Compassion in Dark Times

Being gentle with yourself can be the hardest thing to do when things get dark. Do it anyway.

This is the time of year for me when things get dark. Outside it is literally gray and dark and cold most of the time. Inside it is equally dark and gray most years for me. January/February will not ever be the same for me and I have to accept that. My cells in my body will not allow me to forget the darkness of these last few days of January leading into February. There is a heaviness, a grief, a weight that sits on me and pulls me down no matter where I am or what I am doing. This year, the dark feels darker, the grief feels deeper, the weight feels heavier.

On January 30, 2011, my ex-husband and father of my oldest child passed away suddenly. He was 35 years old. It has been ten years. It still feels unreal. I can be knocked back to that place in my mother’s home getting that phone call in a heartbeat. I can never forget telling my child. I won’t ever forget either. It changed us forever. It changed so many people forever. It was tragic. It still is.

Over the years I have had different ways of coping with the grief of that day. Many years I was distracted and I ignored the heaviness. Other years I was undone with grief, barely able to function. Some years I celebrated him and our love and our child with deep gratitude and happiness along with feeling the loss. This year, it feels heavy. Maybe because it has been ten years. Maybe because I’m going through personal loss and a rearrangement of my life. Maybe because our world feels hostile and cold. Maybe because death surrounds me on a daily basis with insane amounts of life lost due to a global pandemic. Maybe because what used to be everyday, routine decisions feel risky. Maybe because some of the people who would routinely love on me and support me can’t be around me for our own protections.

This is tough. I want hugs from my people more than I want to eat sometimes and I cannot hug them. I want to sit in the presence of people who love, support and lift me up and that isn’t available to me right now. This pandemic is so isolating and is depriving me of some of my very basic human needs. Yes I have the love and support of my immidiate family-but this is their wound too. This is their pain and grief as well. It would be unreasonable of me to burden my children with my grief. Their hugs and love and support are appreciated and needed but this is a bigger job than that. Physical touch and being in the presence of people with strength, love, hope, and good solid energy is healing. It can lighten your grief, it can make you feel held, it can fill up your cup. Missing out on that for the last 10 months has been devestating. I hug my people. I love on my friends. I enjoy sitting close with my friends and sharing conversations standing in a close circle with co-workers in hallway. I miss seeing smiles and standing close enough to someone to feel their energy or reach out and grab their hand.

The layers of grief this year have to be processed. They have to be felt or it builds up inside and comes out wonky. What does that mean? It means if I don’t cry for the loss of physical touch, I might start spending all my nights watching internet videos to feel connected to something, but not sleeping, which would be a more loving thing to do. If I don’t scream out in anger when I feel mad, I might lose my patience with my children or my students because it is sitting just below the surface, I never let myself process it. I’ve found the safest place to yell into the void is in the car or the beach (when no one else is there). I cry everywhere and I cry often. I am crying as I write at times because writing is a release, for me a way to process what is happening.

This global pandemic has taken away from me many of my coping strategies. It is important for me to grieve that too and to find new ways of dealing in this new reality. Going to Al-Anon meetings is one of my most important self-care actions. I love the hugs, the deep sharing, the courage, and the holding of hands in a circle at the end. There is magic in it. For long periods of time, we have had to meet online. If we are able to meet in person it is six feet away from any other person, no hugs, no seeing smiles because they are covered by masks, and no circle of hands at the end. I miss it so much.

I used to get a massage once a month. It helped me release all of the things I was storing as tension in my body and to experience safe, therapeutic touch. I haven’t gotten a massage in over a year. I bought myself a little machine that can massage your back and neck and I use it often. It is great but it is not a substitute for a person’s healing touch. I made a personal decision not to expose myself to another outside appointment after deciding that getting my hair done was more important to me. It may seem like a silly loss, but I grieve it just the same.

Going out to dinner with a good friend or a group of friends used to be a welcome outlet for times when the world got too heavy. We would eat, drink, and be merry. I miss laughing and feeling free over the hum of a restaurant full of people. Sometimes that collective energy reminds us of our connectedness with others and how a collective energy can be intoxicating and life-giving. Sometimes that breaking of bread breaks us open enough to share what is in our heart and on our minds with others who can love and support us. We are missing out on that right now. Sitting at a restaurant for hours with friends right now carries with it a risk of endangering the people we love, and that kind of takes the fun out of it.

