Tag Archive for: going on a bear hunt

Being With….

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(For JKB, EGM and all who need a reminder)

Perhaps I have mentioned it before, perhaps not. I am a huge, and I do mean, HUGE, Olympic addict. I credit my parents, with whom I watched the Olympics faithfully as a kid and have continued in my own family.

As I was glued to every moment I could be in the last few weeks, I kept seeing this commercial, Second Language. If you missed it, here it is again.

https://youtu.be/Whm_-aL9HmI?si=5Ii-K-NYfiyQaD0v

Each time it came across the screen, it struck a bit of a different chord. Initially, I was so impressed that it was an ad FOR Jesus, playing prominently during the OLYMPICS. Think about it. There were such big investments from sports in many other commercials. And all the sudden, just as they did in the Super Bowl commercials, here was a conversation about Jesus, from hegetsus.com

The commercial asked, “what are the most difficult words to say?” I identified with the humanity in the words – “I was wrong,” “I forgive you.” “I am sorry.” Those ARE difficult…Then, someone said, “Goodbye.”

I spend so many of my days as a therapist hearing about, learning about, assisting with and even helping people stop running, from goodbye. For something that is so required, this side of heaven, our society has such a hard, hard time with goodbye.

For most, goodbye is associated with some sort of separation from someone deeply loved. Perhaps because of distance, necessity, painful circumstances or death, it’s no wonder that “goodbye” is something that most of us want to avoid like a plague. The circumstances can be varied, traumatic, expected, shocking, the list goes on and on. It is not something that anyone enjoys or wants to be good at.

And…it is necessary for all of us, at some point, isn’t it?

I have shared some of my most impacting losses in these pages, the experiences that in all their difficulty, have led to the love, redemption and depth of who I am now. But the getting there? Well, that has been anything but simple. That is the heartbeat of why I do what I do; first my own, then our collective experiences with not knowing how to say goodbye.

Sometimes, we must say goodbye to a “normal,” functioning body because of injury, cancer, illness or disability; goodbye to someone we love dearly. Perhaps we face goodbye to security, control, pets, siblings, jobs, plans, dreams. I have spent time in what feels like the very pit of hell with parents who must surrender beloved babes back to Jesus, with families who surrender loved ones to mental illness, addiction and/or personal choices. I have watched friendships die in many ways from kids to elderly, most times with complicated dynamics. There is goodbye to seasons, youth, identity, purpose. We grieve times of complete and utter injustice. Goodbye is in reality, is one of our most difficult, significant parts of being alive.  

Can we say goodbye well?  Is that even possible?

In a very therapeutic, but real-life sense, my first thought is yes. We begin by being IN it, being present with the fact that you are grieving: naming the pain, anxiety, sheer alone-ness and finality of goodbye.

This is so much harder than it seems.

Many of us have become skilled avoiders of most of our feelings, myself included. We often scroll, shop, eat, drink, work, play, yell, sleep, numb or self-inflict pain to avoid feeling the pain of loss. I have heard countless, understandable methods and reasons we all use in order to NOT FEEL the gravity of loss. It is unthinkably hard to sit with the feeling and the other emotions that come with it.

“Stacy, just tell me how to make this feeling go away, I don’t want to be grieving for too long.”

“Aren’t there steps to this? Just tell me what they are and then I be done feeling this…”

“Can’t you tell me how to make this go away?”

My heart aches when I hear clients nearly beg me for the “quick fix” to the feelings that threaten to overtake us when we are grieving.

Do you remember the book, “Going on a Bear Hunt” by Michael Rosen and illustrated by Helen Oxenbury? It was a family favorite before bedtime and I am sure that husband and I STILL know it by heart. Throughout each leg of the family bear hunt is the refrain, “you can’t go over it, you can’t go under it, you’ve got to go through it.”

So it is with healing the grief and many losses there are in the human experience: the only way through, is through. As painful as it is, I’ve learned to help people heal from every loss, struggle, painful experience, going through is always the beginning.

