gratitude

Day 375

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Eckhart Tolle’s words are thought provoking, soothing and sometimes challenging. It is strange that I find myself revisiting this particular excerpt time and again.

“A Buddhist monk once told me, ”All I have learnt in the twenty years that I have been a monk can be summed up in one sentence – All that arises passes away. This I know.” What he meant was this – I have learnt to offer no resistance to what is; I have learnt to allow the present moment to be and to accept the impermanent nature of all things and conditions. Thus have I found peace.

To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being a certain way, good or bad. It seems almost paradoxical, yet when your inner dependency on form is gone, the general conditions of your life, the outer forms, tend to improve greatly. Things, people or conditions that you thought you needed for your happiness now come to you with no struggle or effort on your part and you are free to enjoy and appreciate them while they last. All those things, of course, will still pass away. Cycles will come and go but with dependency gone there is no fear of loss anymore. Life flows with ease.

You will find the joy of being within you as you enter the state of non-resistance. Even if everything was to crumble and collapse all around you, you would still feel a deep inner core of peace. You may not be happy but you will be at peace.”

Day 370

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Mothers and fathers who were bereaved up to 20 years ago still seem to be heartbroken. It sounds like it could be endless, this pain. Apparently it does change in intensity. While walking with one such parent I said, “Each day I start afresh, as though I have just found out. This horrible thing has happened. There is nothing I can do to change it. It is final. I have no say in the matter and it is so so sad!.” She said that now, for her, it is the same with seasons. When the summer comes, she thinks about her daughter and how much she will be missed during the summer. So it goes with every season. Is that any better? I have no idea.

There is no escape, no short cut, no magic formula. The only way to get past it is to go through it. Whenever my son found something really difficult, I would say encouragingly, “That’s what makes it worth doing.” I would lead by example and apply the same principle to myself too but now that I have been put to the test, I am not doing so well. Today was not a good day at work. It was inefficient, disorganised and boring! That made everything seem much worse. I love my job and have always been grateful for it. In the past I have spent more time working than I have to or need to. So much is changing. Will I recognise myself in a few years? Will my son recognise me?

Today I carried my compounded unhappiness around with me. It found expression at a most inopportune moment. It was not fair on my dear friend who happened to be there, peacefully getting on with her life.

I need to consider how to be more mindful of the potential impact of what I say on those around me.

Day 369

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Coming up to the first anniversary of my son’s death, we have been thinking about whether we want to continue writing everyday or every other day or once a week or not at all. ‘We’ being my ‘editor’ (read partner, for lack of a better word) and I. One day before Day 365 I felt certain that for now, I do need to write everyday. It is an integral part of my healing. It helps me name and acknowledge my feelings, recognise, understand and process them. I helps me dig through the muck as I am lying face down in it. It stops me from going into denial or drowning in grief, guilt or self-pity. It enriches my life in a way only sharing can, even if it is the mundane sharing of ordinary things. It helps me discover dimensions of myself that I did not know existed. It helps me convert a jumbled and out of control mass of emotions in my head into something tangible and ordered with a beginning, middle and end. It helps me challenge myself, ask questions and find ways to move forward through the darkness knowing that I am not alone. It is a discipline, an exploration and an education. It is a ritual – time dedicated exclusively to the memory of my darling son. It helps me to allow others to help me. It is a creative process that involves my partner and I, bringing us closer and helping us make sense of this thing called life, together.

James Pennebaker has been called the ‘godfather of emotional writing’. About 30 years ago he conducted an experiment. 50 students were asked to write for 15 minutes a day for 4 consecutive days. Half of them were told to write about superficial things and the other half told to write honestly and deeply about a traumatic experience they’d had. The wellbeing of the students was monitored for the following few months and it was found that those in the expressive writing group had 43% fewer visits to the doctor for illness than the other group.

Our lives are shaped by narratives. When we edit and rewrite these, it can change the way we see ourselves.

Carl Jung said,”I am not what has happened to me, but what I choose to become.”

My past is buried within me and I am a cupboard holding it in. But there are possibilities, even for me.
When we own our stories, we can work with them.

Day 366

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The fact that I got through yesterday smoothly is astonishing. For the past 4 days we have been receiving messages of love, prayers and kind thoughts from our friends and family from far and near. Once again, many bouquets of flowers, cards and letters have arrived at our doorstep. More donations have been made on our Justgiving page. Is it any co-incidence that we have been able to tide over this very difficult time so peacefully? Do the thoughts and feelings generated thousands of miles away actually convert themselves into strength and comfort by the time they reach us?

I looked up the relationship between distant prayer and healing and found some very interesting scientific studies.

A triple-blind, controlled and prospective study by Cha et al, studied 219 infertile women undergoing IVF in South Korea. They found that the women who had been prayed for (in the USA, Australia and Canada) had nearly twice as high a pregnancy rate as those who had not been prayed for.

Lesniak described a study on a sample comprised of 22 bush babies with wounds resulting from chronic self-injurious behaviour. These animals were randomized into prayer and control groups that were similar at baseline. Prayer was conducted for 4 weeks. The prayer group animals had a greater reduction in wound size and a greater improvement in blood results than the control animals. This study is important because it was conducted in nonhumans. Hence the likelihood of a placebo effect was removed.

So, all I can say is a BIG THANK YOU!

This reminds me of the time when I was a medical student – I noticed that the stark difference between a psychiatry ward and other wards was the absence of ‘Get well soon’ cards! Sad but true, even today.

Day 365

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I often thought this thing would kill me.
Then I found that I survived one day and then a month and now, a year.
Life does go on. I don’t know how, but it does.
Even after everything seems to have come to a grinding halt, the sun rises the next day and the days pass. Then the seasons come and go, as if in a dream.

The anticipation of today had been causing me some angst over the past few weeks but today was a surprisingly pleasant day. At one point it did hit me hard but sitting with my eyes closed for a while took me through that torrent. The time spent with friends and family, far and near was a reminder of the fact that having known him closely, we had all been transformed. He is now an integral part of who we are. He is inseparably embedded in us. All of us have been touched by an angel. Thinking of him brought more smiles to faces than tears. That is who he is – someone who makes people happy. We were able to honour and celebrate that. We recounted some of his peculiar turns of phrase, funny mannerisms and quirks. We thought about how he would have tried to make his best friend burst into laughter when the traditional prayer ceremony was going on and how much he would have enjoyed the food.

He stood for fun, creativity and love.
His light shone through the darkness.
I feel blessed yet again to be his Mum.

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” – Rumi