Be a Yes!
“Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing we’ll ever do” (Brown, 2010).
Early in my grief and loss journey, I chose to be a yes to vulnerability.
Dr. Brene’ Brown quotes that, “wholehearted living is about engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness. It means cultivating the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning and think, no matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough. It’s going to bed at night thinking, yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn’t change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging.”
When the pain of heartbreak is saturating, it can be unbelievably challenging to fix your eyes on what is unseen because what is seen feels gigantic. The human vantage point is only capable of seeing so much. The depth of field is limited, and when the pain and suffering are encompassing, it is challenging to see past it. The healing journey will take you places, and because human nature desires to fix what is broken, it will seek until it is found. Human nature settles in, and it will manifest itself differently for each person. Yearning for connection, belonging, identity, purpose, meaning, forgiveness, and acceptance.
“The healing process will call for your vulnerability and will keep knocking at your door, waiting to be let in” (Soper, 2021).
Today, with salty tears of gratitude, I am thrilled to say that the fire burning in my soul believes that I can have joy in this life again. I have and continue to ebb and flow my way through the gritty-grief lens of life, and as the healing has taken shape, the lens I peeked through shifted. At times, the lens would zoom closely in on my life, and I would sit still at the moment, calling for my attention to the detail. As the healing transformed, the lens of life would zoom out, just far enough for me to see the whole picture. And, I am grateful. I am smiling because today, I could not imagine looking at life through another lens.
Instead of asking the question, "why did this happen," I now have the perspective to say, "I am completely blessed that my Creator believed in very ordinary me to experience love in this life here.”
Because, I know that if you love big in this life here, you will hurt big in this life here.
After all, it is what love does.
And, yes, life has plans of its own and will most definitely break your heart. I believe that it takes guts to grieve—and the process called of me to lean into vulnerability. And, I was scared to lean. As my lens shifted, I became braver, and slowly I was able to embrace the very act of permitting myself to loosen my grip on my past. My goodness, I held onto dear life to my past. In all of my flesh and bones, I tried to "fix" my "broken." With time, I recognized that fear was at the root of all of my brokenness. It was fear standing in my way of developing the peace in my heart. Fear of loss. Fear of abandonment. Fear of heartbreak. Fear of doing this big life adventure on my own.
My heart was thirsty, and I needed to quench its thirst. I was like a baby birdie who had its flying lesson. And as I continued my healing journey, a vulnerability called of me to step off the branch where I sat perched for quite some time. I practiced flapping my wings, and as I leaned forward into the vulnerability, sweet surrender took shape, and before I knew it, I was beginning to fly. It is messy. It is raw. "It," that is, love is the most honorable thing a heart can feel in this life here.