If you are annoyed, I understand. I’ve had that in my office too, sometimes annoyed at me for saying these very words. Of course I am going through, Stacy. I don’t really have a choice.

Maybe a good word here is acknowledging, being with:  holding space for our honest feelings. It means, as Mr. Rogers encourages, mentioning our hard, raw, sometimes unbearable emotions so that we can manage them (instead of using all of our much-needed energy to avoid them). I think this is the hardest part of being a human who feels, this idea of acknowledging and being with those feelings, especially when the feelings are so painful. It is hard to feel the feelings with no end date. So…. dang…. hard.

Often, because actually feeling our feelings in scary and hard, we start avoiding, striving for a plan, or talking ourselves into “getting through” loss. It is painful, breathtaking, seemingly endless and exhausting. But here is the truth as I know it: the most important part of grieving is when we name, hold and share our deepest sadness, even when no one can really fix it. The being with, honoring, acknowledging and allowing for our own vulnerability allows us time, presence and the ability to surrender. Then when we are ready…we allow ourselves the process of going through. Not just enduring, but the hard work of taking one step, then another, feeling, weeping, feeling, and whatever else is our truth.

I have shared many times over the course of this blogs’ history, the relationship I have with our oldest daughter, (E for short). Yesterday, we moved her into college for the first time. It is my absolute honor to love and care for her, be her Mama, to soak in EVERY swim stroke, argument, joy-filled and driven moment. And because I believe in the full-hearted investment with her, brother and little sis, the goodbye between us with nothing short of gut-wrenching. I will spare you and myself all the details, (too soon!) but suffice to say, I am fully, going through it, in regards to goodbye to her. And I am aware of the positives about God’s plan, her readiness and the excitement ahead of her and our family.

You see, they are all true…the hope, excitement, readiness, pain, loss and questions about so many parts of this process. I KNOW without a doubt, that in order to process this complex change in my life, I MUST get comfortable with the multitude of emotions that go with this very nuanced change in our family system.

So, we have laughed, bawled, felt punched in the gut, celebrated, cheered, planned, (had a few fights,) stretched, made mistakes, asked and given forgiveness and so much more throughout her senior year. We’ve tried to be present and allow for abounding grace. We have tried to let more of the small things go, invest in the large things and remember it all with a lens of grace. 

None of us can completely understand the pain of someone else, but we CAN sit and listen, be WITH, even if someone who is hurting, or simply needs quiet. We can sit in the through until we or someone else are ready to take another step to the next right thing. Then another and another. There is not one right process for any of us in regards to loss. Many, find peace and hope in Jesus. For others, it is found in being active and experiencing nature. For still others, it is the effort of just getting out of bed in the morning. Everyone’s through is a bit different from anyone else.

I don’t promise often because I am human and there is a good chance I will somehow break my promise. But…I will promise you this: if you are in the throes of pain, abandonment and disillusionment of loss, fear and darkness, Jesus is relentlessly seeking you, in order to be with you. Eugene Peterson wrote, “God loves you, He’s on your side. He’s coming after you, he’s relentless.” He is the one who doesn’t fail. And it is he, HE, who will do away with goodbye once and forever. He is hope: past, present and future.

May you feel his pursuit, his being with you, however and wherever you are; his holding you in the most painful and the hope of his making all things right and good.”

xoxo

Both/And

Psalm 13

What do princess markers, Rubik’s Cube and Banana Nut Muffins have to do with Lament?

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I wanted to take a moment and say a genuine thank you. I have been posting now for about 4 months and it has become a favorite part of my week. I really enjoy WORDS. I love the process of conveying my thoughts, experiences and how they all fit together with my many life roles. I value authenticity and how that plays out in my professional, spiritual and sometimes, personal life. And I am so enjoying the connection, hearing how others identify, validate and share their own connections to these words. Mostly, I am amazed seeing how God is using words to bring joy, comfort and healing.

