Grief

Eight Dimensions of Wellness and Personal Medicine
Image credit: Extension Fond du Lac County
University of Wisconsin-Madison

SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) has identified the categories in the graphic above, as primary areas of wellness to support recovery from and help prevent substance abuse as well as support good mental health for everyone and help those experiencing mental health issues to heal and recover from crisis. To watch their video explaining this Wellness Initiative, click here.

The Eight Dimensions of Wellness are:

  • Intellectual
  • Emotional
  • Physical
  • Social
  • Occupational
  • Financial
  • Environmental
  • Spiritual

These are the parts of our lives and ourselves which build us up and can tear us down. These make up the safety net and structure that enables us to live our lives to fullest and in the healthiest ways so we can live meaningfully and act with purpose. Without the anchors of meaning and purpose we can become lost and struggle to care well about ourselves and others. Without having strong “whys” which provide meaning and purpose we can feel despondent and hopeless. Focusing on things in these areas, in a balanced and constructive way, enables us to be our best selves and strive to live healthy lives which enrich the lives of the people and the world around us.

As and Adult Mental Health Peer Wellness Specialist (PWS), I have lived experience where I have struggled (or continue to struggle) to integrate the ideas and implement the behaviors which build up these areas of my life. These are things I’m learning about and figuring out for myself and my own wellness journey. I have the privilege of turning my life’s manure into fertilizer in the lives of others as I share my experiences and acquired knowledge and understanding with others who struggle in ways I have done. Learning how to live well, or as well as possible, with physical, mental, and behavioral health challenges, including trauma, addiction, and illness (mental and/or physical) takes time and effort, especially if these aren’t things we learned while growing up.

One way I’m working on this is through Personal Medicine.

I’m not talking about medications, supplements, or herbal concoctions. I’m talking about the things we do in our lives which promote our wellbeing and help us manage and navigate the difficult and painful challenges we all face, whether we have a diagnosis or not. These are the things which provide purpose and meaning and remind us of who we are and what we’re capable of. They are things we do, not things we take. On a surface level it may seem like I’m talking about coping skills. However, they are deeper and more connected to our sense of self. Coping skills may need to be the starting point but drilling deeper into what is important and life-giving to ourselves is what the ongoing process is about. Personal Medicine is about creating an action plan to help us navigate challenges everyone faces. It empowers us to assert ourselves and advocate for our needs in times when we may feel not strong enough to fight those battles.

Pat Deegan developed the concept of Personal Medicine into a structured and constructive way for people to walk themselves through areas of struggle and challenge, such as:

AngerAnxious FeelingsConcentrationDistressing Voices
Effective CommunicationFeeling DepressedFood CravingsGrief
Harm ReductionNegative ThinkingOppressionSelf-Harm
SleepTraumaTroublesome BeliefsWorry

Each of these subject areas has a set of cards with ideas or prompts on how to manage them. All sets include a blank card for one to develop their own, unique, individualized action to address the issue being experienced. Any and all of these things can and do impact how we navigate the dimensions of wellness. In the beginning of this year, I went through certification training and I am now a Certified Personal Medicine Coach (CPMC).

In my role as a PWS at the organization I work for, I have the opportunity incorporate my skills and knowledge as a CPMC to support those who are working to become their healthiest and best selves in their recovery process, whatever that is and looks like for them. Next week, I’m starting a group: Personal Wellness and Life Management. I plan to use the Eight Dimensions of Wellness framework to present Personal Medicine as a way to address the obstacles and barriers we carry within ourselves which hinder our wellness.

Basically, I’m going to be building a loose curriculum around these concepts, incorporating these tools. Lord help me! I’ve never done anything like this before. Good vibes, prayers, and encouragement are requested and welcomed. I’ll keep you posted.

Mental Health Crisis? Call 988

On July 16th a national hotline went live for people who are experiencing or who knows someone experiencing a mental health crisis. 988 is the new way to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Check out the NPR article & interview explaining it here.

This is something that’s been needed for decades.

In 1981, when I was 12, my mother died by suicide. She was living with her mother at the time and I was in another state living with her brother. She had turned guardianship of me over to my uncle. There were a lot of reasons, but underlying them all was undiagnosed and untreated mental illness.

