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Our strength will continue if we allow ourselves the courage to feel scared, weak,and vulnerable -Melody Beattie Strength is usually seen as the opposite of "weakness." This culture teaches us, both male and female, to "man up" and push away any feelings that are perceived as weak such as uncertainty, fear and vulnerability. Many therapy clients have a difficult time talking about and facing these feelings because they judge them as weak and therefore unacceptable.
Yet, paradoxically, true strength lies in having the courage to allow yourself to feel scared, weak, uncertain and vulnerable. It takes a significant amount of courage and determination to stop pushing those feelings away. It also takes courage and motivation to push past the shame that often comes up for having these "weak" feelings in the first place. And sometimes it simply is desperation to feel better, to change things in life, that will push you to feel all those unacceptable, painful feelings. Allowing yourself to feel any and all feelings as they arise, including fear and vulnerability, is true strength!
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Grief can be the garden of Compassion if you keep your heart open throughout everything. Your Pain can become your greatest ally in your life's search for Love and Wisdom. -Rumi Grief, whether for a an actual death or illness, or for the end of a relationship, job, home, dream or hope, can feel life-shattering. Loss, and its accompanying fear and pain, can be extremely difficult to face. It can be hard to imagine how you will ever pick up the pieces of your life. Life may become difficult as depression (a suppression of feeling) and/or anxiety take over. Some people turn to substances or other addictive activities as a way to escape the overwhelming pain inside.
Yet healing and growth come through keeping your heart open, through feeling the pain and going with it, instead of shutting down and turning away from it. The only way out is through; there is no true avoiding of this. This can feel difficult or scary as it may seem that the pain will engulf you, or that you won't be able to tolerate it. Therapy and meditation/mindfulness can be helpful in this process: both in telling your story and being witnessed and accompanied in your grief and pain, and in learning to be with the emotions without running from them. When everything is going well, life can be on cruise control, but when there is a loss, suddenly routine and a sense of safety and complacency are thrown out the window. Grief then becomes the doorway into a deeper and richer understanding and experience of life. As the Rumi quote says, pain can be your greatest ally in the development of love, compassion and wisdom in your life. As you are able to stay in your heart, despite the seemingly unbearable pain of grief, there is an opening, a softening, an expansion, a new depth in your experience of yourself and of life. |
AuthorPeggy Handler, MFT, is a psychotherapist in San Francisco's Noe Valley Archives
December 2020
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