Love this article Susan. Your willingness to grow out of your grief is truly admirable in its bravery. It is so much easier to let ourselves drown in our grief , but by choosing to grow and allow yourself to develop a broader more mature understanding and capacity for love, yourwere able to transform not just your perspective on death, but more importantly your perspective on life and what truly matters. Thank you for sharing such a deeply personal experience Susan and the lessons that came from it.
Thank you for the feedback and kind words Vernon. When dealing with pain and loss in any area of life, I find making a conscious effort to aim for 'better' over 'bitter' helps to move us in the right direction, even if the journey is difficult and slow-going at times.
I came across this Schopenhauer quote recently: "When you look back on your life, it looks as though it were a plot, but when you are into it, it's a mess: just one surprise after another. Then, later, you see it was perfect." Some moments really do seem like nothing more than an awful mess! And some of those surprises can be quite unpleasant at the time. But then later when you process things in hindsight, a different picture comes into view; and that picture is often rich with meaning and value in a way that could never have been anticipated.
What a viscerally powerful piece. Loss, grief and healing are all natural parts of the human condition but they are so equally devastating that we are afraid of having any conversations about them. Yet it is in conversation that we realize that we are not alone and that there is life after the passing of a loved one. Often people are so alone and afraid to be otherwise that they remain in the loss and grieving states and never heal. Yet I feel we do our loved one an injustice to not pursue healing. Would they not want that for us?
Thank you for the feedback and comments Brian. "...they remain in the loss and grieving states and never heal." It's not good obviously, but I can easily see how this happens, where someone seems to get frozen in a point in time and just stays there, remaining in the loss.
"Yet I feel we do our loved one an injustice to not pursue healing. Would they not want that for us?" I totally agree with this, and I've had to remind myself of it countless times, especially when I find myself tempted to feel guilty for moving on and experiencing joy again.
Love this article Susan. Your willingness to grow out of your grief is truly admirable in its bravery. It is so much easier to let ourselves drown in our grief , but by choosing to grow and allow yourself to develop a broader more mature understanding and capacity for love, yourwere able to transform not just your perspective on death, but more importantly your perspective on life and what truly matters. Thank you for sharing such a deeply personal experience Susan and the lessons that came from it.
Thank you for the feedback and kind words Vernon. When dealing with pain and loss in any area of life, I find making a conscious effort to aim for 'better' over 'bitter' helps to move us in the right direction, even if the journey is difficult and slow-going at times.
I came across this Schopenhauer quote recently: "When you look back on your life, it looks as though it were a plot, but when you are into it, it's a mess: just one surprise after another. Then, later, you see it was perfect." Some moments really do seem like nothing more than an awful mess! And some of those surprises can be quite unpleasant at the time. But then later when you process things in hindsight, a different picture comes into view; and that picture is often rich with meaning and value in a way that could never have been anticipated.
What a viscerally powerful piece. Loss, grief and healing are all natural parts of the human condition but they are so equally devastating that we are afraid of having any conversations about them. Yet it is in conversation that we realize that we are not alone and that there is life after the passing of a loved one. Often people are so alone and afraid to be otherwise that they remain in the loss and grieving states and never heal. Yet I feel we do our loved one an injustice to not pursue healing. Would they not want that for us?
Thank you for the feedback and comments Brian. "...they remain in the loss and grieving states and never heal." It's not good obviously, but I can easily see how this happens, where someone seems to get frozen in a point in time and just stays there, remaining in the loss.
"Yet I feel we do our loved one an injustice to not pursue healing. Would they not want that for us?" I totally agree with this, and I've had to remind myself of it countless times, especially when I find myself tempted to feel guilty for moving on and experiencing joy again.