Then, after finding my mother’s body, my grandmother had nowhere to go. So, when my uncle arrived several days later because he had to drive from Oregon to Texas, it was discovered that my grandmother had continued staying in the apartment she had shared with my mom. The only thing that had been done was the body removed. No one came to support my grandmother, find her a safe place to stay, or even come in and help clean the space so she didn’t have to see evidence of my mother’s gruesome demise.

Decades later, I saw the police and coroner’s reports and it was evident that no one had thought beyond the stereotype of a hysterical woman who was depressed over a broken marriage and an estranged child. What no one realized or understood is that, in addition to those things, she likely had Bipolar 1 with auditory & visual hallucinations. Of course, my grandmother was from The South and from the Don’t Talk, Don’t Tell generation and no one talked to me about anything. So, maybe they knew something but just didn’t talk to me about it.

Which was really unfortunate. If I had realized the extent to my mother’s mental health issues, perhaps I would have been able to get my Bipolar 2 diagnosis before my life completely fell apart when I was 44 years old.

I could have used a service like 988, 30 years ago when I had my first brush with suicidal ideation. Instead, I reached out to my roommate from hell, who called her boyfriend, who called his best friend. They brought a fifth of tequila and I woke up the next morning in the bathtub, wrapped in a blanket, without clothing, and no memory of the night before. Perhaps it would have not only kept me from completing my suicide attempt, but also prevented me from waking up without a clue what I had experienced or done the previous night. Maybe I would have been able to connect with resources which would have enabled me to stay in school, or, at the very least, helped me to do more than barely exist inside the depression.

I can’t regret any of these things, because they are what has shaped me to be the person I am becoming and I’m liking who I am more and more. These things have formed the life I have, which, while challenging and difficult, is also full and fulfilling. I wouldn’t have the family I do or the relationships I do or be aware of the people who care about me and who I matter to.

However, I can hope and pray that this 988 service will positively impact the lives of others who are suffering in ways I did and worse, showing that people care and that life can be worth fighting for and living.

Conflicted: April 2021 NaPoWriMo Day five

Exhausted
Brain dead
Thinking and walking through molasses

Overwhelmed
Mixed emotions
Scattered thoughts, discombobulated

Anxious
Breaking down
So much to push through and fight

Fearful
Poor health
Self-care to care for others

Hopeful
Fingers crossed
Aspirations may soon be met

Loved
Generations together
Smiles and laughter ‘midst the angst

I decided not to use a prompt today. I just ended my work week after about two weeks off. Weekend graveyards is a tough schedule and I seldom get 3-4 hours of sleep between shifts. So, my brain couldn’t process the complexity of the prompt.

My laptop gave up the ghost and won’t turn on. So, my writing will now be done using the phone app. *sigh*

My posts will probably be shorter.

Renovating: April 2021 NaPoWriMo, Day four
Visit @SpaceLiminalBot on Twitter to see more liminal spaces.

Today’s prompt on NaPoWriMo.net was to choose a photo of a liminal space from @SpaceLiminalBot on Twitter and write about it.

Confession, I had no idea what liminal meant. When I looked it up I learned that it’s about the ambiguity of being in a transitional state. Neither here, nor there, but somehow occupying the borders of both spaces. Now that I know what it means, I can honestly say that it’s the story of my life.

From childhood forward
My mind active and yearning
Voracious, needy

Guidance lost too soon
Bottled grief. I was unmoored
‘Tween loss and anger

A runaway teen
Trauma and disappointment
New life comes forth

On the road again
No peace, no rest, nowhere home
Life saved from cruel death

Back where I started
Family ties bind and gag
Beginning again

In my element
Learning and aching to grow
Success! Feeling hope

Upward and onward
Fast forward to my limit
Falling and spinning

A life not taken
Ungrounded, always a risk
Begets a new life

I spent decades lost
Throwing away loved ones
Relationships burned

Scrabbling from the pit
Trapped in a cocoon of mind
My health overwhelmed

Hard recovery
Love’s faith in community
Investing in me

Beginning again
Not alone but supported
Still renovating

Rising from beneath: April 2021 NaPoWriMo, Day two

Today’s prompt is inspired by Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.” It’s based on our own personal journeys. What might our experiences be if we took a different path?

