Finding Joy Amidst Your Suffering

 I’m supposed to talk about finding Joy again….so I don’t want to screw this up! No pressure just trying to find people’s happiness! 

The thing is...sometimes you have to let joy find you. Joy is always out there, we just have to be ready to feel it and let it in. 

I remember going through this process with all of my losses. I had this fuzzy white bathrobe. By our last loss it had become a bit dingy as it was pretty worn. But it became my cloak of grief. I wore that robe all day, every day, for several weeks. And two of my losses were in February so sometimes I even slept in it because it was so cold. 

I felt like I couldn’t take it off, you know? I had to not just feel like crud, I had to look like crud, too. I went through the motions.

And then eventually, there would be a day where I was just tired of that robe and ready to take it off. And it didn’t just stop there. I bought a new outfit, new makeup, got my hair cut. It was as if...I was ready for joy. I was ready to feel better. And I thought that maybe if I spruced myself up a little, I could act the part and it would help. 

Did it help? I believe it absolutely did, as silly as it may sound. You see..I was ready to find joy. I was ready to let it in. 

A mother who has lost a baby has a lot of dialogue in her head that she doesn’t share with many people, if at all. A lot of blame and guilt swirling around in our brains. It blocks the joy. You can have joy alongside grief. Absolutely you can. I think where the joy gets lost is in that blame and guilt. So I want to clear a few things up.

It was not your fault. Let’s say that again...It. Was. Not. Your. Fault. 

You are allowed to feel sad. You’re also allowed to feel happy. To feel joy. To feel that joy with your sorrow. There can be room for both. 

When we were planning this event, a beautiful quote came up. It said, grief is like dancing with a broken leg. At first, you can’t dance. Your leg is broken. It’s going to heal. That’s never a doubt. It will heal. But when you go back to that dance studio, you’re going to have to take some time to dance again. Muscles need to be re-trained, stamina needs to be worked back up. And the truth is, maybe that leg will hurt you from time to time as you really work it. It’s healed, but it’s never going to be quite the same as it was before. But what would that dancer do? Just learn to work with it. 

And that’s what we’ve got to do when we are grieving. We will get better. I promise. But we’ve got to learn how to work with our grief. You’ll heal, but you’ll be different. And make sure to remind yourself that it’s ok to be different. It’s ok to find new things to bring you joy when the old ones don’t. 

I think probably the most important thing I would say to someone whose grief is new, is to be kind to yourself, and take care of yourself. There is no one-size-fits-all way to get through. No one gets to tell you how to grieve. You’re in control. Own it. Feel it. Sit with it. If you do, it will begin to ease and heal. 

So...what if you feel like the joy isn’t finding you? You say, “Amy, I’m trying to let joy in and it’s not showing up.”

Ok so now we have to send out a search party. Call up that friend that’s always been the funny one. Tell them that you want to go out and feel normal. Let her make you laugh. Let that really sympathetic person give you a big hug. Or maybe, put that fuzzy white robe back on and try again another day. That’s ok too. Remember...you’re in control. You’ve got this. Joy is all around. It will be there when you’re ready.