Resurfacing After Drowning
My Father-in-Law passed over to the other side. My husband and I had only been married 5 months. This put a screeching halt on the “honeymoon” phase we’d been in and catapulted us into a sea of grief. The pain and sorrow was so deep that we shamelessly and eagerly reached for our addictions of choice.
Mine is sugar. At first I tried to keep my head above water, asking for (and receiving) support, still exercising, working on my business, and being completely conscious that I hadn’t really cried to release. I was also conscious, because it is what I do best, that I had taken on my husband’s grief and pain. You see, I am a sponge. Somewhere in my belief system lies that I can heal people by sucking in their pain, trying to purify it, and spitting it back out slowly. The idea is my loved ones can deal with their pain little by little. Only, this is a detriment to myself and my emotional state, and leads me into being exactly the person I don’t want to be! This, holding onto another’s pain, is not my natural state. It’s no one’s natural state.
Trying to hold onto his pain and mine lead me deeply into disconnection. I disconnected from myself, from God, from nature, from my values, from the magic of Life. In order to stay as disconnected as possible I used sugar as the main offender, but other accomplices were drinking alcohol, watching TV, socializing, fighting, sleeping, keeping my schedule busy with work projects, stopping my morning self-care routine, and plunging myself into all of the holiday festivities. I let myself go into a sea of despair.
It wasn’t until the holidays were over, I’d started my sugar detox, and I went to the grocery to stock up on fruits and veggies that I saw how bad it was. At the store I found myself so defensive, I was ready to fight the invisible fight with anyone who would attempt to get in my way. I said, “Excuse me.” to a woman attempting to get eggs after I’d waited a whole 2 minutes for a worker to finish emptying his cart and she said, “Excuse Me!” back. I was so annoyed that she wouldn’t move out of MY way after I’d waited and she hadn’t, I KNEW right then something needed to change. You see, I often use strangers and how they act towards me, and more importantly, how I react to them as a litmus test for life. I’ve gone to the store feeling completely connected and had fun, loving, even miraculous experiences at the grocery as well as having very similar things happen as they did that day and completely laughing it off or letting it roll off my back. Today, my reaction even surprised me! I responded with a loudly mumbled, “What the f*ck!” as I walked away. It was in this moment that I realized- this is NOT me! It was in this moment I knew just how disconnected I was. It was in this moment that I reminded myself that I am a person who believes in magic and in the good that comes from the Universe in every situation. It was in this moment that I made a choice to connect back with myself and my core value that the Divine is bringing every good thing into my life. The very next thing I did was acknowledge the cashier. I asked her how her day was and told her how beautiful she looked that day.
My head was was above water, and I began swimming to shore.