Writer Anne Lamott likened grief to a lazy susan; the sadness comes and goes, around and around, fluctuating between deep pain and the conviction that the sun will never rise again, and moments of forgetting, and moments of being ok, and then back again.
I think life is like this.
Because—it simply isn’t sustainable to live in a peak blissful state. That would make us oblivious to the pain of the world. We grieve to the extent that we love. We regret to the extent that we care. We are disappointed to the extent that we desire. This is all part of being human.
And as we spin around on our own personal lazy susan, it would serve us to remember that this moment will change. That this moment is our teacher. That this moment wants to speak. What does it have to say?
When we engage with all parts of ourselves, we soften. We give ourselves a break from trying to be so perfect and happy all the time. We open up to our high selves, our deepest intuition. That still small voice that speaks the truth.
And this takes practice. Like, we have to practice this throughout the day, every day. Because the energies of the world can overwhelm. And this is when we need our own personal toolbox of self-care and self-remembering. Whether it is a hot bath or reading a sacred text or being in nature, or my favorite—reading poetry, we need to map out a way back to our hearts and find a way to hold all that we are experiencing.
Tara Zafft, Ph.D. 