As I’ve been in my own process of grief this week, there are two words that have come up in my awareness again + again:
Radical Permission.
They’ve helped me remember that I’m free to be in this experience + work with this energy + move through this process however I want.
There’s no one right way.
It’s okay for the process to surprise me or contradict itself or take more (or less) than I think it should.
It’s okay to find support in the traditions + customs + rituals that have guided folks through grief for generations -- just as it’s okay to set any of that aside to seek support + care for ourselves in other ways.
So I’ve been giving myself radical permission this week.
To share + connect *and* withdraw + be alone.
To create + move *and* rest + do nothing.
To journey into the raw emotions, feeling it all *and* distract myself + numb out.
To step up + find the right words + hold the space for myself + others *and* be a chaotic whirlwind of emotion + bundle of raw nerve endings.
To feel + appreciate the sacredness of grief (+ all the ways it pulls me into a deeper + truer experience of life) *and* push against it because it feels too hard.
Giving myself radical permission + space + freedom through this process has helped immensely.
Because grief is hard enough without pushing, constricting, or shaming ourselves through it.
And why not make this hard thing an opportunity to love myself even more?
To refuse to make myself wrong?
To have my own back when it all feels like too much?
And to remember that I can trust myself (we all can) to feel + know + take the one right next step toward whatever's most needed now?