On Acceptance Through Mourning

I was asked by a student to submit a piece for her blog that focuses on her own healing through the mourning process for her mother, but her site is so much more than that. She has spent a considerable amount of time searching, documenting, and sharing ways she found peace and relief while beginning her mourning process and has congregated them into one side - which I recommend checking out here.

I have experienced loss like the rest of us, mourning is not a unique or individual experience no matter how much we think it is. It is so special because it is shared by every person on this earth. Whether it is the loss of a human or pet loved one, an opportunity, an able-body, or even a perspective or belief - loss is a deep, emotional, complex process that humans deserve to honor and mourned over.

Ritual burning can be used to sever ourselves from lost things that weigh us down and no longer serve us.

"On Acceptance Through Mourning"

Mourning (mourn·​ing): “the act of sorrowing” 

~Merriam-Webster

After a fire devastates a forest there is a thick layer of ash that is left behind which seeps down into the charred soil to nurture and feed the previous life that escaped the flames only by the roots. From this ash new, lush, more alive flora grows over the graves of the previous life that was cut down by fire. From the fire of our own lives so too may we allow the ash that coats our skin to sink deep and heal us, but first we must allow ourselves to burn.

Listen to your body. Many of us may have heard this phrase spoken to us before, but how can we do this in the midst of mourning? Mourning is more than just the death of a loved one; it is the loss or death of any thing in your life, be it a pet, family member, an opportunity, a goal, our health, aspirations & dreams, a thought, a job, an object. Mourning is not reserved for the deepest tragedy of losing the life of someone we cherish, it includes them. In our society, especially the American society that I was born into, we are often told, encouraged, to speed up our mourning, to hide it, to wipe our tears away quickly and wash our face. We are told how uncomfortable people become when we share our sorrow and our memories. There is an unspoken rule to stuff these feelings down, hide when you cry, and most of all do not make it someone else’s problem. However, there is such beauty in the sorrow and ache of mourning. There is something so effervescent and gorgeous about how we as humans are one of very few species who experience mourning. There is only mourning in life, to be alive is a gift in that we were able to love something, and hope and dream for something so passionately, that it devastates us when it is lost. 

To experience loss in this lifetime is to experience being so fully alive, being so present and here, that the body is in physical, emotional pain to be living without it. Understand that your emotions do not make you weak, they do not dampen your spirit or your sunlight. They are a reminder that you are here, taking breath into your lungs. Do not tuck yourself into corners or make your sorrow quieter for the sake of others. Even shared loss will be experienced so uniquely by each individual, like a fingerprint, that the joining together of mourning will look like a painting of a million colors. A mosaic made up of every singular experience pertaining to that loss. Allow yourself to wail and cry and stomp your feet. Allow yourself to find joy in the length of time it takes you to find your breath again. Forgive yourself for the time you lose in your sorrow, because time lost is simply time spent healing. Sitting and doing “nothing” is sitting and allowing the full weight of your body to be supported by your bed, or a chair, or the people in your life. It is giving yourself permission to take up the space you occupy when you simply cannot pick yourself up off the floor. There is no shame in mourning. There is no shame in being stuck, or feeling the weight of the universe in your chest. You are inherently human, your mind is complex and there are a plethora of emotions - some we cannot even give names to - that occupy the space in the wrinkles of your brain.

Thus, listen to your body. Let your body tell you when it is ready to be plucked from the lush earth. When it is ready to eat five meals a day or sing off key. Allow your body to move in ways it hasn’t experienced since you were nine and forgive the amount of energy you may have lost in the years since then. Give yourself the space to grow and retreat, to shape shift into the next version of you. Forgive yourself for the things society has told you are bad and wrong, that each day you must grow larger, stronger, further. You are a complex spirit on this planet that spins at over 1,000 miles per hour in a massive collection of stars that make up one single galaxy in a void of space full of galaxies. 

Forgive yourself for what you may have missed out on during your mourning and absolve yourself from the “what if’s”.

Most importantly, remind yourself to breathe. Breathe full into your belly, allow your belly to expand on the inhale and to soften on the exhale. Do not shrink to fit someone else’s expectations of you, and do not force growth that your body cannot handle in this moment. Growth will come after the flames.