An Open Letter to Friends and Former Friends
Death is a universal human experience, yet wide variations exist in the ways in which different intellectual and spiritual traditions understand and manage grief and mourning. Each person has a subtle mind that migrates through the grieving process and how it relates to their experiences in this life, as well as the other lives they’ve lived. It is difficult to give up yearning for attachment to relatives, friends, or lovers, or to stop struggling to hold on to one’s past life, and the people that have meant so much. It is difficult to leave things unfinished or to let go of all the things cherished. I have been guilty of clinging to those that I have cherished. I have been guilty of clinging onto grief and the pain and suffering that accompany it. I am guilty of feeling my pain. To open one’s heart to all the pain, to experience all of the grief and tears, to allow one’s Self to feel… is to truly live a full life, a life of Being Real. Jim Morrison once said:
“People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that’s bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they’re afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they’re wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It’s all in how you carry it. That’s what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you’re letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain.”
Some people don’t seem able to accept that, though, and have tried to deny me my right to feel my pain… to work through it in my own way, at my own pace. Perhaps they don’t understand that each of us must go through this in our own way and not in others’ ways, and that it takes some of us longer to get through to the other side than others. Grief does not disappear in a day or in a week. It takes time for grief to dissolve into solace. I have recently realized that in my own life, that having not been permitted to work through my pain and grief in my own way and in my own time, it has… accumulated… making my own journey to face grief and find solace just that much more difficult. Grief can be an opportunity for an individual to examine his or her own life and find meaning in it. I didn’t see it that way at first, but that is one way to reach the other side.
I am guilty of lashing out at others in my pain and in my grief, whether provoked or unprovoked. I am guilty of thinking childish thoughts and doing childish deeds and not being the spiritual Being I know myself to be. Much like a wounded animal, I often lashed out without thinking of anyone else, so blinded was I by my own grief. Through all my sadness a profound sense of acceptance began slowly to emerge, and with it a resolve to try to be a better person. I know that I can never make it up to people, the things I’ve said or done that may have caused them pain. I know my own grief was no excuse to act as I have, too. And I also know that I am still grieving, still in the process of finding solace.
But I just wanted to say… if you are one of the people who has been hurt by me in any way… or if you know someone whom I may have hurt and would please pass this message on to them… I know this doesn’t in any way make up for what suffering I may have caused… but please know…
I am sorry.
