The Cycles of Grief, Gratitude and Closure
Originally Posted Sept 29, 2016
As we enter the beginning phase of the Metal Element I’m stuck with how different it is from years past. There’s a lightness to it and this well of creative energy welling up to support me which is in complete contrast to every other time that I would enter this space.
A lot happens in metal. It holds the space for us to grieve and let go of things. To let things die, its here in the metal element that we contemplate our mortality and what’s most important to us. And doing this kind of work is often heavy, most of the time we don’t want to be here and so we try to move through it as fast as possible usually by skimming the surface so that we don’t find ourselves caught in some type of deep depression.
And the people in our lives are just as confused and uncomfortable when they witness you in this space so they urge you to find the silver lining, the lesson, the “it happened, let it go, it’s time to move on.” Our culture is not different, when you’re experiencing loss or creating space to grieve a part of themselves or someone that they love, your met with a barrage of affirmations and meme’s that a better attitude and a smile will take care of it all. “Just turn it over to the universe”
Except when your in this place of grief and letting go, its all bullshit and doesn't help you at all.
Every, action or emotional process exists within a cycle. Where something goes full circle through elements before it transforms into the next part of the process.
Grief has it’s own cycle,
Same goes for Gratitude, and finally Closure.
When you’re deep in the throws of grief, there is no place for affirmations and looking for the silver lining. Sure most of the time it’s waiting for us to see it, but we can’t cut our grieving out of the equation.
It has to happen.
We have to feel it.
The saying, "You need to feel it to heal it". It’s true, we have to have opportunity to be sad, and cry a million tears, and then get angry and experience all of the other stages grief. They’re important.
And it takes as long as it has to take. Some events take a matter of hours for you to cycle thru and then start looking for the shiny light at the end of the tunnel that helps you course correct, let it go and move on.
And some things take years. It’s taken me 3 years to grieve the loss of who I was before E arrived, everything that happened to me during the time that I was lost and feeling broken in that first year of his life. Letting go of the dream of having 2 children. Crying until all of the blood vessels around my eyes broke, feeling frustrated with myself and why I couldn’t get momentum to change my situation.I needed time, and when I stopped trying to skip over it, I began to heal, the cycle of alchemy began to mend as the other elements rose up to hold me.
And now I reenter metal having gratitude, I can see all of the beautiful things that have happened as a result of my experience. Of course I wish I didn’t have to go through it, but I did and I can’t change that. But now the resentment is gone, and my heart feels safe enough to bring this part of my story to a close.
To move on and allow it to be my past, not forgotten, but not running the show with my emotions anymore. I’m safe to move on to the next story. That came from this place of letting myself experience depths of my soul to reveal its rebirth.
The other side of the Metal Element has come forward with this creativity and renewal that now gets to experience it’s own cycle alchemy and whatever is meant to come my way because of it.
No matter where you find yourself in this current cycle of alchemy, be there.
Grieve if you need grieve. Hold true to the purity of your emotions, they’ll shift when they’re ready to shift.
You don’t need to force the gratitude, these will reveal themselves to you when it’s time.
And when that happens you will feel the nudge of bring whatever it is that is coming to completion to full closure.
XO Ashley