Glimmering Waters Wellness

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! May you find small moments of light, joy, peace, and rejuvenation, even in the midst of pain or darkness.🎄✨

Have you ever looked back on your life and wondered in awe, "How did I get here?" Or perhaps you wondered the same thing in shame.

lf you had met me ten years ago (and some of you have!), you would probably think that I was a different person.

Ten years ago this month, I boarded a plane with two large suitcases and a hiking back pack to Chile, where I would be staying the next few months to teach English in a public school. Little did I know when I got on the plan, those initial few months would become nearly a year.

You see, at the time, I was both a completely different person and the same person simultaneously. I was the same in that the core of my being was the same... goofy, compassionate, wise, creative. I just hadn't tapped into any of those things quite yet. I was different because I was massively unhealthy mentally (struggled with substance abuse, self-hatred, suicidal ideation, just to name a few things) and I used traveling as a way to "Prove" my strength and give myself a sense of value.

That year in Chile is still one of the best years of my life, so I have absolutely no regrets about that decision. In fact, I would say 2014 was the year that started me on my own intense healing journey, and for that, I am absolutely blessed and so so grateful.

The value I found in myself from traveling was fleeting.

It is interesting to look back at your life and connect all of the dots, which is usually too hard to do in the moment. I never went to grad school to become a trauma therapist; I wanted to start an NGO in Africa and save all of the little children. In fact, I distinctly remember telling my peers at the time "I will NEVER be a therapist!"

But God had different plans for me.

When I look back on each step that got me here, it all makes sense. Now, I am able to walk people through immense pain because I've been through it myself.

God has been preparing me for something greater than I could have ever imagined for myself. And I am so so grateful that I got the life I needed instead of the life that I thought I wanted.

How has your life turned out better or differently than you had planned for?

Grief from a closed loved one’s passing is all consuming.

There are the obvious moments when a grief bomb (an intense moment of unexpected emotion by a reminder of your loved one) that throw you into fits of anger or curled up on the floor crying in the fetal position. But we tend to avoid talking about the chronic, low grade buzz that tends to persist through out life when we aren’t being triggered by a grief bomb.

I have been experiencing complete overwhelm. Every little thing that does not go as I had intended it tends to bring up seemingly never ending hopelessness. This leads to ongoing disconnection from myself, God, and others. Most of the time, it is challenging to be present and enjoy life. I tend to just go through the day to day motions without really being aware of, let alone enjoying, all of the activities. Grief has stolen my ability to feel joy and contentment, my ability to feel hope, and well, to feel anything but overwhelm and dissociation. There is a constant, dense fog that makes it really challenging to even see what is directly in front of me, even in the midst of worry.

If you don’t believe in God, that’s okay, you can skip ahead to the end. But I hope you will continue to read how God has been caring for me in this season. I have found that I am leaning into letting God take care of me and this morning, one of the few days in the past few months, in which I actually am feeling confident that God is taking care of me. He uses tangible people in my life to check in on me or bring me random meals just to say “I see you and you are not alone.”

I don’t feel this way most of the time recently, so I’m going to choose to come back to these fleeting moments to give me hope that grief won’t always be this consuming.

How has grief impacted your day to day functioning this week?

I’m starting a new series on grief… and in all honesty, I have no idea where it will take us in regards to content as so much of my grief is still so fresh (I lost my mom to cancer in May, a friend to su***de in April, and my uncle in August, in addition to my two beloved furry children earlier this year).

We as a culture do a poor job at seeing people in their grief. After the flowers and cards have stopped arriving, and the memorial service came and went, life for most people goes on while those closest to the deceased are still grieving while being held to the expectations of “Normal” living. Hold it together because most people don’t know how to engage with someone who is grieving. There is an assumption that if you are back to your normal activities, you must be “over it.” So we don’t talk about grief after “Normal” life resumes.

No one tells you that even months after, you may still break down in uncontrollable tears literally out of no where. I was walking along town one day when I saw a man wearing a shirt with the breast cancer symbol on it and tears flooded my eyes. I couldn’t stop them even if I wanted to.

No one tells you how meaningless life feels after someone close to you passes. How everything worldly seems so meaningless and purposeless. It’s hard to care about football or your friend’s weekend girls’ trip when a sense of meaningful connection has been taken away from you. It feels like I am training for a marathon to go outside of my house. Going outside of my house is draining because it feels like I have to put on a face to care about superficial, worldly things, when I’m already feeling directionless and confused without my loved ones.

No one tells you that finding your people in the grief is so so healing. I’m talking about the people who will sit with you in the uncontrollable sobbing, the numbing depression, the rage and anger, without trying to change you. Just to be seen, heard, valued as you are. No one tells you that one of the few “People” I have had this with is Jesus himself.

What had been something in your grief journey that surprised you?

Unpopular opinion: It is easier to be angry than to address the underlying emotions of sadness, hurt, loneliness, or fear.

Limerence is a form of seeking connection (see previous post on healing limerence)

Healing limerence in an anxious attachment style

attachment

Have you ever mapped your nervous system — how your body responds? It can be a helpful tool to be able to help you recognize when your body is just trying to do it’s job, which is to protect you! Then, it makes it sooo much more accessible to have compassion on yourself and all of your child selves.

PLEASE DO NOT TAKE WITHOUT PERMISSION.

Loneliness is an indicator that I have abandoned myself.