No matter how many times I wanted or tried to veer from the path I was on, I wasn’t able to. Having travelled this far, I realize I don’t want to have taken a route other than the one I’ve been on.

Why?

People. My children and my grandchildren might not exist. Or, if they did, they wouldn’t be who they are. I wouldn’t have or know the people in my life, not the way they are now.

My life has always been challenging and full of stress. It’s made who I am. There’s more work to be done. I like who I’m becoming.

Rising from Beneath

I was told I could be anything I wanted…
But I wasn’t taught how and
I never met anyone who was.

I was told that if I had knowledge I would have power.
Helplessness was all I knew…
despite my accumulated information

I was told, “Aim high! Shoot for the stars.”
From my depths my aim was as high as other’s low.
I shot just to see the stars.

Years of climbing, fighting, struggling
Always landing back in the hole
Anchored by the trauma of my past.

Cycles of poverty and neglect,
Generations repeating the past.
Lord, let me be the last.

Breaking through, crawling out
Eyes blinded by daylight
Skin scorched by the sun.

Someone (not Churchill) admonished one and all,
“if you’re going through hell, keep going. It’s no place to stop.”
no longer energized, yet, here I am…still going.

I think it’s a good fight. It’s been a hard one.
Redemption, restoration, rebuilding
Self and relationships once lost.

Constantly feeling weak and lost
Continually infused with life’s breath,
Molded by refining love.

But wait, there’s more…so much more
Five decades to grow up.
Here’s hoping for another 3-5.

New battles rise up,
New fears to face.
The war against self goes on.

More to see, more to be.
My future resides with me.
My path lives in me.

Functional Depression

We’ve had a winter snow and ice storm for the past few days. Not necessarily as severe as many other parts of our country and throughout the world…places where the residents ridicule and demean us for not being prepared and whining about a little bit of snow, which shut down our city, to the point where mass transit was cancelled and cab service was several hours late. Normally, this kind of thing would cause people to isolate and get cabin fever…but, pandemic. We were already there.

This also happened over Valentine’s Day weekend. Just another weekend for me. Except, as an essential worker in the mental health field, I still had to report for my graveyard shifts. Fortunately my supervisor has a 4WD SUV and transported me to and from for a couple of shifts. I went to work and fought against fatigue and sleepiness. I seldom sleep well during the days on my night shift weekends. I have an apartment full of people, including four littles six and under. Plus, insomnia. I’m usually awake within two to three hours after laying down.

I love my family, but, the relationship tensions of eight people, a dog, and a cat occupying a two bedroom, 1 bath apartment are inescapable. Between the pandemic and the exorbitant rise in housing costs, I have no idea when my adult daughter’s family of six will be able to get into their own space. It’s challenging to parent my 12 year old daughter with an autistic brain, in a small bedroom that we share, when she wants nothing to do with the nieces and nephew. Their sleep schedule is completely off center from ours. I can’t access the kitchen when I wake up early or get home from work because people are sleeping in the living room, right next to the kitchen. Additionally, my grandkids (and their parents, lol) are kind of like locusts. If they can see it, it’s fair game. So, it can be challenging keeping food for my youngest daughter and myself available when we need it.

So, I ordered a mini-fridge and microwave for my room. Basically I’m turning a small (miniscule) bedroom into a dorm room shared by me and my youngest. A couple of weeks ago, I spent 10-12 hours cleaning and organizing the room. Now, I need to do more in order to make room for the new appliances. I honestly don’t feel up to it, but, the appliances are supposed to be here in the next four or five days. Which means I don’t really have a choice.

Pandemic. Essential Worker. Underhoused. Family tension. Parenting struggles.

Even though I have the support of my faith community, I don’t feel connected to anyone particularly, though I know they would do whatever they could to help me out if I needed it.

I’m feeling isolated and alone in the midst of the chaos.

I’m battling my mental health issues. I’m struggling with physical health issues. My self-esteem is in the crapper…hating myself because of ingrained fatphobia.

Reading all the Valentine’s Day challenges – the love stories of the friends near and far on Facebook, is becoming more bitter than sweet.

