Mother's Day: Surrender and Relax into the Pain

Hey friend,

My thoughts drift to my mom very easily. Between Mother’s Day, my mom’s birth and death, you’ll find me watching old family videos, scanning photos, and reading and remembering her history. Much of this brings on tender tears.

It’s been eight years since my mom passed, and in these years, I have learned a few things about grief.

• Feel all of your feelings. Don’t run from, avoid, push down, distract, fight against, or be mad about feelings. Just feel them. Our bodies are created to do this and can handle it, so surrender and relax into the pain.
• Stay in the clean pain. There’s clean pain and dirty pain. Clean pain comes from thoughts like, "I love her, I miss hugging her, I wish she were here so I could speak with her."
• It’s called clean pain because it’s helpful and necessary when dealing with a loss.
• The problem is when we move into dirty pain. That would look something like, "This thing happened, so my life will never be good again." Or, "This happened, and it’s not fair." It’s the difference between feeling pain from love and feeling pain coming from resistance or injustice.
• This is all part of the human experience. 

Once I relaxed into grief and made it my companion, my days got better. I wasn’t running from it, or hoping it would end soon. I wasn’t waiting to get through it or over it. It just was. Grief over a person or any loss in your life can feel pretty crappy….and guess what? That’s how it’s supposed to feel. It’s the price we pay for loving so much.

Take Care,

Melinda

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