HUG Corner: Thought for the Week 1/14/19

Healing After Loss (Martha Whitmore Hickman)

“Possess yourself as much as you possibly can in peace; not by any effort, but by letting all things fall to the ground which trouble or excite you. This is no work, but is, as it were, a settling down a fluid to settle that has become turbid through agitation.”

-Madame Guyon

This is another way of suggesting that we try to live in the moment and not let preoccupation with our grief take over the rest of our life. It is easier said than done – putting our sadness aside and paying attention only to what is happening around us now. It is a counsel we will not always be able to follow, and probably shouldn’t try to. But the image of letting all things fall to the ground is a good one and a mental exercise worth trying.

So imagine that you are standing still and straight, and that by a touch of an inner-control button you let all the stress and grief in your life slowly start slipping down your arms and legs, to be absorbed into the ground beneath you. How much lighter you feel! Your arms could almost rise into the air – so free are they from the weight of all that remembered pain.

Think you have gotten rid of it all? Walk away a few steps and try the same exercise again.

To some extent, it is in my power to decide when I will let grief take over.