Weeds in my Garden
It’s routine for me to put on a brave face. To use the pain to get stronger. To hide the dark parts and only let the shine. In fact we are conditioned to believe that pain is weakness. “Don’t cry” they say. We leave little space to mourn, to grieve. We don’t know what it looks like, how to accept it.
Letting the pain be just pain. To feel the heartbreak, to feel the sorrow, to feel the ache- it doesn’t come easy. It feels like if it’s let in you’ll get stuck there forever. It feels like you’re giving up. It’s messy, it hurts, it’s uncomfortable.
The hard truth- pain is a part of being alive. No one gets out unscathed. The truth in that, the fact that it will always be a part of your story, there is freedom in that. A kind of peace. Like instead of seeing yourself as weak, you see that you’re actually just alive. You are part of the human experience.
I believe in the phoenix rising from the ashes. I see the strength that comes from walking through the fire. I allowed myself to feel the mess, to cry, to hurt. Then I would tidy it all up into a bigger lesson and present that brave face to the world again.
What you resist, persists. Unprocessed grief turns into a hungry ghost. When I heard the song, Honest by Kyndal Inskeep - it was crushing.”Every time I'm past the hardest part, Here comes another ghost just to pull me to the dark, I thought it was over. God, let this be over
'Cause if I'm being honest, I'm not being honest. I'll give you roses just hopin' you don't see the weeds in my garden.”
There was a problem with the phoenix rising image, the befores and after. It makes you believe you’ll walk through the fire, rise above and there will be clear soaring.
The grief- it will always be there, you have to learn to grow with it now.
When I first started going to therapy I went because I felt numb. Numb to the joy. Michelle told me if you numb one feeling, you numb them all. I wanted to feel that joy, so I had to feel that pain. I felt through it, I walked through the fire. I did it.
There were moments when it felt like I've made it to the other side, and moments where it felt like I was still right in the thick of it. Hiding the dark parts, only showing the light. It’s lonely. It’s exhausting. It’s like a vicious cycle. The fear of looking weak, vulnerable- keeps you in it. Showing up anyway. Facing fear- that is what will set you free.
I did it. Life changed, I got out of dodge, I started creating the life of my dreams. The pain was still there. I wanted it to be a thing of the past. I didn’t want to own it as my story. I was creating a new one. I had my brave face on and I was moving forward.
Michelle, my therapist, had me imagine the grief inside me. It was this yellow blop right on my heart. She then asked me to see all the other emotions alive in there. It was like a rainbow lit up inside me. And grief was just one part. You have to learn to hold them all, she said.
Physical pain came after a minor surgery and all of the emotional pain from my past welled up to the surface. I was reminded that, to commit to being in this body, means accepting the pain as part of the healing. I was reminded that I am not alone- there are people that know this pain and know this darkness, because they’ve walked through some form of it themselves.
As I looked back at pictures from the darkest times, the rawest time, and in between the tears were smiles, family, friends, joy and pure magic.
My quest to heal includes my pain. There will be roses and there will be weeds. But there is no more hiding. Our capacity to love is deeply connected to our capacity to mourn.
Alive- that is my word for 2023. And being fully alive, to me, means being able to hold every part of me out in the open. To be honest about it all.
