like it shouldn’t happen to us.

We feel unappreciated, fooled, transgressed.

How are we to forgive these injustices when they occur?

In other terms, how are we to move on having been floored?

Usually it’s a person or people that is behind it, so often there is a target for our resentment.  I’ve always been surprised at how little it takes for resentment to rise, for resentment is common to humanity.

How are we to deal with those things 
that occur that we feel are unfair?

As a truism, whatever we focus on becomes bigger.  We are allowed to feel hurt when unexpected injustices arrive on our doorstep.  Those who love us will understand without encouraging us to dwell in unhelpful spaces.  The normal mental and emotional processing task usually takes any of us a day or two to process what comes as an initial shock to our system. 

We are all human beings, 
and none of us is expected to respond well 
emotionally when we are blindsided.

Allowing ourselves a human response to injustice 
is a way of being gracious with ourselves.

It is the first step towards the ongoing process of graciousness in meeting injustice in a redemptive rather than a destructive way.

Meeting injustice with anything productive is a seriously hard thing to do.  Much of the time we don’t have a clue how to respond, especially when it is anger that we feel which is perplexing to overcome.  We feel that the injustice has forced our hand and our choice is taken away from us.  This is why it is right to allow ourselves to feel the ugly emotions.  To give ourselves that permission without succumbing to judging or condemning ourselves or attacking others.  Without succumbing to fight or flight.

To simply feel the pain of the injustice 
without reacting can be tricky.

We use our higher mind to avoid reacting. 
As much as is possible.

As we engage in sitting WITH 
the truth of the pain we experience, 
acknowledging we cannot ‘fix’ it, 
there, even there, we are growing — 
in acceptance, in maturity, in resilience.

Especially when we don’t feel we are growing. 

Another opportunity we can reconcile with injustice is in accepting that injustices do and will occur, and that none of us escape the plight of resentment that unfolds.  We do not need to feel duped or ashamed or exposed in being dealt a harsh blow.  But we will, indeed, feel painful, awkward, and uncomfortable emotions.  Injustice is the lot of all at some point in time.

But injustice tends to isolate us whereby we feel we are the only ones poorly treated.  If only we can remind ourselves that everyone has their turn at injustice.  We are not being isolated, even if it feels like we are being isolated in a particular way in the here and now.

Bearing graciously the injustices of life, we come to expect that they will occur, and that we will never enjoy them.  We can prepare as much as we can, but like in all forms of loss, there is always a surprise element, and that surprise element is what we feel is the hardest.  

Injustice is loss. 
We will never enjoy it. 
But we can go gently with ourselves.

Injustice may take us to anger in a flash.
Just the same, injustice can take us to humility.

Humility is the bedrock of growth.
See how injustice is an instrument of growth.