Getting Through

 

 

 

“There is nothing like experiencing the joyful and uncritical creative process of making things in the company of children.  The rarely have performance anxiety or feel pressure to achieve unattainable goals.  They don’t sit at a piano banging away while fretting that Mozart was a prepubescent when he composed his first symphony.  Nor do they stare at the finished product thinking they should’ve used more red paint and less yellow to portray that sunset.  There is as much to be learned through unencumbered creative process of a child as there is in studying with a great master. “– Lynn Gordon

Achieve, endure, polish off, mop-up, wrap-up, clear up, survive, finish-up, click, dawn, are all synonyms of “getting through” something.  Life is all a matter of “Getting Through”. Most of us could wish for the innocence of our childhood.  Life was an adventure of discoveries, of experimentation, of failures that we would cry about, and successes we could beam about.  The day we started socializing with those outside our immediate family was the day Life began to show us it was not all wonderful cotton candy and love.  Then we are fraught with adolescence the rebellion, the sense of being indestructible, the risk-taking, the learning of alternatives and consequences, the swoops of highs and lows.  Then adulthood seeps in and we know the peaks and valleys, the few times of peace (inner and outer), and the need for more support and consequences of choices, even more.  We learn that we are defined by our ability to cope with defeats.

We need to have learned resilience, and most likely have, although we may have chosen alternative ways that may not have been healthy.  We suffer physically, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually.  We delight in each of those quadrants of our life as well.  We struggle to stay positive.  But, when tsunami of events happen, that call for courage and strength for longer periods of time, or events happen closely together, we are truly tested. 

Really working hard to stay positive is what gets us through.  For every negative, there is a positive.  When you are in the midst of it,. There is only a fine small light of hope, of knowing that things cannot last forever and that you will have stacked on courage and bravery in getting through it.  Accepting that ‘it is what it is’ helps us along the way.  You will become a more mature, better, person when you get through it.  Your choice between negativity or positivity actually helps because if you are negative about it, it will last wayyy longer.  If you are negative you accept the role of victim.  If you are positive, you are a survivor and you have the drive to overcome and thrive.

I think women have that extra boost through in that we have that sixth sense that allows us the ability for creative thought as to how to solve the problems.   We seem to have the ability to think of alternatives ; plan A, B, C, for situations that make a bad day, or cause a sadness, or cause anxiety.   Developing creativity actually helps us ( and perhaps why so many women are doing creative writing, creative art journaling, and have done creative activities since the beginning of our feminine time down here on this hard earth.  As soon as there could be a gathering of women, women gathered, and di problem solving, communing with one another as they created things that would make life easier.  They came up with solutions to difficult situations and developed more and more creative insights.

No matter how we get through, we have the opportunity to learn an important lesson by spending some time reviewing what, why, how, where, when of things.  We learn ways to make sure that such does not happen again and we learn, with every whack down, we learn.   We think of ways to create ways to make sure that we learn how to minimalize the damage of some incidents. 

We all change.  We must change.  We must progress and must learn better and better how to ‘Get Through’.  To not learn the lessons and use them for change, is to stagnate and stay in the drama and anxiety.  We put the lessons’ ideas about how to change to master coping skills needed, and we do not stay in that difficult situation for as long…the next time.. and, believe me, there will be a next time.  The lessons have to be taken in and used.  Bit by bit, we learn how to embrace tough times as opportunity to grow, to be more resilient, to not sink into despair and stay there. 

I have a niece who had two boys and a girl.  The girl died of crib death soon after being born, then there was a terrible accident where her youngest son was paralyzed and she spent his entire life caring for him at home.  She had one son left.  He had a baby girl and was a light in the whole family.  He was killed in a tragic sudden vehicle accident.

 

Then, her mother died.  Two close uncles died.  How does a mother ever get through loss of one child?  How did she get through the years of caring for the son who was hurt badly in a accident.  How, then, does she get over the third and loss of her last living child?   She grieves, and grieves hard, but she is getting through.  How?  What is that in her that keeps her going even one more day?  Resilience.  How did she get that resilience?  Was it built, brick upon brick with each loss?  Because she learned coping skills at the loss of her baby girl, did she apply the learning to the next, and the next, and the next?  To me, she is a miracle woman.