So what do I do now that these and so many other things I used to do for self-care and to ease my burdens are gone? I have to get creative. I have to reach deep in the well of self-compassion, for myself and deep in the well of compassion for others. Self-compassion for me can take on many forms but really what I need to ask myself all the time is, what is the most loving thing I can do for myself and then do that. What are loving things I can do for myself? Everyday is different but here are some examples.

Taking a nap when I’m tired

Calling a friend or a mentor

Exercise or gentle movement

Reading a book, snuggled in a blanket, sitting by the fire

Going out in nature, especially the forest or the beach for me

Reading something uplifting

Knitting

Drawing or painting

Walking the dog

Listening to a meditation, a podcast or solfeggio frequencies

Dancing to loud music

Looking at beautiful things (in real life or on the internet)

Taking a bath or a hot shower

Journaling or writing

Letting myself have a good cry or screaming into the void

Giving myself a big hug or wrapping myself up in a warm blanket

Writing myself a kind note and encouraging myself with words I would use for a friend that was struggling

Seeing my therapist regularly

Attending a weekly recovery meeting

Sitting under my light therapy lamp

Petting the dog or cats

Not visiting Facebook or social media if it makes me feel less than or steals my peace

If you sit down right now and make a list of all of the things in this moment that are stressing you out or causing you grief or contributing to your upset, you might be surprised at how long the list is. January may not be your time of darkness for the same reasons as mine, but it may be dark just the same. If you really sat down in the darkness, would you know how to take care of yourself there? Do you avoid the darkness, your darkness, because you don’t think you will survive it if you let yourself feel it? Do you not think you have the time? I understand. I have been in all of those spaces and had all of the excuses and all of the avoidant strategies. It did not save me from feeling my grief. It comes every year and honestly most days to visit me. I used to slam the door, pretend it wasn’t there and find ways to numb it or distract myself from it. It waited for me. Really. It just built up time after time until it nearly broke me and I had no choice but to face it. It was as bad as I thought it would be. It hurt so bad. It was white hot pain. The only thing that shocked me in the end is that it didn’t kill me. I lived and I still do. I survived it and I still do. I felt it and I processed it and I still do. I am capable of so much more than I believe I am. I am so much stronger than I let myself believe, and you are too.

Compassion is a super power. It is stronger than grief. It is stronger than anger. It is even stronger than loneliness. It can come from others but most importantly it can come from yourself. Do not withhold this power from yourself. It can fill your cup, warm your heart, and ease your soul. I am being tested this year in my self-compassion generosity. I am being challenged to get creative with it and to allow time for it, to make it my top priority. It is not easy and I need reminders to do it (thank you to my therapist and Al-anon sponsor) but, when I practice it, my darkness gets lighter. In a world where I can feel hopeless and isolated (especially right now) it helps to know that I have my own back. Even in my darkest, most heavy places, I have a soft spot to land. That soft spot is me. It is my self-compassion. Today that looks like tears, writing, cozy clothes, gentle movement, writing, knitting, a nap, and feeding my body food without judgement. It looks like sharing my darkness with others so that they know they are not alone, and that they can survive any darkness if they are willing to show up for themselves. So, so much love for all of you. Hold yourself tight, it won’t always be dark.

The Gift of Hope

I recently had a gathering with a few friends and we talked about hope. It was a much needed talk for me because I had lost sight of hope for a bit and needed to remind myself that it is always available to me. I’m so grateful for the word hope and for being surrounded by people and resources in my life that remind me of it.

When I was in my mid to late twenties, I was in a place of no hope. I literally thought that there was no hope for me, my husband, my daughter, or any hope that our lives would change for the better. We were in the depths of living with addiction and the chaos that surrounds it. I was experiencing the life I had tried so hard to avoid and I was ashamed, confused, and defeated. I had no tools to deal with what I was experiencing except for the tools I had learned in childhood to deal with my dad’s drinking. Those were survival tools for sure but they were not the tools of hope.

A very dear person in my life suggested that I try a twelve step program for me, to help me deal with living with an alcoholic/addict. It was one of the only things that had been suggested to me that was different than the controlling, manipulating, fighting, giving up, crying, screaming, leaving, returning, etc, that I had been trying. I went and on the very first night I left with the tiniest seed of hope planted deep inside my heart that I could learn a new way of life for me.

I had the tiniest feeling of hope that I could deal with the disease of addiction in a different way that didn’t mean survival but meant living well. I had met people that night that smiled, that laughed, that hugged, and that loved and I hadn’t done any of those things in a long time. Hope was planted in my heart.