Thank you for reading, sharing and most of all, encouraging, it means so much to me. My greatest hope in all of my roles, but especially this new one (aspiring writer?) is to create space to normalize our collective, complex experiences, share how Jesus loves, some stories and professional connections. My hope is always, to be real, human, healthy in my words, awareness and sharing.

To be honest, I am choosing the authentic truth of not having every post be
positive, cheerful or even, inspiring. Sometimes, in all honesty, it
takes immense energy to keep a put-together mask in place, but I continue to trust that
Jesus will intervene.

To that end, these last two weeks… I am tired. From the time between my last “badass post” and now, life has been full! August has ramped up, leading to sporting and school events, ongoing needs that I WANT and love being present with and some that my heart breaks for. When I sat down to write, my heart felt stretched thin in my own lament for a few loved ones in my life, their health concerns, mental health, relationship conflict and even interpersonal conflict has made this week feel particularly trying.

Maybe you’ve been there before or are currently sitting in your own both/and between outrageous hope AND intense lament as well. Or maybe… feeling hope is good, but the idea of lamenting makes you uncomfortable, sad or wanting to push the hardest of feelings anywhere but where someone may ask about them.

I get that. I am feeling some of that myself.

Lament, in my own understanding, is the dark night of the soul. It is the agony and ache that are too deep for words; the one that nearly levels us with it’s weight, where all we can do is wail, howl and cry out with perhaps a sound only God himself can understand and soothe.

The Oxford Dictionary defines it as “a passionate expression of grief or sorrow.” It may sound weird, but as you read that definition, notice your reaction, deep in your body. Does something stir when you see and hear lament? Just take a second…and a deep breath.

Do you feel anything related to emotional misery that you can still recall
it? Perhaps it is stored IN your body somewhere, a twinge, or a sharp, deep breath,
even as I suggest going back to the memory? Usually when I ask this in
counseling, I can physically see something, a pain so deep that non-verbal
communication gives away when someone is trying so hard to convince me
“they are fine,” in the midst of devastating pain.

Do you feel a time with emotional misery that you can still recall it? Perhaps it is stored IN your body somewhere, a twinge, or possibly a sharp, deep breath, even as I suggest going back to the memory. Usually when I ask this in counseling, I can physically see something, a pain so deep that non-verbal communication gives us away.

I get that too…

If you had a chance to read the last few blogs, I have shared a bit of my own story related to the loss of a dear friend whose life and death deeply impacted mine. It was through the tragedy of drunk-driving accident, his death and others, that I began to avoid, fear, learn, understand and finally allow myself the truth of what it means to lament. What was surprising to me is that I eventually came to cherish the lament. Cherish? Yes, I did, I said cherish. If you will, please keep reading.

Over my 26 year career, the normalcy, my level of ability, and comfort in talking about feelings is vastly different for me now than I was able to do back in my 20’s. In learning to allow for lament, I simply did not know the depth of my capacity to feel sorrow. I did not understand the ache inside me that often did not even have words. When I finally gave myself permission to feel, slogging through the holy work of sitting with anguish, I learned the importance of sifting in the ashes. I learned first-hand the only way THROUGH the hardest of emotions, the deepest losses and insecurities IS THROUGH. (Remember this line in Going on a Bear Hunt?) I began learning then that we will lament much over the course of a lifetime and we will also come through.

Often, it is not the big tragic, unreal events that teach us about lament. I believe we ALL lament in different ways, most of the time not even knowing that we are indeed, passionately expressing a deep sorrow.

Perhaps we begin around toddler-hood – the lament of sharing toys, sharing parents when a new sibling is brought into the mix, moving to new homes, cities, or enduring other changes. At this age, most of the lament is because we can’t always have what we want.