Do we learn how to be more grateful through losses?  No matter what happens, there are always things to be grateful for.  When you are in the throes of difficulty, it can be hard to find the positive gratitude.  It is NOT the end of the world.  It is NOT the end of your world.  There is always always something at the end of it all, no matter what IT is.  In the end one might be grateful it is almost over, over, never going to happen again on your watch.

When some really bad things happen, it is hard not to totally focus on that one thing.  You will go through freeze, fight, flight waves.  You can be wicked mad at God…yes, God.  You will be mad because you cannot control the situation.  You can become frustrated and project that anger all over the place.  I know.  I have.   It is wasted energy and only causes more chaos and drama.  We can only control ourselves.  Bottom line.  We control how we react to difficult things.  Don’t allow yourselves to get stuck in the mud or the pity-party.

We are all at an age where we can see that we have come far in life when considering hard spaces, places, things, and people we have dealt with.  Yes, we have not always done right, chosen right, reacted right.  We did what we did when we did them because that was the only thing we knew to do.  We need to give ourselves credit where credit is due.  Kindness towards self is imperative. 

Along the way, we have people, of our tribe (like people, supportive people, cheerleaders, positive people) we can depend on when we need to lean.  We all need loving attention, betimes.  Don’t push those people away.  They are worth a great deal if and when the next big thing happens.  Only turn to them with your problems when you are actively beginning to solve the problem(s).  There is a story of the Nootka Women of the West coat of Canada.  They were a matriarchal Society.  Someone would come to them with a problem.  They would meet in a circle and each women in the circle would give a solution.  That same person could come three times with the same problem.  The third time she came, they would actually get up and move the circle from her.  There is a huge lesson in this.  We must not use people over and over and not have done the work necessary before hand. 

I know we can just despise Forgiving people, even forgiving ourselves.  We are reluctant because we do not understand the full concept of forgiveness, betimes.  Our natural response is to fight, to be angry at someone who might have caused a situation, or someone we have decided was at fault.  We can learn to accept what has happened, learn the lesson, and let it go because hurt people hurt people and we do not want to be that person.  We can beat ourselves up year after year and it has done nothing but drive us into more negativity.  We can become a bitter, hard person.  That is not who we were meant to be, ever!  When we are all armored up, wrapped up, in our shell, we are of no use to the world.  When we are able to let the bad feelings toward that person go… not openly forgive them, as we do not condone the actions, we simply let it/them go (I make them “dead” to me…numb, a blank space where they used to be).  We accept what happened, acknowledge it, and focus on moving forward without thinking of them again…or, if they come to mind, bush them off again.  Remind yourself that they are no longer valid in your life.  If something we have done that needs forgiveness, then acknowledge, rectify if you can, and let it go... it serves no purpose to beat yourself up about it. 

Life will always give us things that challenge us.  Some believe we are down here on earth to be tested.  I do not.  I believe we have a purpose for being here, though, and that we cannot know what that purpose is.  It simply is.  And, when we have completed that purpose, we are done here.  Trying to live a life full of positive qualities, trying again and again to make things easier, more peaceful and better for self and others, then we are on the right track.  I find that, falling into a creative project gives me peace.  I gain that sense of childhood wonder at rocks I seek and find and grind and polish and make into something new.  I am a creative at heart and always have been.  But I cannot rest just saying that, I have a need to be a lifelong learner and challenge myself to do differently, to do better.  That is part of my personality.   I find good ways to find joy, to make joy, to turn hard things into lessons and figure out the puzzle of it all.   There will always be something we have to get through.  Might as well make the most of it all.

©Carol Desjarlais 8.21.22

Changing things up and trying new ways of arting is exhilarating.  I thought cards would be too simplistic for me to enjoy, and then, along comes Gracie and Bonnie and their challenges.  I have learned to love making cards.  I have a hundred made already and not sent one out yet.  I am a huge procrastinator.  I said I would start sending them out in January of 2022… happens it will be January 23. 

It is interesting that pieces I think no one would ever like are the very ones that sell first.  You never can sometimes tell.

Cover page/Card :  Card, Theme=tide, Silver, Spring, Letter or numbers, Cardboard.