Do you remember the holiday season when you were little?
Those warm and cozy times with home atmosphere filled with chatting of the people, family members and neighbors coming together? It was a time of excitement and preparation that went on for the whole month of December.
At that time, in former Yugoslavia, my family used to take me to the New Year's fair where people had booths with different kind of clothing, toys and other fun stuff. And of course there was the last hall with all these fascinating gizmos, marry go round, the most famous known as Ballerina. There was a lot of noise, but lots of fun too. We used to eat sugar cottons and glazed apple candy, candid walnuts and bubble gums that would “explode" in your mouth, leaving your tongue green and red.
We were photographed with with Santa Claus that had beard made of regular cotton you buy in pharmacy ( as you can see from the photo:).
And those days, we used to write New Year cards (no Christmas back then:). My grandaunt saved them all. From my first New Year, when I was born and my mom sent it on my behalf, all until I was well in my thirties. I look at them now and tears fill my eyes.
Obviously, what make holidays most holidays are the people we are with. All those memories are interwoven by the warm presence of another one, big hand holding my little one, or a big figure in front of me pulling my slides; and my tall granpa that was putting the ornament on the top of the tree because I was too short to reach it.
What is so different today?
What is different for me is that most of the people who were part of my life are not here anymore. That leaves me with bitter sweet kind of a feeling. At the same time I feel the joy my memories bring to me, and I feel the sadness since those moments are now just that...a memory.
Deeper I go into this feeling, more tears come to my eyes. The house where I grow up doesn't exist anymore; the grandparents are gone as well, and many other family members. Even the country of Yugoslavia does not exist anymore. It all feels like a vanishing dream, that on the moments I wonder if all of it ever existed.
***
There are many types of losses we encounter during our lifetime. We lose the loved one, we lose the property, an object with emotional value, and some of us even lost the country we were born in. We run the risk of losing everything we once called “ my”. That is inevitable nature of the life in this world. Nothing is permanent. It is a reality I find very difficult to accept.
Now, loss has always happened. It is maybe happening for some of us right now and for sure it is not going anywhere in the future. It is one of those things that are sure as death.
So since the impermanence is the one of the rare permanent things in this world, naturally the question arises: how do I live with it?
When loss happens, it is important to give ourselves time to grieve the loss of the other.
Grieving is not a process that has exact beginning and end. It is something that comes and goes, in different shapes, times and circumstances. Just when we might think that we are over the loss, the new piece might surface. And it might not even be so obvious and not so clearly related to the loss itself.
When we are related to somebody, when we are in a relationship, there is a specific part of us that gets activated. It can be playful I, it can be one that is loved and accepted, one that is sensual, or it can be dark part of ourselves that is understood and received to the light. All those parts create the inner family (inner child, rejected one, creative one, etc.).
It is a great mystery of life that some people can activate those deep inner parts of us, first by their presence, than by their actions. Parts so unknown even to ourselves. Those persons awake capacity in ourselves that we did not even dream of having: capacity to love and to be loved, capacity to accepted and to accept, etc.
This is the biggest gift of a relationship.
So what happens to the part of ourselves that is activated in a relationship, after the person who was related to us move on, be it due to death or due to the life circumstances? Do we lose that part of ourselves as well? Are we supposed to keep it alive? But again, we do not feel like that with anyone else who is available (so this optio seems impossible). Do we experience soul loss and that part of us dies with the other person? Do we mourn that internal aspect of loss as much as we mourn the loss of the loved one?
The answer is yes. Yes...we hurt, yes we lose part of ourselves, and yes, we want it alive again. And yes, we get confused; we enter the hopelessness, the darkness and death inside of us. Some of us enter so called “dark night of the soul” when nothing makes sense anymore and where there is no light at the end of the tunnel…even if there was, we would not know what to do with it. So what do we do with ourselves than?
We wait.
***
We humans have tendency to gravitate towards the pleasure and away from pain. In order to live fully, one must live the pain too. After pain, comes something else. If the pain stays, we save it and kind of preserve it, and that way pain stays inside of us forever. It will, sooner or later, be brought to the surface and we will have to face it. General tendency in modern society is to move on, as fast as possible and not have to deal with inconvenient feelings.
And so the losses in life keep piling, the grief keeps mounting and our hearts keep collapsing underneath it all.
We continue to lose hope, reason to live, or capacity to feel any pleasure. The purpose of life seems nonexistent.
It is important not to push in order to "get over it" (I think getting over doesn't really exist, but we do like to believe in it), to deny it or totally merge with those feelings of loss. Most probably we will go through all of it to some degree, and through confusion of loss for quite some time. It is good to have somebody in those times to relate to, somebody who can be with us and hold our light when we are not able. Process is something that takes time.
Grieving lost parts of ourselves.
We have tendency to focus on the other when encountering loss. And that is natural; relationship is about something larger than I. But then we need to visit the part of us that feels like it lost its life, identity, its name. To grieve the part that got “deactivated".
Will that part live again? If it hurts, it means it is alive. And it rightfully wants to live and love more. It hurts because that type of energy and “food supply” it was thriving on, has been apparently cut. This causes the shock to the psyche and kind of contracting movement in the soul. From being open we close down, not believing we can survive the loss, less so that we will feel loved and accepted ever again in our lives.
There will be a moment when it will turn from lost and empty to the full and light. We will live with those we lost in the sweet memories that bring familiar sounds and smells of warm home, accepting touch, joy of being together. The sense of safety....and all those things we cherished so dearly that are now giving us strength to create the same for the inner part of ourselves, for our lives and for the others. This is the legacy of love passed on to generations. It is the responsibility to our own life to keep those parts alive. The other ignited that spark and it is on us now to grow up a little bit more and keep the flame going.
So this year, when you gather with your loved ones, simply be with them, hear them, and touch them. Make those moments everlasting; let them engrave in the heart memory where they will live forever.
Always,
Katarina
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