When my daughter was three, I took a brave (or crazy) trip to Target with she and her one year old brother. My sweet E was passionate, strong and already aware of her own desires. She was trying out “wandering,” so I told her we could pick out one thing from the dollar section; if she stayed with me the whole trip through Target, (without running off,) she could bring her thing home with us at the end of our shopping extravaganza. An extravaganza it was, just not in the way you might expect…

Two aisles before the check-outs, she darted down the dog treat aisle, then proceeded to giggle and run away from me. I was terrified of this very scenario as a mom with cerebral palsy, but on the good advice of a friend, I did not chase. I called, “Uh oh…” and slowly began walking up the main aisle with my son staring up at me from his seat in the cart, with big blue eyes.

My spirited girl came running and then raced ahead of me to put her princess markers on the belt. I was already coursing with adrenaline from her solo trip down the aisle, fear of not catching up with her and then her return. She began to climb on the side of the cart, fingers barely touching her coveted markers and my adrenaline spiked again. I felt the heat creep up my neck. Was I going to stay true to my stated boundary and NOT get the markers, risking a tantrum in a very busy Target or was I just going to give in to keep peace with her?

I KNEW that I had to follow-through otherwise I was giving the green light to run from me every single outing. I told her in my best empathetic voice, “I am so sad, we can’t get your markers. Do you remember our deal? You were going to walk with me the whole time and NOT run away and THEN we could get your markers. But if you run, then we CAN’T buy them.”

Her body went rigid, her eyes widened, then narrowed, then she shrieked her displeasure for the entire store to hear. I instantly began sweating as my items were already on the belt. Customers heads turned and her screams got louder. As I held the boundary and did not buy the markers, she laid down, pulled the cart and screamed, “I WANT MY PRINCESS MARKERS!” Her lament (and mine) were very real.

(Though not a huge, prevalent part of the story, I wanted to let you know that this was the only tantrum we had with our now almost 18 year old. The one tantrum, one boundary was enough to curtail her ideas of running away from me in the aisles. )

As we grow our laments morph and change: pet loss, divorce in the family; the lament when we are not chosen for a team, asked to prom or not accepted at the “dream college.” The agony of single-ness when we long to share our life with another, the guttural moan when we don’t see, understand or want to be on this path. Job competition, rejection, complicated fertility, health challenges, terminal diagnosis, even aging, can elicit a deep expression of anguish as perhaps memories, abilities, energy and relationships are changing without our permission.

I’ve had the privilege of speaking with little ones who deeply lament the loss of a pet, a favorite stuffed animal left on vacation or the friend who has moved away. I have sat with many who lament identity, starting over after divorce, loss, long illness or sending children to college. There are those who lament and battle with themselves to remain alive here on Earth. I have held space with many brave hearts who hour by hour lament the loss of one or many they love, deeply sobbing, “I wish it had been me, instead.” And some of the saints among us, who lament they cannot yet “go home to Jesus.” Lamenting is probably, in most our minds, connected with death.

“Lament, meaning a crying out of the soul, creates a pathway between the Already and the Not Yet.” -Aubrey Sampson

We are called to learn the anguished cry of lament. Lament is the cry of Martin Luther King Jr. from his kitchen table in Montgomery after hearing yet another death threat: “Lord, I’m down here trying to do what’s right. . . . But Lord, I must confess that I’m weak now, I’m faltering. I’m losing my courage. Now, I am afraid. . . . I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I’ve come to the point where I can’t face it alone.” Taken from Reconciling All Things: A Christian Vision for Justice, Peace and Healing by Emmanuel Katongole and Chris Rice.

For many, the hope for the Not Yet, is the rock to cling to, while in the center of crippling lament. For me, learning to cherish all I learned, came only after the losses that shook me to my foundation. (At the same time, sometimes having a hard time knowing I was actually still clinging to the rock that held me.) As the defenses I relied on in order to pretend I was be fine fell away, I could only surrender to the mess, or as Brene Brown says, (learned in her discussions with Navy Seals – EMBRACE THE SUCK.) Learning that the only way through, was through, gave me permission to examine every part, with curiosity and kindness instead of judging myself: anger, shock, change, agony, injustice and so many other feelings.

