As an intentional healer (we are all healers), I am challenged to heal with my entire existence. Healing with my hands comes naturally for me and although I was often speaking words of light from the time I was a child, offering healing with my words is one of the toughest assignments to date. I am frequently encouraged to address difficult and burdensome life transitions, including loss and the unbearable grief that accompanies it. I feel an overwhelming responsibility to express what so many cannot put words to, even if my voice trembles and I shudder with every verse.
"Grief, a simple word with a loaded meaning...
We cannot find the words to accurately express the complexity of the weight grief brings but what we do know is that it steals our breath away, without an ounce of permission
In the thick of it, it is paralyzing
We stand in its unrelenting quick sand, as grief swallows any and everything resting on it
It is dense, tightly knit with emotions we can’t seem to get a grip on, as it violently casts the chambers of our hearts into a darkened pit remote from light
If only grief didn’t fill our lungs with unbearable heaviness, we would remember to breathe through it
We would remember to take deep breaths with tears flowing down our face instead of exhaling murderous screams of pain, gagging on lumps of heartache
If only grief understood that somehow our loss was our loved ones gain, as they gleefully accepted the will of their journey, trading a courageous end for a new beginning
If only grief understood that our loved ones obliged when the light of heaven opened its bosom to carry them to the love that is infinite and eternal, for how could they refuse admission to paradise
If only grief understood that our loved ones glanced back in compassion with immense concern to ensure their beloved tribe on earth would heal absent of their physical existence, knowingly that spiritual ascension could offer a comfort far more effective, yet inconceivable by the human heart
If only grief understood our loved ones epiphanic moment as they were shown their life’s highlight reel, identifying all the great things they acquired and triumphed during their short visit with us here…
Grief would understand that no amount of earthly pain is worth the wait…
That no amount of earthly pain is worth another moment in perceivable time for our loved one to wait for their well-deserved crown, understanding that transition to the afterlife is the intangible zenith of victory
Grief would understand that the good die young because only the bravest, most gifted bad-ass souls graduate ahead of their class, completing earth school far too soon in our eyes to give our blessing, yet in true bad ass fashion, handcuffing us hand and foot to pay ultimate respect because respect is due
Grief would understand that legacy has absolutely nothing to do with the days that we number to calculate the time our loved ones didn’t have here on earth, yet has everything to do with the power in which they intricately executed the time they did have here on earth…
Because, grief would understand, that the best fighters will never need all 12 rounds to be victorious
But I tell you, grief - you see, grief doesn't understand
Grief doesn’t understand because grief is not lucid
For grief does not take the time to have eloquent conversations with our intellectual minds, in hopes to offer solace and understanding
Grief does not provide advice for our sorrow filled questions, or answer our heartaches with comforting honesty
Grief could care less (it feels) if our minds understood the deepest mourning of our hearts because grief is grief…
For it is not fluent in intellect, as it is a language only understood by the epicenter of our existence from which love and life flows
Our hearts…"
When we have questions why and we can’t find peace, comfort or understanding in the wake of loss, let us be reminded that this very human emotion is not intellectual. We are all here, a reflection of God within, to live our spirit journey in human form. Grief may not be intellectual, but it is a very real matter of our hearts. It is my prayer that we would walk together, bound by love, with love, supporting one another in all of life’s moments; the wins, the losses and especially the ones that feel tragic. I extend love and light to all who took the time to read this expression and I am sending a special *abounding* healing to all of us who have experienced the pain of losing someone we love.
My deepest love shared by many, in memory of Dr. Andrakeia Shipman, Annika Edgerson's sister, Alicia Webb and my sister, Rashana Sjogren.
Love & light,
Shina