Moving on, vs Moving with

holistically: emotional

I've got skills. Maybe not Liam Neeson-level skills, but I have some useful ones. I have skills and knowledge that assist me with helping others. This same skillset supposedly helps myself, too. If someone wants help with breathing techniques when they feel anxious? I know how to find helpful tools. If someone's feeling squirrelly after something huge and upsetting? I know how to normalize what they're feeling (because other people feel those huge, earth-shaking emotions, too in the face of trauma).

If you're a helping professional and/or work in the human services, do you ever have trouble reconciling your own knowledge with what you're feeling? As in, "my rational, professional knowledge base tells me that it is normal to feel [enter emotion here] based on this situation. Why did this hit me so hard, then? I knew it was coming?!" Oh yeah. Helping professional or not: we're all human. That's why. Doh!

Life has been quite the learning experience lately during my schooling while I'm recovering from grief. And other loss, too. Loss from long ago, loss of parts of my identity, and loss due to a couple life changes. I've had incredible supports, and I'm ok most of the time. Even when I'm shaken or raw, I'm still ok, just less so. Life has been a rollercoaster in learning how to live it in a new context (school) that's somewhat familiar (I've been in school before) but altogether different for me, as I'm a different person this time around.

Let me turn the lens to something else for a moment: there exists copious literature on how to process and deal with grief (and a plethora of other upsetting issues). Just do a Google search (though I warn you of the quality of some articles....................) Seek professional help when possible or at least professional advice to suss out the dross from the actually helpful.

However, there also exists an overarching pressure to "get over" or to "move on" from these upsetting things. Sure, you can ugly cry RIGHT AFTER you lose someone, but what about 2 months down the road? 1 year? 2 years? 10 years?

As a helping professional, I'd tell you: "ugly cry all you want. In fact, let's simply call it crying. It's normal and actually potentially healing to cry (hard or not) when you feel like crap."

As a human in North America, I would feel embarrassed, ashamed, and "crazy" for crying hard over a loss that happened more than a couple months ago. Why, though?

There's the crux of the issue: sure, you're ok to be stuck in pain right after a loss, but when the rest of the world around you has "moved on," it's assumed that you have, too. Most of us know, however, that that's bullshit.

I'd like to offer an alternative discourse: a discourse of moving with. With whom, might you ask? The person you've lost. Carry them with you. A friend of mine reminded me of something I knew in the dark, dusty corners of my brain but had forgotten: the importance of ritual and honouring a lost loved one. Do this.

If the loss was complicated, however, ignore what I just said and seek some professional help in aiding you with your maelstrom of feelings. That's a topic for another time. Grief is messy. Complicated grief is even messier. They're not on a hierarchy, really, but are more like apples and oranges in a fruit basket of pain. Grief (the apple) is difficult to crunch and digest, but there's a relatively expected/known method to eating and processing the fruit. Complicated grief (the orange) can explode, sting your lips if your skin is dried out, it doesn't open properly if the peel is on there too damn tightly, and it can surprise you with crunchy seeds when you least expect it. It takes forever to peel and eat an orange most of the time, doesn't it (if it doesn't for you, then think of another complicated fruit....pomegranate maybe?).

Again, that's a topic for another time.

If you've lost someone you deeply cared for, do your best to dissipate the pressures of getting over it when it seems everyone else has. I'd argue that "everyone else" likely hasn't completely, either, even if it seems like it. Honour your feelings. Cry your heart out when you need to. Bring your loved one along in your proverbial pocket to the good times and bad times ahead. If there are celebrations coming up that meant a lot for you and that loved one, do something to remember them. Light a candle, eat a cookie or candy they liked (thanks my friend for that suggestion), pray to them, write about them, go play a game outside (basketball? soccer? wall-ball?) or go for a walk. The options are endless but need to be meaningful to you.

Take your time. As familiar as an apple is, it can still surprise you. Has anyone ever found a worm in theirs before? I haven't. Happened with a peach once, though. That was unfortunate. I digress. Even if the apple is something you know about, you still need to take your time. It sucks to get apple chunks lodged in your throat, so chew it slowly, process it bit by bit--however long that takes. But, here's the parallel challenge: live your damn life.

It'll feel awkward and painful to be happy or content sometimes. That's normal. It's also imperative, then, to enjoy moments, occasions, rise up to challenges life hands you WITH THE OTHER PERSON. Bring them along. You can't leave them at home, or at the grave, or in the dark recesses of your mind where your skeletons hide with dust and cobwebs building up. They'll haunt you (they probably hate cobwebs as much as you do). Bring them into the daylight with you. Carry them in your heart. Acknowledge their presence and live your life.

Easier said than done, but in truth: we're all in this together. We don't leave a soldier behind, right? We've got to carry each other, in life or in death, because a person's impact does not extinguish in physical death. It simply changes. Move with that person in your life: don't move on.

Where is she?

holistically: holistic

I look for her. Sometimes unconsciously. My heart's muscle memory grabs for her when a familiar song comes on, I watch a movie, I go somewhere, I see a certain colour or hear a certain sound... you get the picture. The triggers can be subtle, the triggers can be obvious, or they can be random as... well... random. When I can't find my best friend and the realization settles in like poison that she's not coming back, I droop. I get numb. I ache. I feel lost.