I often tell people that allowing for feelings is a bit like examining and manipulating a Rubik’s Cube. I can never solve them, but my son can, in mere minutes. I watch him get one color complete, then mess it up to get another color correct. He turns the cube, looks, changes something and looks again. He doesn’t however, get mad at the cube for being what it is. In the same way, getting mad at ourselves, whether in the lament, in the happiness, or any feeling in between is counter-productive. We can so much sooner help the hard feelings by caring for and crying out that anguish, keep the “Not Yet,” in view, while also allowing for and honoring all that has been lost.

If only it were that easy…

“Grief, after all, is part of love. Not to grieve, not to lament, is to slam the door on the same place in the innermost heart from which love itself comes.” – NT Wright.

Isn’t it so scary, sometimes, to feel the hardest feelings? But isn’t it harder to keep pushing the feelings and anguish down? Is the fear of feeling our own lament stronger than the lament itself? What if we could honor the feelings of lament themselves as part of our love story, the one about God, his love and the many we turn to heal when we become heartbroken this side of heaven? The love in that very story is how Jesus redeems and will keep redeeming every. single. lament.

You see, though I had known Jesus because of my parents faith since before I could remember, my own relationship with him had it’s own path; a cherished part of that path that was ultimately in the days, months and years following my friend’s death, because it was exactly there, that I met Jesus. He was exactly where I felt like I had nothing to offer except my shock, anger, resentment, authentic belief, even when I could not understand: in the heart of my lament.

Time after time in that year, God himself allowed for all those emotions, sustaining me in a rigorous MSW program, an internship at our local Hospice organization, blessing me with a support system in my parents, friends and colleagues that showed me the beauty in authentic lament. God graciously brought my husband and I together, almost exactly one year from my friend’s accident, and he offered a calling into counseling, specifically grief and trauma counseling.

In Nicholas Wolterstorff’s book “Lament For A Son,” he says that every lament is [ultimately] a love song. Lamenting is the other side of loving deeply and I’ve come to believe that you truly cannot have one without the other. It is a difficult and holy both/and.

The Psalmist gives the best example of both the lament, the love story and both/and in Psalm 13.

(for the director of music, a psalm of David).

1 How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
    How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
    and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
    How long will my enemy triumph over me?

3 Look on me and answer, Lord my God.
    Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,
4 and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
    and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

5 But I trust in your unfailing love;
    my heart rejoices in your salvation.
6 I will sing the Lord’s praise,
    for he has been good to me.

If David, a man after God’s own heart, is allowed to lament (and had so many things to lament, many his own choices) and TRUST, then can we? There is also Jesus, lamenting in the Garden of Eden allowed to lament….AND trust. Can we?

There is hope, even in the lament. There is space for great anguish and trust, even in the fear that so often accompanies pain. And perhaps in time, there is room to see the love story in both.

I pray that you who are struggling to catch your breath because your lament is so heavy, are able to cry AND be comforted; that those who are experiencing joy can share it with grace and that we all can love one another like Jesus.

Both/And

Psalm 13

PS I couldn’t not add this from my friend, Brene, from Her 2010 TEDxHouston talk on The Power of Vulnerability  “The problem is–and I learned this from the research–that you cannot selectively numb emotion. You can’t say, here’s the bad stuff. Here’s vulnerability, here’s grief, here’s shame, here’s fear, here’s disappointment. I don’t want to feel these. I’m going to have a couple of beers and a banana nut muffin. (Laughter) I don’t want to feel these… You can’t numb those hard feelings without numbing the other affects, our emotions. You cannot selectively numb. So when we numb those, we numb joy, we numb gratitude, we numb happiness. And then we are miserable, and we are looking for purpose and meaning, and then we feel vulnerable, so then we have a couple of beers and a banana nut muffin. And it becomes this dangerous cycle.”

