An Unyielding Tide and the Belly of the Beast: A Visualization For When Grief Hits Hard.

Some days, out of nowhere, the grief hits. 

Wicked hard, tasting like copper pennies between your teeth, all bite and tang and regret. You close the curtains. Take to your bed. Let the tears wrack your body until the water damage has left cracks in the foundation. You can attempt to patch the cracks. Build up the levees with sandbags to try and control the rising flood.

But still, the tears keep flowing until your bed becomes a raft floating on a saltwater river, bound inevitably for the sea. 

Every long-held hope, every tiny heart tear, every ounce of yourself you have given to living your way into a story you could safely rest inside, they all join forces and build in strength and fury until they crash on the shores of everything you ever wanted but did not get to hold.

Let's be real. Letting go (of control, of grief, of dreams, of love) is not my best thing. I'm more of the tenacious, hanging-on sort of gal. But after a while, the sad songs can help you access the pain but never alchemize it. Hiding in the dark is no longer an option. The writhing of your animal body stills in favor of the lure of an endless nothingness. You fear this time, the void will consume you. But you know there's always a reckoning. Always a point when the powerlessness of self against that giant, the unstoppable wave, is impossible to avoid.

And when that happens, there is nothing much to do but stand on the shore, face down the relentless wall of water, throw your arms wide, and let that mother fucking tsunami of pain sweep you up and churn you around in her belly. 

Photo by Stormseeker on Unsplash

Grief, you see, is in the business of transmutation. She comes for us not because we are sad or struggling with a broken heart. She knows we’ve got the moxie to move our way through those spaces. She saves her hands-on work for the big jobs. She searches for the stuck places in us, where the pain has lodged like a heavy boulder, deep in our gut, freezing us in place. She steps in when it becomes clear that the transfiguration of that heaviness will not occur without drastic measures.  She knows we need to feel it all, but she doesn’t want us to put down roots there. Grief is meant to be a transitory space. 

When you need Grief to move you toward what lies beyond the unending pain of it all, she will find you. She will, tidal wave of insistence, carry you, kicking and screaming if she has to, into the depths. You can go limp or hold yourself tightly in the fetal position. You can attempt not to feel all the fear and terror and loss, but eventually, it will come to get you. You can flail your limbs and try to lunge for the life rafts that come your way. You can open your mouth to scream underwater, panic pulsing through every electric cell in your body. 

Oh, look, Grief nods approvingly; she's still got some fight left in her. But either way, once she's got you, you're hers—for at least a bit. 

It's dark down there in the belly of the beast, too far away from the surface for the moonlight to reach. It's cold, too, and there's nobody around to warm the chill in your bones against the unending onslaught of all that cold, hard hurt. Trying to swim in a clear direction won’t help. Neither will fighting the current.

There’s no way to save yourself when Grief has you in her clutches. There's just surrender. There's the faint beat of whatever fragments are left of your stupendously broken heart. And even if you can't figure out what good can possibly remain, there's a tiny sliver of hope. There always is if you look hard enough. 

Eventually, Grief will have had her way with you. Maybe she'll even have shaken some sense and some fighting spirit back to your weary bones. When she sees you've taken all she had to give and shown you're not ready to give up, she'll know it’s time to try again. She'll be done chewing you up then, and she'll unceremoniously spit you out, landing your broken spirit roughly on land. Trusting that when you've finally alchemized those remaining tendrils of grief, you'll wake up. Eyes gritty with salt. Body weary and aching. Heart working valiantly to knit itself back together. It will just be you on that endless bed of sand, hard-packed and unyielding, not the best to rest on, but ready to hold you steady when you rise. Before grief leaves, she bends over to whisper in your ear, “It is possible to be deeply sad and wholly okay, Your being has enough room to hold solidity and deep grief in the same body. love, this is just a step along the path; it will not last forever. ”

Grief, in all her wildness, has receded now. The ocean is still an endless, grinding, undulating machine. But Grief has moved out past the breakers to where the water is wise, calm, and unfathomably deep. She keeps her eyes on you for a bit. Makes sure you find the life left in your bones so that your limbs can hold you and that your heart has repaired itself enough to carry you home. 

It’s a good heart, Grief thinks. One of the very best. Strong. Kind. Ready to love full force, no matter how many times it has broken. She trusts, eventually, that you will taste healing and respite and ease. 

But Grief also knows you'll be back. Her job is never entirely finished. As long as there is life, there will be broken hearts and shattered spirits. And when the pain rises again, Grief—ancient crone of a grandmother that she is—will find you when you need her. Ready for the hard and holy work of transformation.

Ready to birth you anew on the other side. 

xo, jlb.

PS: The day that I wrote this was one of those days when grief swooped in and took me down hard and deep. This visualization came to me as I held myself through the quaking tears, knowing I needed to release the pain and trusting my grief to carry me to the other side. I hope it helps you too.

---

Hey ya’ll: I have not run any courses in a year, but I get frequent questions from folks who are looking for options to improve their writing. So I’ve got a suggestion for you today: Go sign up for this ASAP.

I cannot recommend my friend Buddy Wakefield’s classes highly enough.

As a world-renowned Spoken Word artist and all-around linguistic and one-of-a-kind performance genius, Buddy leads writing workshops different from any you’ve experienced before.

Writers Anonymous is the new course Buddy has created for every level of writer to come together and “recover from the tragic, pretentious poetry that made language a criminally dull liar instead of advancing it to lyrics on the leading edge of consciousness.” (see what I mean - he’s one of a kind).

From the course website:
Writers Anonymous is a generative, edit-heavy, and feedback-focused five-week writing course developed for all skill levels. At each session, we’ll work together in detail to elevate the poems of workshop participants in order to better understand how trust and respect are built, both with an audience and ourselves. Throughout the course, willing students receive an opportunity to be ushered into the spotlight for a candid, safe conversation about their work, craft, logic, and intentions. If you feel you’ve honed none of these things, even better. Welcome. You belong here.

Use coupon code PTDS for $30 off enrollment!

“You are a history of victories no matter what story you’re telling everyone else”
—Buddy Wakefield