My head feels like it’s going to explode. My chest is tight and it’s hard to breathe. My eyes won’t stop leaking and my sinuses are getting stuffed.

I don’t understand why I feel so isolated and unloveable. Listening to Justin Bieber croon how fucking lonely life is, just really resonates.

So, I’m in a pattern of self-sabotage with my health, which feeds into the self-esteem issues. I feel hopeless about making the changes I need to in my current circumstances…and I’ve basically given up trying. I shower and dress when I need to go to work. I eat bags of chips and drink soda for breakfast some days. Despite the type two diabetes, I can’t stop with the soda and carbs. I see the 150 extra lbs I’m carrying on my body and feel self-disgust and think, “of course no one is going to love you like this.” I want to hide and not be seen by people.

But, I still go to work. Sometimes I go to the grocery store. But, that’s all. That’s really where most people are at during the pandemic. The thing is, that was my life pre-pandemic, except for weekly excursions to church. The loneliness and isolation are exhausting. I have no energy left to love and care for myself.

I really need to get and stay on-track with my meds.

De’ja’ vu all over again: Recreating the past
Photo by RF._.studio on Pexels.com

Parenting is hard. Parenting a child with special needs is hard. Parenting a girl in active adolescence is hard. Parenting from a place of trauma is hard. Parenting an adolescent girl with special needs when all aspects are points of trauma in your history, is beyond hard.

I feel like I’m constantly falling down, constantly lacking, and constantly failing . . . even though I know I’m doing my best. I know I’m a better parent now than I was seven years ago. I’m a better parent now than when my oldest daughter was the age my youngest daughter is now, 12. I’m a better parent than my mother was able to be when I was 12. But, I still don’t feel like I’m a good parent or the parent my child needs and deserves.

The reality is that I am really struggling. I love my child but I don’t like her. I love her so much and want so much good for her, but I find myself resenting her for things she has no control over. I’m so proud of her and amazed by the things she does and how strong and determined to be herself she is. At the same time, I am so incredibly ANGRY at how her strength and determination flatten and steamroll the people around her . . . like me and her nieces and nephew. I love her but I hate being her mother.

That’s awful. I know it is. But, it’s also my truth. It’s a convoluted truth rooted in the trauma, rejection, and abandonment issues between my mother and myself when I was 12 years old. Issues that I will never be able to work with her on because she died . . . committed suicide . . . when I was 12.

My little girl isn’t so little anymore. She turned 12 at the beginning of December. She’s taller than me . . . mostly because, like many children on the Autism Spectrum, she’s a “toe walker.” She travels on her tiptoes. Walking with her feet flat from heel to toe is like an impossibility for her. There was no physical reason for it and we put her through physical and occupational therapy to try to prevent any negative effects from the toe walking. To no avail. Now it’s reaching the point of discomfort and pain for her to not walk on her toes.

I wish I could let her be herself, with her idiosyncracies and quirks, without feeling so beyond frustrated and annoyed. She absolutely refuses to do anything or engage with anyone other than her preferred activities and people who she wants to be around. I feel powerless, especially in light of the societal expectations, rules, and norms regarding parenting and education, especially with children who have special needs. The thing is she doesn’t appear or seem to be autistic to most people. Even her medical evaluation team had difficulty coming to agreement regarding her autism. She’s lived in emotionally traumatic circumstances since conception. So, there are behaviors and reactions that stem from the autism and there are behaviors and reactions that are rooted in her trauma exposure history. Stir in pubescent hormones, in the middle of a pandemic that has everyone acting off and dealing with various types and degrees of trauma, and I have my very own Katie Kaboom.

If the truth be told, I’m probably as much of a Katie Kaboom as my daughter is . . . or at least I feel like I’m on the verge of exploding with her a lot of the time. There’s this surreal sense of loss of control and imminent danger creating a sense of fear of myself and what I’m capable of.

The last memory I have of an interaction between me and my mother lingers on the edges of my consiousness most of thetime when I’m around her.