Both the hard, difficult, vulnerable and gratitude, joy and happy. And banana nut muffins. 🙂

Sometimes, it is good to howl….

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(Oh my heart…be brave my soul.)

“I can feel something welling up, deep in the pit of my stomach, a clenching I don’t have a name for. I have spent too many days, NOT caring for myself, AGAIN. Between family needs, schedules and even the joy, I have yet again, put my own needs on the back burner. As the days blur together, I can feel something building up inside me, something between anger, exhaustion and sheer overwhelming emptiness….”

“I don’t know the point in saying, “I am angry. Of course I am angry! It is endless. But it won’t change…I need to just get over it. Except, I can’t stop thinking about it, even when I say to myself, I am over it. I don’t understand it….”

“I will never be able to stop crying if I let myself start, it is too big, too painful. I will never stop. I just need to keep busy, keep going and keep working.”

“It was such a long time ago, it doesn’t matter anymore, right? I thought that if I just ignored the pain of what happened to me, I would forget. But I haven’t, I can’t. still, this many years later, when I close my eyes I can see and feel it all just like it is happening right now. I don’t know what to do anymore…..”

These sentiments are just a tiny glimpse into the daily life of brave clients…if these walls could speak, there is so much more.

Oh my heart….be brave my soul.

In this career I hold dear…(and maybe not just my career, but this very life), God has let me witness both so much tragedy and so much profound beauty. I don’t think I can truly describe it adequately.

Professionally, It came first in the form of children at my first internship when I supervised visitation between kids who had been removed from their parents care for a multitude of reasons. Even when the reasons for removal seemed the most legitimate, the kids AND the parents were doing their brave best in the most heart-wrenching situations.

Sometimes, all we can do is howl….

When I got my first job out of my undergrad, I began working with teens in a grassroots relational ministry. I was young, idealistic and introduced to the joy and heartache of life in ministry, earning the right to be heard while supporting teens and families in about every possible scenario over the course of 7 years. Standing with teens at a visitation of one of their beloved friends as they tearfully asked me, “what does she look like in that casket?” The gleaming dark wood casket was closed and raised up on the the opposite end of the funeral home. The kids moved slowly together, a dazed look, shock and pain raw, unable to wrap their minds around the sudden, tragic loss they were instantly thrust into.

Sometimes, you can’t do anything but howl…

I began my MSW program and came to understand the concept of family systems differently than ever before. I lost a dear friend one week after my program began and over the next year, learned what grief truly was. It was one of the hardest, growth years of my life. The the next year, after a lot of soul searching, prayer and the uncomfortable feeling of the right thing not always being the easiest thing, I began an internship at Hospice. I was changed in every single way, the holiness and tenderness of this calling – from my supervisor who taught me about peace and hope through her life, how to care for clients through her expertise and authenticity and boundaries through her intentional approach to nearly everything.

An unforgettable client taught us all about living while she was dying, gave us unique and needed perspective as we were stunned, huddling around TVs on my first day there, 9/11/2001. She sat on her small deck that morning, overlooking a pond, waiting for the temperature to rise enough to release the butterflies she had watched over from being caterpillars to beautiful, painted ladies. I will never forget her calm demeanor talking about war, global events and life experiences she’d lived through. She was sad, but not stunned as we watched the Twin Towers fall. She described “other, difficult things, saying, this too, shall pass.” Somehow, I believed her, even on this day.

Oh, my heart…be brave my soul.

I began my second internship at a counseling center, learning about resistance, court-mandated clients and how to let clients own their own problems and outcomes. My heart broke, while sitting face to face with a parent whose child had been removed after the child was hospitalized with a broken arm. The parent was “sure I haven’t done anything wrong.” I was distraught, faced with providing positive, unconditional regard and feeling this childs pain. I was also pregnant with my first child.

