I wander blindly through the endless abys
Trying hard not to give into my inner fear
My hope is extinguished like the sunlight during an eclipse
The deafening silence is all that I hear.
Life’s greatest challenge is facing fears
Yet don’t let it push away those you hold dear
Am I supposed to lie down while I’m being exploited?
Well sir and madam, you’ll be solely disappointed.
Adrenaline warms my veins as I continue on
Eventually I have to reach the end of the tunnel
I’m a faithful creature awaiting the dawn
My life’s pieces are disorganized like a puzzle.
Once the sun lights up the darkness
I can safely push away my haunting shadow
I dread going back to the sky that’s starless
Where my soul becomes as cold as snow.
Even when all hope seems lost
And I lose absolute control
I’ll be the fire to melt away the frost
Vanquishing my fears is my ultimate goal.
As far as I can tell this poem/song lyric is by an artist named Lunas Child. https://app.bard.social/writing/62
I originally found it on a YouTube video by Ivan Torrent also named Facing Fears
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNHE7pWjKAg&ab_channel=TrailerMusicWorldI
The Unity World Day of Prayer Celebration is September 8th. I must admit it was no where on my radar, even when it should have been. It did not hit me until I thought yesterday was September (Today as I write this is the official first day of September 2022). I was going through my calendar and realized I had totally forgot to plan the prayer/meditation time for the community this year.
The graphic this year on the Unity literature is a light house. A lighthouse not only holds the light. It shines the light. We are called to do both.
This can bring up all kind of dread and fear and unworthiness. “Life’s greatest challenge is facing fears.” Fear of everything. Fear of not being enough, fear of being too much, fear of being along, of illness, of tragedy, of not being comfortable, of feeling: both the joy and the pain.
This week also marked national grief awareness day. Grief Awareness Day. Feeling grief, moving through grief is perhaps something that we are most fearful. We don’t talk about grief in regular conversation. We shy away from the topic, like it somehow isn’t an integral part of being a human. We grieve the end of friendships, of moving from one location to another, of ANY change in our lives. We grieve most the change in our lives that occurs when someone close to us dies. We have opinions on how this is supposed to play out, how it is supposed to look like, and how others are doing with grief. We don’t fully understand until we go through it ourselves, we feel alone in the process. It is something that no human can get away from at some point in their lives, and yet, it is taboo as a topic as ever.
We try to ignore our grief, we try and put happy faces on it, we often do not feel we are handling grief correctly. We hear others tell us that we are doing it wrong or that the way we are doing it is uncomfortable to them. We have very little in the way of American rituals to handle grief.
I have spent the summer in grief education classes. I know, seems like a weird way to spend the summer, and yet, there it is.
I have been researching in one way or another since my husband passed. The 10-year anniversary of his passing is this month. I started feeling that time when our boys started their journey with the marching band this summer. He was so very proud of my older boys and the band. He videoed all their events until he just couldn’t anymore. He volunteered at everything. Galen and Cian were just babies, and they were packed up with all the camera and video equipment with little headphone on their heads to guard against the crowd noise and we traveled, following the high school activities. Dean passed during Lloyd’s senior year, I finished following the activities solo and put that part of my life behind me.
I worked on my healing and the healing of my children. Along the way I was told so many things about how I Dean was in a better place and how lucky I was to know that he is never truly dead. I was told I needed to be happy. I recently found an old email that my dad sent me a little less than two years after Dean’s passing. He was hurt because he felt I was a different person, and he didn’t understand. My response was that I had no idea that he felt hurt and at that time I felt better spending time alone. We all change within change.
I spent a lot of time on my own healing and awareness. I also made some questionable decisions while trying to figure out a new life for me and the children. The one constant I found is that there are a lot of people that are uncomfortable with me remembering Dean. If I recognize something that sparks a memory, if I mention in some way about how what the boys are doing reminds me of him, if I remember special dates (even 10 years later). Part of grief education is recognizing that remembering isn’t wallowing, it is honoring.
I read a lot about the changes in the body, mind, spirit, and healing within grief. I needed to. I found that even among the professionals the recognition of grief and trauma in a young person and how they process the world around them was non-existent. I had to educate therapists and the school during the elementary school years that my kids were not a disciplinary problem as much as they were bring triggered by grief and trauma. When that angle was understood, and that was addressed during sessions, everything started improving.
My friend and mentor died of COVID in March of 2021. Another beautiful friend that became a big brother died in October of 2021, my dad died of COVID in December of 2021, and in the last month 2 more of my teachers have passed. One of which trusted me enough to give opportunities to grow and be a teacher and leader within the Spiritualist Community. That is a lot of change. Yet, understanding how I process change and grief has helped my journey with this new movement in my life.
I have found in the people I work with (clients, center members and students) that there is an aversion to fully exploring death, trauma, and grief. There is a false notion that if one is spiritual and one knows that nothing ever dies that if we experience grief fully, we are somehow not as spiritual.
The aversion is the fear that needs vanquished. Grief is not only sadness in the change it is exploring who we are now in the change, it is remembering the love and the joy in the memories, it is also exploring the anger and the unresolved issues withing any change/death. The grief educator training will allow me to explore more fully that with individuals, groups, and myself.
Each time we face a fear out lighthouses shine a little brighter, a little wider. “Vanquishing my fears is the ultimate goal.”
In my case, at this time, vanquishing the fear of fully feeling the pride Dean feels for his boys as they are part of the band like their brothers. Also, vanquishing the fear of feeling the sadness that he is not with me sharing this time with them.
It is really impossible for me to help others understand their own human walk, if I am not willing to embrace and constantly heal my own.
“Even when all hope seems lost
And I lose absolute control
I’ll be the fire to melt away the frost
Vanquishing my fears is my ultimate goal”