Over the years, I kept attending and I kept growing the hope in my heart. My hope kept changing though, in ways that hurt my heart. I started in my first few years with a hope that my husband would stop drinking and drugging and that we would become a family in recovery. My hope was attached to his sobriety and it was smashed to pieces every time he used again. My hope was that I would be enough, that our child would be enough, that our love for him would be enough to defeat his addictions. It was exhausting getting up every morning and lighting that little flame of hope inside me when it had been drowned the night before by drinking, drugs, a hospital stay, another rehab stint that didn’t work, or another move in with a relative for our safety. It was like lighting a piece of wood on fire that you just dragged out of the lake, took forever, had to have intense amounts of false hope doused on it before it would even catch fire, and then just smoked all day and stung my eyes because it was crappy wet hope anyway.

I finally learned that if I was going to have any real hope at all, that it had to be in myself and my own recovery. I could not continue to tie my hope to someone else’s life and expect them to make my life better with their actions. I had to do the bettering. I had to take control of the only thing that was in my power to control, my life. My hope now rested in me. It scared the crap out of me. I didn’t trust myself, I was a failure. I had landed myself smack in the middle of the life I swore I would never live. I would never tolerate addiction in my life, I would never allow my children to be affected.

I had sat in a bathtub with my toddler child while my husband, in a drunken, drug induced rage, punched at the locked door, cut our phone line, and was beating at the handle trying to get to us. He was screaming that he would take our child and run away with her so that I would never see her again. My life was out of control. I was in danger and I had put my child in danger by choosing to hope that my husband would get better. I failed. You would think that any hope I had in my husband would have died that day, but it didn’t. Denial is a sneaky little bugger, and I continued to put myself in danger for a while, just hoping that this time, he would mean what he said.

I finally gave up my hope in him. I remember the day. He came into my work with a group of people who were taking him off to rehab. He said something to me that was an attempt to give me hope and I felt nothing. I wanted him to leave and I wanted to be done hoping. My heart could not take another attempt at hope with him. After he left, I wrote a long letter to God. I explained that I was giving my husband to him. That I could no longer hope, I could no longer help, and I could no longer live with him. I wished him well. I hoped for his recovery, but I was separating my hope for me, from him. I never went back again. We divorced.

When my ex-husband died years later, I really was devastated. I had never lost hope that he would recover. I never lost hope in him. But I had long severed the hope that I would only be okay if he was okay. I had long stopped the hope that we would be okay together. I had stayed in my twelve step recovery group and had learned to hope in myself., to hope in my God who was in charge of my life, and not in any one human being besides myself. The night of his funeral, I went to a meeting, and as I spoke, I realized that my worst fear had happened and that I still had to live. I still had hope for me, hope for my child, that we could live, even though the one we cared for so much had died. Once again, it was tiny, the smallest flame of hope there is without burning out-but it was there.

So many times in my life, my hope has gotten so confusing. I forget that the only hope that I can have is in myself and my higher power. I think that my hope is tied to people, jobs, experiences, titles, money, security, goodness, success, etc. It is a lie. I have to remember that the only hope that can burn in me is in myself. I cannot tie it to anything outside of me or it will get extinguished at every turn. I have no control over other people, their choices, their feelings, their life, and tying my flame of hope to them is dangerous. It is an invitation into darkness.

I am in the process right now of untangling my lines of hope that I attached to some things outside of myself. It is a natural part of life, it is part of living as an imperfect human who wants to hope in others, who wants to hope in things outside, who wants to rest in something other than themselves. Maybe someday I’ll learn the lesson that I can only rest in me, and in my higher power, but I’m slow at learning many things. I have more power than I think to survive tragedy, to stand up for myself, and to have hope for the future. I just need to look back a little in my life to be reminded of how it felt to have my hope tied up in someone else, to give my power away, and to think that I would die if they made the wrong choices. The real truth is that we are all responsible for ourselves. And that person that you think you will die if you lose, you won’t, you’ll have to live through it. They will die and you will move forward guided by that tiny little flame in your heart, your hope in yourself.