I sat across from many during those 6 years, learning as much in the pain as I did in the growth and change. I became a clinician, who has still, so much to learn. I learned to trust myself more, that many things will not be fixed or even made better. Sometimes, all I could do was witness a client’s painful truth and the difficulty it requires to exact lasting change. A boy who’d been in countless foster homes had such a difficult time coming, being vulnerable. Week after week, I asked my supervisor “how to help him.” She reminded me that often counseling takes a long time, which could mean years and most likely, I would not be the one to see it. She gave me the analogy of how one therapist might plant seeds, another watering the same seeds and another, seeing a flower bloom. At the time, I really wanted to be that person to reach my client (I wasn’t), but I have held that analogy close for many years.

I vacillated while becoming a mom of 3, between Hospice work and agency counseling. I met a widowed parent raising multiple teens who had “hoped it would all go away after the funeral.” Two years later, it still hadn’t and we needed to go back before going forward. We went through.

Another parent, in a moment, had to navigate shock, selflessness and courage while shifting very quickly into complex, traumatic grief and loss.

Sometimes, all we can do is howl….

In my life, outside of my career, I experience inspiration through everyone I meet…A young boy named Bill whose smile lit up a room; how he bravely fought a brutal, debilitating disease and his family showed me the meaning of grace in their care for him. Em, allowed me into some of her most vulnerable days and thoughts, taught me that CP was NOT all there was to me and the meaning of “rising above.” Les, who has for over 25 years inspired me by being the very definition of tenacity, fearlessness, loyalty and love. She and her spirited friend, Monica taught me sacrifice and the horror of gun violence in front of my eyes – so much worse than it seems in the movies. Mason and his beloved family, lesson after lesson in beauty, sacrifice and the love of Jesus. J and J, P and T who live out the redemption of dreams deferred and God’s sovereignty unfolding. My dear friend Shelly who teaches me more about the sacrifice of motherhood than I can comprehend. This list is not even the beginning…and there are so many, too many to list.

oh my heart…

In all the journeys, the pain, the beautiful and the in-between, I’ve learned this: the only way through, is through.

We used to read Going on a Bear Hunt to our kids, at least 55 times a day when they were little, until all 5 of us had it memorized.

“You can’t go over it…you can’t go under it, you have to go THROUGH it!” We would yell that refrain! It became a metaphor for both hard things in our family and in my clinical work. I even bought a small board book of Helen Oxenbury’s version and set it on the table for clients. It never failed to evoke an moment of understanding or even tears sometimes as the message became real.

Be brave my soul….

Psalm 13 (my very favorite and an amazing biblical both/and) says:

1 How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
    How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
    and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
    How long will my enemy triumph over me?

3 Look on me and answer, Lord my God.
    Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,
4 and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
    and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

5 But I trust in your unfailing love;
    my heart rejoices in your salvation.
6 I will sing the Lord’s praise,
    for he has been good to me.

Both the heartache and the praise, fear and trust. Yes, Lord God, be in, both, with and for us. Loss and hope, agony and trying to find something akin to joy. This is real and true, the purpose in the calling, at least for me. As I teach it in my work, learn it for myself and pray for the grace and mercy we all need, I also know this: holding the both/and is the truest path to peace I have ever come to. Because I know God understands AND loves me in both.

May we take care of ourselves: take a walk, call mom (or dad,) attend a class and learn new skills. Seek counseling. Breathe deep, smell the flowers, blow out the candles. Pray or meditate. Walk slowly, speak only kind words to ourselves. Lean into our people, the ones who know and love the authentic versions of us. And may we allow ourselves to go through.

“Crying releases stress hormones, swearing increases pain tolerance. Anger motivates us to solve problems. Silence and smiles aren’t the only way to respond to pain. Sometimes its good to howl.” Anonymous

I often close sessions with “be kind to yourself” and full disclosure, how my own therapist closes with me. Sometimes, I add this – howl if you need to, cry, and rest. Most often, those are the very paths that lead to the best parts of healing.

Both/And

Psalm 13