Falling Off the Spiritual Bandwagon

I never thought that after 25 or 30 years, it was even possible to fall off a spiritual band wagon. In my mind I knew that if I had the intellectual reason to do or not do something, that would be reason enough. If I have doubts about something, I evaluate it, I decide if it works for me or not. I never thought I could 'forget' again. I had a conscious daily morning spiritual practice. Every morning, I would get up, do specific meditations, and seek the deep, deep silence that was a passion for me, an incredible love. Sometimes I would read prayers, often mantra played a role, sometimes music. But despite how my practice varied over the years one thing was constant, I was committed to it. I didn't miss days, I didn't wake up and think, "Yeah, not today." There was no room for excuses and no matter what was going on in my life, I made room for it.

All of that was in the blissfully ignorant state of not having known deep, abiding, personal grief.

And that changed. In the last year, my life has changed so dramatically, loss has been so deep and so life-altering. And one day I woke up and realized, that special daily connection I had was gone. I had simply forgotten it.

It's not an excuse. I don't really believe in excuses. I do believe in looking at what's going on, evaluating life's circumstances and processing it all to find understanding, to find what I can learn from it. And this is what I have learned:

• Secondhand grief is nothing like the grief you experience on a personal level. Having friends who have lost friends, or parents, or siblings, is nothing like losing someone you hold dear to your own heart. I consider myself very empathetic, and still it was nothing like experiencing it myself. I have a cousin who lost her sister years ago. When my sister died she reached out in a message to me, and I thought about how I couldn't feel her pain all those many years ago, but now, now I could feel it acutely, personally, deeply.
• Grief is isolating because it is so personal. Yes, there are books about it, and TED talks, and friends with their experiences, but there is that difference between what someone else says, feels, thinks and how *I* feel. Yes, there are so many who loved the same person, and yet, every single experience of loving him or her was completely different. Yes, there are a lot of pat expressions, sayings, and exclamations of "You'll get through this," but that isn't the point.  Grief is all encompassing. It is not only the missing connections gone, it is the questions, the struggle against guilt, the sadness that pops at any appropriate or inappropriate time. Grief is also wondering if it could have been different and all those thousands of tiny details missing in action:  the words, the messages, the sweetness, the ready availability of someone to be there at any time. 
• Grief is not limited to death as we know it. Not only did I lose two very dear and very beloved family members, to a certain extent I also lost mobility as osteoarthritis eked away at joints that previously worked fine. I sat for years cross-legged on the floor. Nope, no more. I walked and walked and walked and loved that special soul connection with the skies, or the river, or the beach, or the sidewalk. From one day to the next it stopped. An agile and able body started aching all over and at some point, weakened joints simply stopped working. It is a death of a sort as well, and it's scary. Even with corrective operations, there is so much time wiled away in pain, rest and recuperation, and deeply grieving the changes it has wrought in your life. And there is other grief - the grief of losing one's personal space, losing a job, losing privacy. Grief relates to so much more in life than I knew.
• Sometimes that grief leaves a hole where there once was faith. Sometimes it doesn't. In my case it did. It left me wondering where that connection with the Infinite went. It left me wondering who's got my back, despite having very dear and close friends. For so many years I haven't been able to fathom a day when I get up and don't take those first morning minutes to clear space for that connection to spirit.  And then I found myself sitting on the side of the bed for half an hour, trying to encourage myself to get up. All that energy that had gone into my spiritual practice was now reserved for just getting up! 

The good news is that we never really forget things like a spiritual practice. The harder news is that like anything else - it just takes practice. So, here I am, back at the starting block. I close my eyes and the monkey mind, which I haven't had to deal with for years, is back, I have to start at square one. At least I have the tools.

Life can be a dizzying composite image of life and death, growing, grieving, laughing, crying, working, resting, and so much more.  For me, the daily spiritual practice was what grounded me in my body, what grounded me in the act of being present. Now as I work hard to set aside that time again, now as I do my short little meditations, now as I struggle to find the silence that feeds and nourishes me, now as I struggle not to judge myself or make myself bad for letting go of something that has always been an important part of my self-care, now I get to jump back on the spiritual bandwagon as an older and wiser person who has felt the very ravages of grief and who is finding solace in daily meditation, now I am the old and the new.

Now I know it's not about following directions. Now I know it's not about someone else's beliefs. Now I know that it won't stop life from happening, and it won't protect me from feeling grief or pain or questions or anything else for that matter. Now I know that my spiritual practice is nothing that relates to anyone but me, (and that, I have decided, is a Good Thing). Now I know that falling off the bandwagon doesn't make me bad. Instead, it forces me to find compassion and empathy for myself, and if compassion and empathy aren't the basis, the greatest part of spirituality, what is the point?  Now I know that no amount of guilt-tripping will take me back there, and that only love will do it. Now I can take my years and years of experience and walk myself back, with grace and understanding and kindness.

Yay. ♥

 © Darshan F Jessop 2016