In taking a break from my writing, I sometimes find that the subconscious has other ideas and instead presents something for me to “chew on” and then write about. And what it presented is exactly the mind frame I will be using as I move into the part of this memoir I call “Descent into Hell.”
But I also realize that this post may apply to life in general. So, on this Christmas day, I share the gift I received from my subconscious:
How and why
do I get up every day,
when I want to stay under the covers
so I can avoid the heaviness of the writing yet before me?
Yet I still get up
and write the next piece of my life,
even the ugly, shameful, not-so-together parts.
Why?*
And why, when the day is done, do I feel
even a slight bit better,
satisfied,
more peaceful,
sometimes even transformed?
And despite the struggle,
always feeling grateful for the process?
In a word,
despair.
I have been reading a book, A Midwinter God: Encountering the Divine in Seasons of Darkness, by Christine Valters Paintner. In the chapter on “Grief as Holy Path,” I read:
“I have come to recognize and honor a deep despair that resides in the shadow part of myself, the shadow being, of course, those things about ourselves we don’t want to embrace. And yet the journey toward our own wholeness is precisely about naming our shadows, welcoming them into the inner rooms of our being, and listening for what they have to say to us…I have found that resisting despair only magnifies the weight of it.”
The author goes on to say that she fears “that others will try to step in to offer me hope as an antidote. I have an ambivalent relationship to the word hope–too often I think we use that term as a way of trying to circumvent the necessary process of facing our own dark emotions.”
She observes that our culture is so quick to tell us to move on, get over it, or do anything to avoid facing the pain. Yet there is a cost to that, a harm done to someone when we ask that of them:
“We do violence to others by trying to move them to a place where we feel much more comfortable.”
Instead, she recommends a different path.
“The heart is meant to be vulnerable, malleable, broken open by love…Our sorrow is so uncomfortable, we want to transform it as quickly as we can into joy….to return to how we were before the ground beneath us opened up. But transformation comes only in our presence to what we are feeling and to express our emotions, to let the wild river flow freely. This is the gateway to transformation.”
I felt such relief and appreciation when I read her words. So often in my life, I have heard the exhortation of others to move on, to get over it, or to “not dwell on those things.” And those words would feel like another knife jab into the wounds already there.
At this stage in my life, I finally understood I needed to face things, write them, feel ALL of the emotions, and see what wisdom they had for me.
But the dilemma was how to deal with the pain and heaviness in going through that process. How to face it each day?
One day, I wrote a line on a note card: Start each day with a prayer?
But what prayer?
I remembered the words of that nun who taught the effective living seminar so many years ago at the Cenacle retreats. She talked of speaking to yourself through affirmations. That if you wanted to achieve something, heal something, then write a statement about it, and repeat it over and over to fuel you and move you forward.
I felt I was onto something with that.
But, again. What affirmation?
The answer came out of my morning meditations, and how they evolved over the course of these months. They presented me with the word “despair” as my answer. And from that word, the prayer eventually evolved.
From my current journal:
Accepting despair
welcoming it in your life
agreeing to walk in its world.
That has been anathema in our culture.
We are to deny it is there,
refuse it a space at our table,
pretend that if we just slap a smile on our face,
everything is fine.
Yet it’s not.
At some point, you need to just call it like it is.
No running.
No “cheering it up.”
No putting lipstick on a pig.
Just say it as it is,
make that clear, unwavering statement of
What do I feel?
Really.
So it started as:
“I am angry, afraid, impatient, and ashamed.”
That was the truth,
and there was almost a relief in admitting that.
No cheeriness enforced by a world that won’t look at shadows.
But it wasn’t enough to just state what it is.
If I repeated that every morning,
that’s all my reality would be.
No, there had to be something more to it.
It wasn’t enough to state just “What is.”
I needed an affirmation of
“In addition to what is, what else can be?”
That’s when two words came to me:
“Even though.”
Even though,
acknowledges what is, and doesn’t deny you the
right and time to process your pain.
But it does also create a bridge to something else, too.
So I started again and wrote:
“Even though I feel
fear and anger,
fatigue, impatience,
despair and shame,”
That was accurate.
Felt better.
Because it allowed for more than what currently is.
It also gave me permission to look for,
and feel I deserve,
something more.
Something like, “What else can I have…what else do I want?”
So I thought,
what feels possible,
desired,
reachable.
What else would I let me have… if I could?
What would that look like, with
no promises.
No false hopes.
No Pollyanna sunshine or sickening sweetness.
Just….
What would I like to be?
Even if I never quite get there.
So I wrote again:
“I am healing and loving.
relaxed and hopeful,
patient and kind.”
And suddenly,
I felt….good.
Hopeful.
Possible.
These were the gifts I would give to myself,
and they might be possible,
even just a little bit.
So, “even though” I felt one set of things
and it was a relief to embrace them
as part of me without putting me down for it,
I was also no longer denying myself
the chance to have something else, too.
I was accepting despair yet not refusing hope.
Even small shifts each day over a lifetime
is enough,
and makes my life
valuable
beautiful
peaceful.
Enough to make it worth my while to get out of bed,
face the day,
write my truth,
and celebrate ALL my emotions.
So now I have my affirmation for each day…my “what is, AND what do I want” statement. And whether it is for writing this book, altering some habit I don’t like, or tackling a new challenge, this statement fits me for all seasons.
And I have “despair” to thank…Despair, which may be just another word for “surrender,” a surrender to one’s truth, which then makes room, also, for one’s possibilities.
“Even though I feel
fear and anger,
fatigue, impatience,
despair and shame,
I am healing and loving.
relaxed, hopeful,
patient and kind.”
Soul Mosaic 
Leave a comment