I had recently turned 12. It was late June or early July, I think. We were living in an old adobe group of single story apartment buildings that had been built to use as military barracks in the 1940’s. Adobe buildings surrounded by asphalt. No trees. No grass. No shade. It was unrelenteningly sunny. The air was still and stuffy. My mom was working as a night janitor with her brother and his wife, who lived in the building catty-corner from ours. While cleaning may have been her job, it wasn’t something that was a priority in our apartment. We were a couple of clutterbugs. So my mom was embarrased for people to see the condition of our apartment. All the doors were shut tight and windows shuttered and covered so no one could see in.

I was hot. The heat was draining and I had no energy to do anything. I just wanted to breathe and I felt like I was suffocating in the stuffy heat of the closed apartment. I didn’t want to go out in the shadeless parking lot/driveway that surrounded the apartments. We had only lived here for three or four, maybe five months. I didn’t have any friends and didn’t have anywhere I could go. I was restless and listless at the same time. I decided to stand in the doorway, with my face pressed against the doorframe on the right, the door pressed against my left cheek, my stocky body filling the area between the door and it’s frame. Nothing visible from the outside.

She was embarrased, exhausted, and overwhelmed . . . I know and recognize this now, but at that time I only thought she was being controlling and unreasonable. It felt like what I needed and wanted didn’t matter to her, even a little bit. She was yelling at me, trying to get me to close the door. I was yelling back, telling her how no one could see inside. I don’t know how long it went on. Not long, I’m sure, but, it felt like it stretched on for a long time, each of us getting angrier and louder. I can’t remember specific words. But, it wouldn’t surprise me if I had called her names or cussed at her.

Suddenly my head was jerked back by my hair and the next thing I remember is that I’m laid out across the sofa and she was sitting on my legs, preventing me from moving. I was yelling at her and trying to kick her off of my legs. Finally, I was able to sit up, bend forward, and I bit her on her thigh as hard as I could until she got up.

I don’t really know what happened after she got up. I know my uncle burst through the door a short while later to check on me. He had seen me standing at the door, then disappear suddenly before the door closed. He was condemning and critical of her. She was crying. Sometime after that, she signed guardianship of me over to him and moved back down to Texas. A few weeks later we got the news that she had committed suicide.

When I’m dealing with my daughter and she’s refusing to do things like, take a shower, let me brush her hair, login to classes, do homework, or anything that isn’t playing Minecraft or drawing on her iPad I feel a rush of overwhelming feelings swirling around: anger, resentment, frustration, shame, sadness, hopelessness, helplessness. Then she starts laying on the insults and declarations of how horrible of a parent I am and how she loves her dad more than he loves me. If I attempt to remove her iPad, she lashes out at me physically – hitting, kicking, scratching, biting.

The roles appear to be switched with me as the mother. But, on a visceral level I don’t feel any more in control or that I matter than I did as a kid going through what I went through with my mom.

Maybe there’s a clue in that. Maybe it’s a hint that she wasn’t feeling in control or that she mattered. We don’t feel in control or that we matter so we do things that are about taking control and power from someone else, not because we want to feel powerful, but because we want to matter and if we don’t feel like we matter, we don’t feel safe. If I don’t matter to those who matter to me, then I don’t feel that my needs can get met. I’m supposed to meet her needs. It’s not her job to meet my needs. It’s not right or fair of me to resent her for this.

Is the resentment about her or is it about resenting that the person whose job it was to meed my needs and who I was supposed to matter too, oppressed and suppressed me instead of take care of me?

I know now that my mother experienced undiagnosed and untreated mental illness – likely Bipolar I with schizopherenic tendencies. She couldn’t help it and it wasn’t her fault. This knowledge and understanding gives framework and context, but, it doesn’t change the feelings and the child who needed protection and nurture still didn’t get protection and nurture. I struggle to protect and nurture myself and I struggle to provide that for my child.

What does it really mean to be emotionally healthy?
Photo by Engin Akyurt on Pexels.com

I’ve been in and out of various forms of therapy since pre-adolescence. I’ve been doing it pretty consistently for the past seven years. Sometimes I wonder if I’m ever going to reach a point of being emotionally healthy.

The PTSD has had deep and lasting impacts on both my brain structure and neurochemistry. Bipolar II Disorder means that my brain structure and neurochemistry were already atypical. Both impact emotional health and affect my capacity for instinctively choosing emotionally healthy behavior.