Thank you to to people in my twelve step program who show up and tell me always of their hope in themselves, of their hope in the program, and of their hope in God. It is how I knew I could do it then, and how I am doing it now. I may not be facing a tragedy like I have survived in my past, but every little loss is a reminder that I am still here despite the loss. That I must always move forward and search for my flame of hope. It is a comfort to know that my flame is mine and that no one can blow it out with their words, their choices, their life decisions, or their desire to blow out my hope. It lies deep in me and I can look within at any time and cut the ties that I may have hooked my hope to, or any ties that others may have thrown onto my hope candle to try to make me responsible for their hope. So I’m cutting, I’m cleaning, I’m grieving, I’m stoking my fire within, and I’m resting in the knowledge that if I hold on to me and my hope, that pain will end, and I will be okay.

Release

On the 8th anniversary of your death, I want to honor us both by doing it differently.

Our first vacation together to Busch Gardens Florida

January 30 is not my favorite day. For the last 8 years it has been a day of loss, mourning, grieving, and memories. It is usually preceded by a week or more of nightmares, lack of sleep and deep depression. My ex-husband died on this day and I had to tell my daughter her father was gone. It was horrible. It has continued to be horrible but I have learned so much, grown so much, and healed so much in the past few years. This year I am doing it differently.

I have a friend who has suffered a deep loss as well and she refers to the anniversary day of her loss as a “spirit release day”. I always thought that was a beautiful way to say it but I couldn’t bring myself to say that about Ryan. There was nothing beautiful about that day. I couldn’t see it if there was. Every year on this date I would spend my day broken down by memories and conflicting emotions. I felt anger, hurt, deep sadness and victim-hood, for myself and for my daughter. We were victims of our life with him and victims in his death. That was what I felt, saw, experienced, and I didn’t feel a release of his spirit or of ours.

This year, and for the last few years, I have been working with a guide to change. I wanted to get through and process the traumas of my life and to find myself again. I wanted to be free, to find release. Sometimes you need to be careful what you ask for because there is no easy way to do this. The body needs to process the feelings that were too difficult to feel at the time of the trauma. The body needs to experience it and then experience something new in the face of that old wound. I feel extremely lucky to have a guide who can be a safe person for me to relive, re-feel, and who provides me with a safe, loving space to experience it differently. So instead of feeling like I am drowning in grief and pain, I can feel the comfort of being completely broken before another human being and not having to be different, or just being witnessed in my brokenness and it not making them uncomfortable or making them feel like they have to make it better. The truth is that there is no making things better. Just sitting with someone in their deepest pain without judging it is enough, it is powerful. I learned that I wouldn’t die if I felt the pain to its depths. I had always thought it was too much so I wouldn’t let myself go that deep.

Over the last 8 years I have built a village. The village knows my story; they know the pain, the trauma, and the details. This has been a great comfort to me and has helped me get this far. This year, however, I longed for something more. I wanted release, I wanted freedom. So I asked for help in that. I asked to be shown a way and I have received it. It is a work in progress but I have started and I will continue.

About four nights ago I had a dream about Ryan and his family. It was familiar. The details aren’t important but what I was left with when I woke up was hurt, pain, upset, sadness, fear, and anger. There was one little thing that was different though, I also had a feeling like I could say no, I could do it differently. So I reached out for some support and made this the intention of my next session with my guide. I wanted to say no, I wanted to do it differently.

What I learned is that in order to do it differently I had to let a part of me die. I had to say good bye to the part of me that is the victim, not just in this circumstance but in all the circumstances of my life. REALLY???? But I was a victim. This was so loudly shouting in my soul that I couldn’t ignore it. And it was true. Terrible things had happened in my relationship with Ryan, in the divorce, in the years after, and in his death, to me. Those things made me build up an armor that I had so badly needed at the time. It was a shield of hurt and anger that protected me and my heart for years. It gave me the strength to go through with a divorce I didn’t want, court dates I didn’t want to have, confrontations I would have been too scared to have and to see truths that were being swept under the rug by so many. The strength to get through those dark days with my daughter and the pain that would continue. I loved that shield. I honestly feel that that shield saved my life and gave me superhuman strength sometimes. I knew that it saved my life and I felt stronger with it in my hands. I had needed that shield to protect me and my child and I don’t for one second regret picking up that shield.

Except now the shield has to go. It has to die. The anger, the upset, the hurt and pain that caused me to pick it up-it has been 8 years that I’ve kept it alive-even in the truth that Ryan was gone and the hurt (well his part in it) was done. How could I continue to be a victim of someone from the grave? Turns out quite successfully if I continued to raise my shield and carry around my victim story and the anger, fear, and upset that came with it. This year I realized that I don’t need the story or the shield anymore and I’m here to lay it down.

Ryan, I release your soul.

