Throwing Bowling Balls

When you are drowning and you cry out for help, the last thing you need is a group of people standing at the water's edge throwing bowling balls at you.

But, this is exactly what happens when we must go through a dramatic change in our lives.

Initially, when a person encounters a health crisis, family and friends may be very understanding and helpful. But, there is an expectation behind the comforting.

Have you ever heard of the phrase "Get Well Soon"?

 Of course you have.

Why do people say that?

Most people are well meaning. They are offering you their hopes that the suffering will be short lived; that your life will return to normal quickly.

But, some people unknowingly have a different intent with "Get Well Soon". They want you to heal... NOW! Right away because your challenge has also become their challenge. They are telling you to be your old self immediately because the changes you are going through are forcing them to change along with you.

Most people know the proper rituals for a period of illness. People will visit you, loved ones shuffle their schedules and pick up the extra work while you recuperate. Meals are dropped off at your home, people provide child care, the closest friends circle around your immediate family and protect all from extraneous stress.

Those are the rituals of a family crisis that has an end in sight. Eventually everyone returns to life as normal.

But, very few people know what to do about a chronic disabling life altering illness. The sense of ritual is lost. Very few of our family and friends are equipped with the experience, knowledge, and stamina required to cope with walking the journey with us.

People will start avoiding you. Some people will abandon you. They do not know how to cope with your challenges and they can not handle their inability to cope. Some people are unwilling to make the effort to learn more and try to understand. Some people were only a part of your life because you filled a need in theirs. Once you no longer fill that need, they wander away.

Those who stay with you encounter a profound loss.

You are grieving the loss of your life as you have known it...
 and those living with you are grieving too.

Without a ritual to designate this experience as a time of mourning and restructuring...
the bowling ball tossing begins.

Think about the Kubler-Ross Five Stages of Grief and Loss:

Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance

You are in all kinds of pain and fatigue, both physically and emotionally. You have depleted any reserves you have had within you. You need help in ways you have never needed it before. You feel you are trying the best you can. For some of us that may include Herculean efforts...

which often go unnoticed.

Why?

Because those who are living with you are grieving too. They are in shock. They are dragging themselves through each day just trying to survive. They are in denial. They think to themselves, "This can not be happening, this isn't real, things are going to go back to the way they used to be." They are angry. You may become the target of their anger.

So, you ask for help and you get smacked in the head with a bowling ball! You don't even see it coming and the pain cuts deep.

You may hear accusatory explanations for your health challenges:

"It's all those medications you are taking."
"You sleep too much."
"You are lazy."
"You're just using this as an excuse to get out of doing things."
"You're just trying to draw attention to yourself."
"You're a hypochondriac."
"Do it yourself."

Or the bowling ball is a passive-aggressive hit of "Okay, I'll get to that," but, the help never happens.

You feel like you are drowning.

And those living with you are probably feeling the same thing.

The bowling balls are "Don't Change" messages. These are messages of fear. These are messages of rejection, and painfully, threats of abandonment.

Like no other time in your life you will be driven down to your knees. You will be forced to surrender. Maybe this is the reason that some religions use kneeling as the posture for prayer.

Prayer is the ultimate spiritual surrender. Prayer is a surrender without defeat.

Surrender your ideas of who you are supposed to be. Surrender your ideas of how everyone else is supposed to be. Surrender yourself to sacred silence. Surrender yourself to prayer and in this surrender you will learn discernment.  Empty yourself in order to be filled with all that is Holy.  Empty yourself in order to be filled with the knowledge and power to move forward.

You must surrender to a holy power greater then yourself  in order to get to where you need to be.

Where do you need to be?

In a place in which you are living in peace.

FINDING HELP:

Never surrender to bowling balls flying at you. Abuse in any form physical, mental, and/or verbal is never acceptable. You deserve to be treated with love and respect. And remember, it is never good to suffer in isolation and silence. There is help available for you.

Locate a Licensed Therapist

Hotline Phone Numbers & Links

Bloom Where You Are Planted Online Support at Facebook



REFERENCES:

New Testament, Luke: 11: 1-15

Claudia Black

Kubler-Ross Model

Prayer of Quiet - Catholic Encyclopedia

Walking Through Grief

There once was a woman who lived in a village surrounded by a huge forest of trees. She did not have much joy in her life, but she had her only child. This child was her joy. 


One day the child became very ill and died. The woman could not believe that her child had died, so she carried the child in her arms asking people in the village if they had some medicine to give her in order to help her child.


Many people avoided her, but one took pity and advised her to talk to the wise teacher who lived in the center of the village.


She went to the wise teacher and asked him if he had medicine to help her child. The teacher felt compassion for the woman. He told her he did not have the medicine, but he could help her make the medicine if she collected the ingredients.


He placed a seed in her hand. This was the seed to the great trees of the surrounding forest. It was a very common seed and every villager kept these seeds in their home.


The wise teacher told her to go to every home in the village and ask for this seed. She was told to ask at each home if the family had ever experienced grief . The teacher told her that she could only accept a seed from a household that has never experienced grief.


The woman began her mission. At the first household she learned that her elderly neighbor had grieved over the death of her husband. In the next household she learned about the loss of a son in war. In the next home she learned how the young family had lost all of their worldly possessions in a storm and had to relocate and start life again. And in the next home she discovered a woman who had just been diagnosed with a terminal illness. Each home invited her in and shared their stories. 


She returned to the teacher and placed her child in his arms. She was ready. The funeral began and she grieved.


She could not avoid the grief. She felt like she was in the dense forest. She could not walk around it. She could not crawl under it, she could not fly over it. She just had to walk through it.


She found her strength in knowing that she was not alone. 


When the grieving lessened, she felt ready to let go.


She still had her seed. She found a beautiful cove near the edge of the forest. She planted the seed to honor the memory of her child.


She nurtured the seedling, she tended the new tree, and made sure the roots would grow deep and strong.


Then she went moved forward. Once again she found joy in her life. She had become one with her neighbors and shared in their joys and their sorrows. Her life was full.

Where are you in your grief work? 


Being diagnosed with a life altering disease is a journey through grief. Unfortunately, there is no funeral to say good-bye to your old life. There is no ritual to acknowledge your loss.  Those closest to you may be grieving too, and are not even aware of this.


Maybe you are still in the beginning of your grief journey, carrying the child in your arms waiting for the child to revive?


Maybe you just want to hole up deep inside of yourself and never come out. How many times have you thought how unfair it is that the world keeps moving forward while your life is frozen in place pinned down by an invisible enemy who won't let you go?


You can not avoid grief. You have only one choice, and that is to walk on through it.


You do not have to walk through this journey alone, nor should you.


Surround yourself with people who nurture you, who are good soil as you germinate into the next part of your life.


Do not hesitate to talk to doctors, counselors, and support groups that will help you.


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There is a public support forum on Facebook at:


Lupus Inspiration, Information, and Memes on




REFERENCES:

Buddha Parable