Grief

I've been experiencing grief over the past few days, a deep sense of sadness and loss. There have been many things of been letting go of recently: relationships/ways of relating, old ideas and beliefs, fears and insecurities. Time seems to have slowed down: I feel both the grief of the old alongside the power and joy of the new. Everything seems still and quiet, like the calm after a storm.

Matthew Fox spoke last night about the need to heal shame, particularly amongst the masculine. Once we go beneath the anger, we begin to touch upon the layers of grief and sadness beneath it. We mourn for what we've lost, or even for what we never had. Indigenous cultures have regular grief rituals to help access the grief and let it go; as part of the shame/grief comes a sense of not belonging, of being left out. These rituals create inclusion and community, a place where we can come together to share and acknowledge a powerful aspect of the human experience, one that we all carry.

As I move into the new, I experience the grief of the old: old lovers, loves that never were, ways of staying safe and protecting myself, ways of hiding, habits of separation and closure. Like an old blanket, comfortable and familiar, it's time to let go; with that comes the grief, along with tender vulnerability that comes with dropping the defensive armoring. I feel the blanket slipping away, and I mourn its loss. I surrender control, surrender knowing who and what I will become. It is new, unfamiliar territory. Old David leaving; new David arriving. Can I trust the process? At the core lies the belief that I can't have what I want, and the more I let go, the more I want to hold on to the past; it gives me a false sense of security - if I let go, then I REALLY won't get what I want.

And so I've been trusting, slowly, letting the mediocrity slip away, the mediocrity of sort of having what I want, seemingly just around the corner. I allow the grief to wash away the past, stepping into the new reality of the now, new, fresh, unfamiliar. I choose to believe and to have faith. It is the only way.