Finding Peace: A Journey Through Grief

This past year has been one of the most difficult for me since my mom passed away almost a decade ago. It wasn’t that I lost someone to death but I lost someone through choosing to speak up about what I desired. Our desires did not match. And in that, the pain of rejection and choosing an ending was much harder than I imagined. 

As I navigated this past year, I found it extremely difficult to accept the reality of the life in front of me. How was I to make peace with something when it wasn’t what I wanted? As I met myself in the darkest moments of my grief - grief of the life I had as well as the life I desired that wasn’t present - I continued to find more pain from my past. I kept peeling back the layers of the pain and grief, wondering if I would ever feel some kind of resolution, some kind of peace. What I found was that the more I invited or yearned for peace in my life, the more I was met with grief.

This may seem counterintuitive and I promise, I am not saying that every sense of peace is found in this way. But I wonder, when we are met at a crossroads that we come face to face with a stark reality of our own making, it can be very challenging to find peace within the life you made for yourself. Each time a layer of grief was felt within my body, I would feel the depths of the unsettled ground beneath me. I wasn’t at peace with my life and where I was at. And I had no idea how I would, or if I ever would, feel at peace. 

And by the sheer acknowledgment of the pain and grief I felt over my past, my present and my imagined future, combined with my ability to honor the validity of my feelings, peace began to present itself in small ways. My heart began to feel more open. I saw opportunity in all the extra time and space to myself rather than feeling isolated. I noticed that peace is not something that can be forced but rather it is born through the potent release of each wave of grief. 

Each time you feel that you wish things were different you are met with a longing inside you, there is something there that you are not fully okay with, a desire you haven’t yet fulfilled. You don’t feel at peace with how things turned out. This is the threshold where you are met with another layer of your grief. Grief doesn’t take away your peace. Rather grief is there to show you how to find your peace. It leads you gradually, in your timing, back to your tender heart and what is important to you. Your grief is illuminating what you value in this life and if we listen with reverence, it will show you the way to a more grounded, peaceful, fully radiant life.

May you follow the waves of grief to your most authentic and peaceful life.

And as always, Shar(e)on Lightly.