I release with it my victim story (as much as I can right now, but I will continue releasing).

What happened hurt so much because I loved you so.

I release my anger, my hurt, my rage toward you and those who hurt me in protection of you.

I release the chains that tied me to your disease (addiction) and that kept me from remembering us both as beautiful people before it grabbed us.

I release the fear that has kept a shield around my heart and prevented me from being loving, powerful, and free.

I release my story of being of victim even though it makes me feel naked and vulnerable and scared. I have relied on it for so long to protect me and I’m terrified to be without it. Yet I am also filled with a hope that I cannot express at the thought of a life free of that heavy, angry shield.

I know in my heart that you always loved me and our daughter and that putting down this shield, letting this part of me die will free your spirit as well as mine. It will make things possible for our daughter that wouldn’t happen if I kept it alive forever. I know you would want me to be free, to put that shield down so that love can enter, so that I can be more open to real connection with those that I love without them having to try to pierce my shield just to get to my heart. I know you would want my heart to be open and free. My husband and my children deserve my whole heart.  

Victim me, I release you.

I thank you for saving my life and for protecting me during a traumatic time in my life.

Thank you for the strength you gave me and the power you afforded me in times of fear.

Your services are no longer needed.

I release you in love and gratitude.

Powerful me, I embrace you.

I see you, I feel you, and I love you.

I believe in your strength and I look forward to living a life of vulnerability, free of being a victim.

I look forward to taking responsibility for myself and embodying the powerful woman that I have learned to be. I choose my life. I write this story. I stand in truth and power.

If you are on this journey, if you suspect that your victim shield is becoming too heavy to carry around anymore and you need someone to sit with you in your terrible truth and not judge you, I am here. I have no qualification except that I have had it done for me and want you to experience the same. I can sit in love, as it was done for me, and let you find the truth, that your are powerful enough on your own to change your life. To let that shit go, and to choose another way of being. I know the fear of letting a part of you that has protected you for so long die. I just know. And I know that you will live without it, and that you will thrive.

Happy spirit release day Ryan. I release you in love.

Today I will honor myself with rest, comfort, love, and naps because this is exhausting!

Seven Year Anniversary Of Your Death

There is no escaping grief

In Memory of Ryan Peter Jezak

This picture of a bird was taken by our daughter just about a month after you passed away. I found it today on our computer. I never realized I had it. I don't look at pictures from that time often. It's too hard. 

Seven years have passed. Is it easier? I don't know. It is always just different. The cells of my body remember this day and no matter what I do to prepare or ignore or forget, they jump up and down and demand my attention. It is less raw, time has passed. I've learned some tools to deal with these feelings and it helps. 

What I cannot figure out what to do with is the flashbacks to this day. The phone call, telling our child, the wailing, the drive home because I was at my mother's when I got the call, the next few days consoling our devastated child. I felt utterly inadequate as a mother because there was no taking the pain away for her. Just the sitting in it. The daily showing up and consoling.  I was not afforded grief in those early days, I was in all out mama bear mode. Not only did I have our child to comfort but I was growing two babies in my body. Giving up and giving into grief was not an option. Maybe it will fade in time, maybe there is a tool I've yet to learn. 

The grief has been spread out over these past seven years. It is probably for the best, honestly. We couldn't all fall apart at once. We talk about you, she knows so many things about you, about us, about how much she was loved and the challenges we went through. The years since you have gone have been filled with some things I don't like, relationships I would change if I could, situations I wish were different, misunderstandings, and complicated grief by all touched by your life and death. But so much good has happened too. 

Our child is amazing. She is funny, smart, beautiful, has nice toes (inside joke), is creative, a great friend, and a profound thinker. She has an empathy in her that is only gained by tragedy. She still loves Chinese food, how could she not, hitting up the Mandarin House with us since she was a baby. She looks like me but she has your eyes and dance moves. 

If I could go back in time, I would change how I handled things-I'm sure you would too. But it isn't an option. I have folders in my brain like always, the bad, the ugly, the angry, the regret, but my beautiful and good folders grow every year as I am able to separate from my hurt and pain and remember the beautiful person you were and the beautiful love we shared that led to our baby girl being born. Yes we were young, yes we had some really bad and immature ideas about what love and marriage looked like, yes addiction derailed our lives. We did the best we could. I don't regret it. I've learned so much from the adventure of having you in my life. 

Rest in peace. Be with us in spirit as we continue on. Watch over our baby girl.