Ten months ago my faith community stood beside me and supported me in my mental health recovery journey. They chose to pay for me to go through trauma recovery therapy, so I could better deal with the myriad of intense psychological and emotional stressors in my life. Past trauma is something I’ve been minimizing, avoiding, and denying most of my life. Dusting it off, picking it up, looking it in the eye, and examining it is not even close to easy. What is easy is distancing and distracting myself, even as I try to face it.

Last week I had a Telehealth appointment, which turned into an audio only appointment because of my dying phone. Since there’s no unoccupied space in my apartment and the sanctuary of a vehicle no longer exists, I walked to a coffee shop that has a large, covered, outdoor seating area. It also happens to be the socially distanced gathering place for the neighborhood dog owners and their dogs to hang out. I sat as far away as I could so as to be heard by my therapist and not heard by the community of strangers. Fun times.

I was telling her what happened the night I dropped my phone. I had gone over to my friends’ house, where I had been living from March – November, to pick up Christmas gifts for my grandkids. While I was there, the woman who had been my first friend from a DBT group I had been part of in 2018/2019, absented herself and had no interaction with me. Her wife indicated that I could try to communicate with her, but I would probably be unsuccessful. The wife is now my primary friend.

I have a lot of sad and mad feelings about this relationship break. However, when I was discussing what happened that night with my therapist, my brain fixated on the broken phone, as if that was the source of my difficult emotions. I was completely aware that’s what I was doing, but couldn’t seem to stop it. So, I said out loud that my brain was wanting to focus more on the phone than the lost friendship.

We discussed that for a bit. We drilled down some and identified some roots in prior relationships with important women in my life, starting with my mother, that ended in rejection and abandonment. Still a lot to unpack there, but both my therapist and I recognize that I’m stretched to capacity to address more trauma at this point. With that agreement in place, the question becomes, “what direction do we go and what do we work on?”

Since I’ve made some significantly bad decisions in the past several months which were decidedly co-dependent, avoidant, and risky and the outcomes of these decisions have increased the emotional, physical, and financial stress on me, thus maxing out my capacity for doing the more in depth trauma work, I figure I need to work on making emotionally healthy choices when faced with situations where my trauma responses have been triggered. I think that’s the only way to clear the path for me to do the deeper work.

My therapist suggested that my lack of emotionally healthy response is more likely rooted in the fact that I’ve never been around emotionally healthy people making emotionally healthy choices and that, while it may be possible for me to come to an understanding of what it means to be emotionally healthy, I may continually deal with an inability to operate with that same understanding. To which I responded that is why I said learning the behavior that comes from being emotionally healthy can be learned, even when the emotions aren’t healthy.

I think of it like reverse engineering good emotional health. Learning to act “as if” I am an emotionally healthy person, might enable me to become an emotionally healthy person.

I think I just found my focus for this year.

2021, the year I become an emotionally healthy responder.

From Darkness to Light

‘Therefore, my dear brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the Lord’s work, knowing that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.’ 1 Corinthians 15:58

I don’t know about you, but, I suspect that, like me and many others I know, you might be tired. I mean mentally, emotionally, and physically fatigued. With everything going on in the world around us, that alone is enough to bring on the fatigue.

Just when things were on the verge of or starting to open up from the restrictions of the pandemic, there’s a spike cases and hospitalizations. Now things are tightening down again, as Oregon enters it’s 14th week of sheltering in and wearing masks. As a result of these pandemic related things, the national and local economies have been increasingly depressed with businesses closing (small business the most) and people losing their jobs, and the national unemployment at the highest it’s been since 1940. The protests for Black Lives Matter are entering their fourth week, having just passed Juneteenth, the celebration of the Emancipation of the slaves. Not to mention the victories and losses for our LGBTQ friends, family, and neighbors. Plus, the Presidential election cycle and the polarized politicization of both the pandemic and the BLM movement.

It’s overwhelming and absolutely exhausting. Then you add in whatever is happening for you and your loved ones, as well as how these national events are affecting you on an individual level.

