As I am on this rocky path of transition (selling a home, moving to a new city, partner with a new job… you know, teeny things like that), I’ve been thinking a lot about the 3 days leading up to and including Mom’s death (Sept 17, 2010).
Oddly, it’s not so much the grief I’ve been thinking about. It’s been more about the incredible experience of that transition time… a time when by all expectations I should have been mired in death, yet was more ALIVE than I have ever been in my life. Ever.
What was that about?? What made that possible?? And… especially important … how can I create (allow?) that alive, awake, fully present experience at other times in my life??
After a “spend some time exploring that” nudge from my biz/life coach (xo Nancy!), I wrote the following in my journal last week:
What made my focus, clarity, openness different around Mom’s death? Permission to fall apart. When I give myself permission to fall apart, and when others do the same… I just step through it. Wide awake, totally open. Allowing life and reaching for every bit. Knowing this is a once in a lifetime experience. Living purely for spirit.
Any transition is tough — whether it’s the Ultimate Transition out of this physical life, or the more common (thank God!) daily transitions from one mode of energy to the next — because really, each transition is a little death. A good-bye to one thing to make way for the next thing. So when we acknowledge that, and give ourselves permission to fall apart (or just cry a lot..or a little), we open the door to healing even as we feel the pain.
And if it’s too scary, too uncomfortable to give yourself permission to fall apart, give yourself the chance to practice by giving someone else the permission to fall apart in your presence. Be the person who honors their falling apart and sees it as a beautiful sign that they’re living, really living.. and learning… and loving.
Like the sign we put on our fridge for our recent 7-person “Aunties/Niecelings” weekend:
Crying is OK here!
And so we cried (between the belly laughs). And it was very very ok.
Give yourself permission today to fall apart, to laugh, to freak out, to rejoice … to do and be whatever you need to do and be. Give yourself permission to LIVE.
