Taking Time to Transform

There have been so many times I have wanted to rush past the moment I was in and get to the next phase of whatever I thought my transformation was. I have finally learned what Adaku Utah said on Chapter 19 of Season 7 of How to Survive the End of the World, a podcast hosted this season by adrienne maree brown:we have to respect the time it takes to change and to integrate. We rarely know exactly where transformation is leading us, part of the treasure of transformation is what we learn about ourselves on the way to the next part of the path.

I think the same can be said for grief. Recently someone I know wished that they could just skip ahead put past the grief they are in. They asked for advice on how to make time less grief filled so they can feel the way they used to, or would like to in the future. Anything other than how they feel right now.

And I had to give them the honest truth, that grief cannot be a rush job. There aren’t corners to cut. The experience of grief can bring treasure and truth into our lives, and we can make beautiful memes and notes about composting and growth and death and rebirth, and it is also true that the pain of grief and grieving is a searing hot sharp painful thing, and it demands us to experience it and as humans, experiencing it is part of the condition of existing here. Sometimes grief just really really sucks.

Nature teaches us about dark times and light and dormancy and growth, and deep rest and wild sunshine days. When we hit the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere and we want to immediately rush to spring instead of savor the remaining darkness, we are often met with constant frustration and disappointment. January and February can feel eternal as we find ourselves wanting to sprint ahead to gardens and lemonades and beach days. We are willing to do the darkness when we are busy with holidays and decorations and activities and twinkle lights. I think how we exist within ourselves for the remaining months of dark long cold nights determines how sweet the summer lemonades are, how beautiful we find the flowers in the garden come summer, how much we can cherish the beach days ahead.

When we allow ourselves to root into the darkness, into the process of integration and change, into the deep grief we navigate in the aftermath of loss, we allow ourselves a fuller and more beautiful human experience when we come out of their tunnels and into the light on the other side. Not everything can be productive (nor should it), not everything can be rushed by or through. Nature teaches us this every year. Each season has its time and we have to choose who we are within those times.

The same is true for grief. We either allow ourselves to walk through its gates and portals into the dark forest of sorrow, to find the truth and treasure there tucked in around the pockets of pain, stay with the mess and the darkness as they guide us forward, or we try and push ahead to who we are “after”. Rushing through to get to a metaphorical finish line never works, just as we cannot wish spring to advance its start to January. Grief will stay until it is experienced.

Find someone to walk with you, to hold space for you to wail and thrash, who will feed you and keep you protected from rubbernecking onlookers, and make your way through the forest. Find your truth. Find your treasure. Respect the time it takes. Have courage. You may end up existing in wonder and awe at who you are meant to become.