The Deep Waters of Grief

Each stage is a season, bringing both a blessing and a shadow.
How you fare through the transition is a matter of perspective and choice.
And of course, it helps to reach out to compassionate hearts
and kind hands to help you on your way.

DENIAL
The Blessing:
A merciful temporary shield of protection.
An insulating numbness,
protecting your psyche from the magnitude of what just happened,
Denial mercifully allows you retain the strength needed to step up
and do what needs to be done in this, your most immediate hour of need.
The Shadow:
Denial can be so deceptively comforting you may be tempted to stay here forever.
Don’t stay cocooned here too long, or you’ll miss out on the rest of your life.

ANGER
The Blessing: 
A catalyzing, actionable energy.
Anger brings with it the ability to effect powerful change in split-seconds.
The Shadow:
Be aware.
Misdirected through ignorance, blame or imperfect perception,
Anger can damage and destroy a sensitive, fragile new beginning,
plunging all back into depths of despair.

BARGAINING
The Blessing:
An opportunity for introspection.
Bargaining allows you to look at all the angles of your tragedy,
and realize the magnitude of the part you played in each scene.
Such conscious awareness can enlighten the soul for the highest and best good.
The Shadow:
Endless examination of what went right and what went wrong,
and all the “coulda’s, woulda’s, and shoulda’s”
that may or may not have been done differently
can imprison you, powerlessly, in the past.

DEPRESSION
The Blessing:
Stabbed and wounded,
Depression becomes your respectable retreat, your safe space,
where you are allowed to process this epic truth –
Your Life, as you knew it, will never be the same.
Do not fear the pain.
Acknowledge it.
Even embrace it.
Fully feel the twisting blade of despair,
And share your anguish with a trusted, nonjudgmental soul.
Only then, when the magnitude of your loss is fully validated,
will the sharpness soften and the tide recede and you discover
there is rest and renewal to be found in these quiet depths.
The Shadow:
Excessive indulgence in Depression can become endlessly disabling.
Do not succumb to the temptation to wield Depression
as a weapon of self-pity against your present and your future,
for left unchecked, it will steal your ability to love,
and that, my dear, would be the greatest tragedy of all.
.
ACCEPTANCE
The Blessing:
Oh blessed is the day when you awaken from sorrow and hear a song of joy again!
Acceptance peeps slowly, gently, up through the receding pain,
Just tiny moments of awareness seeking sunlight through snow frozen field.
You still breathe the breath of life.
You LIVE.
And alive, enlightened by the lessons, you can choose to walk more meaningfully.
The Shadow:
Defeat is the shadow side of Acceptance.
Giving up is the sin.
The true sorrow is if you let the pain dim the light of your soul
and the world loses you… and your purpose… and your natural expression of joy.
Yes, you were horribly hurt.
Yes, you felt powerless in your pain.
Yes, it happened to you.
But you are not alone.
You did not drown.
In avoiding the shadows and embracing the blessings contained in this prose,
you can climb into the ship of compassion
to safely cross the seas of change.

Blessings,
Jo Lyn