Just yesterday, and again, it must be 50 times already, at least 3 in the last few months, he's left detox. In seconds I'm flooded with disappointment, disgust, anger, and then the grief, the deep sorrow, the relentless fears feel all consuming. I drop to the floor, my body can't even hold itself up.
I am all too familiar with this scenario. I've learned to accept it all in me, welcome it all, let it all have its life, create time and space for the whaling cries, the swollen eyes, the inability or desire to speak. It's become my sacred grieving. When that all has it's time to be expressed, I question one of my thoughts, "he won't live through the year". That's the journey, the questioning. I do The Work of Byron Katie, the simple process of questioning my thoughts. It holds me in its questions, in my desire to journey, to see. I welcome all of it, and whatever truths I trust are revealed in the process. Half an hour later, truth finds me. Peace arrives. I'm off the floor. It might be true that my son may not live through the year with all the using, the other medical conditions he has, living on the streets with nothing but the clothes on his back, having zero community, and on an on. And still, I can't know how long his life will be, how it will be, so I get the hell out of God's business, out of hell, and into my own business of what is within my power. Anything else just plain hurts! I start to distinguish between my vivid imagination in fear and facts, get into the present moment. I'm on the floor questioning my thoughts, as far as I know my son is alive somewhere, he's resourceful and unbelievably resilient. Yes, he's left another detox, but my choices are revealed. Do I continue and deepen my own form of detox or leave the journey of mind detox, leave much needed self care, do I stay withll the things that support my life, or leave? I stay! All this fear, when questioned brings me from laying on the floor sobbing, to sitting up, holding my shoulders straight, breathing deeper and slower, the suffocating grief in my throat is relieved. I am left with utter simplicity, one job, one singular intention as the clarity of not knowing where my son has walked off to and what he will co-exists and sits right beside me. We're ok there. I don't know, can't know, and in that not knowing, the awareness of love itself, that energy of love replaces the fear. I get up, I feel the peace of it, I get moved. Simple. My only job is to love. How can I return to my job and quickly, the invitation that the stress makes is so compelling. I slow down to question whatever thoughts and beliefs are going to put layer upon layer of confusion into my mind, the physical stress of that, the mental anguish of that, and take me away from my most important job. With the thought, my son doesn't even make it through five minutes in my mind, I have him dead this year. With the thought, I am a wreck. That's all ok, but my soul wants love! I want love, I need love! That's how I want to live through this year, whether he does or not. And he needs this from me! I need this from me! I need to give it because of the situation, because he left detox, because maybe one day he'll call. What CAN I do? I call me, I call upon love to take me from fear and back into its calm, peaceful, wise guidance. In these scary situations, real or imagined, I know the way out is to go in. I do The Work. The way is to care for my fears which brings me into the purity and power of love, no conditions, re-connected again, contributing to peace at the very least in me, touching my heart, breathing all that in, imagining hugging my son with that, communicating this love so he has a better shot of hearing it and feeling it if he resurfaces. I use what I've learned and skills developed. If my son calls me, it will not be my fear I give. It will be my love! Fear just does not communicate what we so desperately want to give, to be, to share, to have. Love does! It is the only job that makes the most sense before all others. And in that deeper truth, my senses know beyond a shadow of a doubt to love him where he's at whether I know where that is or not, in any condition, because he lives, that might last and it might not. My love, love itself can last! It shows up to guide me, in the questioned fears, this simple process that so profoundly brings me on this journey from the floor in fear to standing in the power of love. It might not be easy, but it is sure a whole lot easier than before I took the journey. I become the light in the darkness, having walked into it and out of it, lighter, able to shine on. This is the journey, take it! Drugs don't win here. Love does! In gratitude and peace, Joanne Richards February 6, 2022
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