After a very reflective vacation, culminating in the release of physical and emotional baggage, I was well positioned to receive the gospel reading in church today from Mark 5, where Jesus raises a girl from the dead. Jesus spoke in Aramaic (the title of this post), which translates “Little girl, get up’. In this story, the girl is 12 years old, and I found that interesting, because that is around the age where I hit puberty, and where I believe life got more complex than it needed to.
Now that I am simplifying my life, making my living amends while also forgiving, as well as practicing gratitude for my new life in recovery, I felt particularly impacted by this command to get up and continue living my life. What I have discovered in my spiritual quest so far, is that grief is my boogey-man, and it is grief that I have been trying to mitigate since I was 12 years old.
This has been a massive revelation for me. Because we live in a culture that tries to sweep grief under the rug, there is consequently a lot of misunderstanding about this inevitable, natural, and normal phenomenon. I do not view grief as something shameful, and yet shame caused me to stuff grief deep down, in hopes of never looking at it again. I now let grief show up as it is, and when it does, I can in my sober mind compartmentalize it to aid in my recovery as I continue to grow into a whole-hearted individual.
Grief can include any kind of loss - a friendship, a partnership, an opportunity, a connection - and it deserves to have our attention. My recovery allows me to give appropriate attention, without letting my overall health be too impacted by waves of grief that show up. Mindfulness allows me to stay in the present moment, while I work toward a future where I feel empowered, and loved.
As I “get up” and continue on my salvific journey, I give grace to the parts of me that did the best they could with what they had, and I integrate those parts with compassion and gentleness. For the first time in my recovery, I understand what it means to put pain to purpose, because I have released the shame and the expectations that were attached to my grief. This has given me a focus that I didn’t have before, and this new beginning is where I think some of that grief can leave off.