So, there’s a lot of confusion. There’s a ton of conflicting information and even more conflicting opinions. The focus of the news and the media is sensationalized and focused on the painful and negative. There’s very little constructive dialogue and there seems to be a constant, false dichotomy of “us vs. them” everywhere you turn.What do we do with all of this? How do we get some relief, some clarity? How do we get some rest, other than avoiding the media and becoming turtles withdrawing into our shells? How do we decide where to place our focus?

The passage that the verse above comes from is Paul speaking about Jesus and all that he did for us to have life and to look forward to. He’s offering us a foundational reason to keep moving forward and to keep doing good in this world, even when what is good seems to have gone on vacation. Even though the issues and things around us may seem too big and too much for each of us as individuals to make a difference in, anything we do to bring the light of Jesus and God’s love into the lives of the people around us is not in vain.

‘Therefore, as we have opportunity, we must work for the good of all, especially for those who belong to the household of faith. ‘ Galatians 6:10

But, before we can do any of that, before we have anything to give, we have to allow ourselves a chance to rest, recharge, and fill up on that light and love ourselves.

‘“Come to Me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. All of you, take up My yoke and learn from Me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for yourselves. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”’ Matthew 11:28-30

Now is the time for rest, recharge, and renewal, so that we can reenter the world’s arena and face the things around us with hope and love to share.

‘Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable — if there is any moral excellence and if there is any praise — dwell on these things. Do what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.’ Philippians 4:8-9

It is imperative that we look for the good in the midst of the bad. It’s there. Look for the stories of those who are giving of themselves, the stories of the peacemakers, the stories of those who are offering comfort, and even those who are offering happy and joyful things in the midst of the sorrow and the tragedy. Many may argue that now is not the time for levity and laughter. I would argue that now, more than ever, is the time for us to take a break and seek these things out.

‘A joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones. ‘ Proverbs 17:22

If we don’t take a break from the darkness around us and seek the light, our soul dies bit by bit and our spirits become broken. That’s no way for anyone to live. That’s not the legacy that Jesus left us. He left us God’s Spirit to live in us, so that our spirits can live and thrive, and that so we can share that life with those around us.Take a break. Get some rest. Find a reason to smile and laugh. Then, take that out with you and reenter the fray so you can help others to have a break, take a rest, and have cause to laugh and smile.

What to do with the grief of others

Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep. ~ Romans 12:15 HCSB

How can we show up in the midst of pain and grief for our marginalized siblings in the world around us, when we have no idea what to do or say to them and what we CAN do feels futile in the face of the vitriol and intentional ignorance? How do we not wind up making our sense of ineffectiveness and futility more important than their experiences of violence and suffering?

The answer is to BE with them in their grief. Acknowledge and validate their anger. Learn why they fear the things we don’t. Share and celebrate the things and people they celebrate. Be willing to set aside your “stuff” to show them they and their “stuff” matters. In other words, treat them the way you want to be treated.

It may be challenging to look away from our own issues, circumstances, and experiences in order to look and see those of others, much less step into their world and be with them. But, it’s very much worth the effort to do so. We also have guidance on how to do this.

‘He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God. Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. ‘ 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 HCSB

How do we receive comfort from God? Sometimes it’s an internal sense of peace or a lifting of the spirit, maybe a lessening of the pressure on our chest or the lessening of the restriction of our throat. Maybe it’s through a song, a poem, a meaningful writing, or piece of scripture. Perhaps a video or show. However, there are times when it is another person and their words, actions, or just them being present with us which contributes to the feeling of being comforted. Those are the things we can do and share, if they are something the person grieving is in a place to receive.

‘The Spirit of the Lord God is on Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord ’s favor, and the day of our God’s vengeance; to comfort all who mourn, to provide for those who mourn in Zion; to give them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, festive oil instead of mourning, and splendid clothes instead of despair. And they will be called righteous trees, planted by the Lord to glorify Him. ‘ Isaiah 61:1-3 HCSB

Jesus came to do these things, show us how to do these things, and teach us to do these things so we can share and demonstrate the love he shared and demonstrated to us. This is how we can learn and know how to show up in the midst of the pain and grief, anger and fear, our marginalized and brutalized brothers and sisters experience.