I know that feeling well and if you've ever lost someone, you may have felt it, too. When my father died it was the same thing: lumbering around life, looking for him, looking for a shred of his presence to ease my pain.

Within the feeling of being lost more recently, came a realization: I'm not only looking for her and for my father, I'm looking for me. I'm trying to find who I was and who I am now that all of this has happened.

The notion of searching for oneself sounds cliché but that's because it's common. We want to feel whole. We want to feel as though we know ourselves best and be confident in who that is. The problem is that we don't want to do the work just yet. In pain it becomes difficult to muster strength to change or assimilate new information. Basic tasks have to be relearned anyway and that seems to be where most energy goes after a loss.

That said, if you find a shred of hope or light, your gaze can shift toward the light. Yes, we can also start looking in darker places. It's ok to dabble sometimes as long as you don't stay there. In terms of the lighter side of things, I turned to the usual suspects the most (friends, family, my cats). Or my bed. Lately, however, I've turned to podcasts.

The podcast journey started because of my genius, beautiful sister-in-law. Instead of jamming out to tunes in the car, she and her husband listen to an incredibly engaging podcast called Serial. You can listen to this podcast on whatever app you desire (both Apple and Android stores should have a compatible app). I use CastBox (http://castbox.fm/).

Being me, I eagerly began subscribing to any and every podcast that tickled my fancy. Plenty of podcasts exist for everything from self-help to learning French to Science to Serial's uncanny ability to plunge you into the vortex of a single case's every winding, curvy detail for a season.

One podcast took me by surprise. Sure, I support happy, rainbow-filled literature, websites, discussions, etc. However, most of the time, I crave something more real and down to earth. Hence, when I subscribed to Vibrant Happy Women, I had my doubts but a part of me craved the sunshine that the title promised. Well, it's not all sunshine and rainbows. It's better.

Each episode focuses on a woman who has been through some shit. I believe the first one I listened to featured a mom from the Sandy Hook incident back in 2012. Her humanity astounded me. I was humbled, inspired, and dumbfounded by her forgiving, beautiful perspective on the world. I ended that podcast feeling that if she could forgive and see things in a new light, then why can't I?!

Another episode featured a woman who struggled with depression and anxiety. Now that is something all too many of us can identify with. Again, I felt humbled, inspired, and wanted to shift my thinking on my own life.

I've listened to about 15 episodes now. All feature different women who have gone through different plights of varying magnitudes and their transformations have been anywhere from subtle to ginormous. The captain of the podcast ship is Jen Riday. She's a life coach and a calming, warm presence. A magnificent force and woman herself, she curates other magnificent women to show us that we're all so different and so much the same.

So what the hell have I found on this podcast journey? Myself. Not a whole being or formula or graph that denotes specific qualities and emotions, but humble truths that have always been there but have been in hiding.

The first truth: we've ALL gone through something that we found difficult and/or are still going through it. Be kind--to yourself and to others. It's easier than you think.

The second and perhaps most important truth: you have to help yourself before you can help others.

Every woman on Jen's show is asked what some of their favourite quotes are, what they've been through, how they've come out of it, and what advice would they give to others. The main answer to the advice question was answered in a few ways, but a couple of note are the airplane analogy (put your own oxygen mask on first), or simply that you need to take care of yourself before and in order to take care of others. I addressed this issue in a previous post, "Physician: Heal Thyself." I believed the notion when I wrote it, but I didn't quite grasp that I could do it myself until I started hearing other women talk about it.

That's a paradox, I know: relying on other women to tell me I can do something that's supposed to be self-driving. Well, it's true. Because of these women I've only ever heard and never seen, I started to realize that I only have to look two places in order to help and find myself: to other people, and in the mirror. I feel so different and inadequate compared to others sometimes, until I hear their vulnerability and strength. I hear a voice inside me that says "Yes! I've felt that way!" or "OMG you do that TOO?!" I feel connected to something deeper than lil' ol' me.

When I look in the mirror, I start to see me. I start to see that I have some of the qualities these women have: resilience, vulnerability, strength, fallibility, and humanity. Sure, I can strive for other things throughout my life but those are more material or superficial goals. We certainly get wrapped up in those material goals: lose weight, be physically stronger, read a thousand books, be an early morning person and a social butterfly, know all the things, etc. The qualities (resilience, vulnerability, etc.) I mentioned before these material things are timeless and priceless.

Resilience is not something you can achieve through a 30 day program or a Facebook group challenge. It's inherent in all of us and is stoked when we're tested by life's trials. It's there. All you have to do is look back when you've struggled. If you're still alive, then you were resilient. Cut yourself some damn slack.

All you have to do is look in the mirror and realize that you have what it takes because you are you. I have what it takes to thrive because I am me. The people I lost loved me (thank God for that!). That love stemmed from a connection and recognition of similar qualities in each other. Take a moment and think about why you love certain people in your life. I bet you can come up with a few common qualities between them and lil' ol' you.

So maybe love yourself a little bit more. Cut yourself some slack. It's ok to look for yourself sometimes, but I challenge you to find yourself sometimes, too.