Latest / Living Deeply with Markieta Carter / Grieving My Sister Deeply

Transcript

Grieving My Sister Deeply · Living Deeply with Markieta Carter

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  Hey, it's Markieta and welcome back to the Living Deeply podcast,
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  a space where we talk about what it really needs to feel deeply,
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  love deeply, grieve deeply, heal deeply, and live a life that is authentic to who we really are.
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  Today's episode is probably going to be one of the most personal episodes I've recorded.
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  I'm talking about grief, but not the kind of grief that feeds neatly into the
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  things people usually say after someone dies.
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  I'm talking about complicated grief. The grief of losing someone you deeply
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  love when the relationship wasn't in the best place when they died.
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  I'm talking about my sister, Bria. I'm talking about regret,
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  anger, fear, guilt, love, and all of the emotions that can exist at the same time when someone dies.
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  And before you have the opportunity to make things right.
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  I'm talking about why I realized that I can't simply pray about this,
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  give it to God, and expect myself to be okay.
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  I have to actually heal. I have to feel.
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  I have to shed. I have to release. So today, I'm not speaking to you as a coach
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  with everything figured out. I'm speaking to you as a sister who is grieving.
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  That's where I am right now.
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  And this is what living deeply looks like for me right now.
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  There's grief and then there's complicated grief.
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  The kind of grief that comes when someone you love dies and everything between you wasn't resolved yet,
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  that's why I am right now I'm grieving the loss of my sister Bria and I'm also
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  grieving the fact that we were not on the best of terms when she passed.
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  And that adds another layer of loss that I don't think we talk about enough
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  because I'm not only grieving her, I'm grieving what happened between us.
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  I'm grieving conversations we never got to have.
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  And I'm grieving things I wish I had said or done differently.
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  I'm grieving things I wish she had said or done differently.
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  And I'm grieving the possibility that I thought we still had time to fix things.
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  I thought we had so much time, and now we don't.
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  The reality comes with regret. It comes with anger. It comes with fear. It comes with sadness.
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  Sometimes it even comes with guilt, and then there is love mixed into all of
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  it, and that is one of the hardest things I'm learning about grief.
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  Feelings don't all come or arrive at one time.
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  I can love my sister and still be angry. I can miss her and still remember why
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  there was distance between us.
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  I can wish things had been different without pretending that everything was good between us.
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  And I can have compassion for her and compassion for myself all at the same time.
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  I can regret certain things without deciding that I have to punish myself for the rest of my life.
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  I'm learning that grief can hold contradictions. Two things can be true.
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  I loved her, and we had problems. I missed her, and I was hurt.
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  I wish we had made peace before she died, and I also know that there are reasons why we were not okay.
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  Death does not erase the history of a relationship. It just takes away the opportunity
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  to change that history together, and that hurts so bad.
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  There's also another part of this grief that people don't always see.
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  I'm grieving while still being here for my family.
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  Life didn't just stop and give me unlimited space to fall apart.
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  There are still people I love. There are still people who need me.
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  There are still responsibility. There are still phone calls.
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  There are still decisions.
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  And there are still moments where I get up, function, help somebody else,
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  and somehow carry my own grief at the same time.
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  And I've realized something. I can't carry all of this inside me. I can't.
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  I can't just pray it away. And I was taught when life becomes too heavy, you just pray about it.
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  Give it to God. Let go and let God. Trust God. And I understand why that brings
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  comfort to some people, but that is not enough for me.
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  I can't simply pray about this and expect everything happening inside of my
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  body and my mind to disappear.
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  I have to heal. I have to process. I have to shed. and I have to release because,
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  I don't want these feelings to overtake me.
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  I don't want grief to become something I simply learned to suppress.
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  I don't want anger buried beneath productivity.
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  I don't want regret turning into self-punishment and I don't want guilt becoming
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  the way that I proved that I loved my sister.
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  I loved her but I don't have to destroy myself to prove that.
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  So I am being forced to learn how to heal in ways that are outside of what I
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  was taught sometimes healing looks like crying sometimes it looks like sitting
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  outside and letting nature,
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  quiet everything around me sometimes it looks like music
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  sometimes it looks like talking sometimes it looks like silence sometimes it
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  looks like writing down exactly what I feel without trying to make those feelings
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  sound pretty, spiritual, mature, or acceptable.
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  Sometimes I just need to say I'm angry. I'm hurt.
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  I regret this. I wish I had done that differently. I wish she was here. I wish we had more time.
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  I wish our chapter was different. And sometimes healing means allowing those
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  words to exist without immediately trying to correct them.
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  Because maybe every painful emotion doesn't need to be corrected.
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  Maybe some feelings simply need to be felt.
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  Release is not denial. Releasing something does not mean it doesn't matter.
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  It doesn't mean I've forgotten. It doesn't mean I've forgiven everything.
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  And it doesn't mean I suddenly understand why everything happened the way it did for me.
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  Release me. I'm allowing the feeling to move through me instead of building
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  a permanent home inside of me.
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  I can acknowledge regret without living in regret.
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  I can acknowledge that I'm angry without becoming my anger.
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  And I can acknowledge that I'm afraid without allowing that fear to control my life.
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  I can acknowledge my grief without allowing grief to consume every part of who
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  I am and I can love my sister without rewriting our relationship I don't need
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  to turn our relationship into something perfect just because she's gone.
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  She was human and I am human,
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  our relationship was human there was love there was hurt there was history there
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  were things left unresolved and now I have to figure out how to make peace with
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  something I can no longer fix with her,
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  maybe that's one of the hardest forms of healing making peace where there can
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  never be another conversation there can never be another phone call where you
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  finally say everything you want to say,
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  there can never be another argument that eventually becomes understanding,
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  there can never be another opportunity to stay.
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  Can we try again?
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  So now, some of that reconciliation has to happen inside of me.
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  Not because pretending everything was okay, but because I deserve peace too.
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  I'm learning that I can speak the words I never got to say.
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  I can write them. I can say them out loud.
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  I can sit outside and talk to her I can cry I can scream I can listen to music
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  that reminds me of her I can remember the good,
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  without erasing the bad I can acknowledge the bad without allowing it to erase our love,
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  And maybe one day I will be able to talk about our relationship without immediately
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  wondering what should I have done differently.
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  I'm not there yet.
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  And I'm not going to rush myself there. If you're listening to this and you've
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  lost someone while your relationship was complicated, I want you to know that
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  your grief doesn't have to look simple.
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  You are allowed to miss someone you were angry with and you're allowed to love
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  someone you had boundaries with and you're allowed to grieve someone that you
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  weren't even speaking to and you're allowed to wish things had been different,
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  you are allowed to feel grief anger regret sadness love resentment tenderness
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  guilt and longing sometimes all in the same day,
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  and you don't have to choose one feeling and make it an official story of your grief,
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  you don't have to make your grief
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  more comfortable for people and I'm certainly not doing that with mine,
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  I choose to heal.
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  This season is teaching me that healing is not pretending that I'm okay.
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  Healing is being willing to meet myself exactly where I am.
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  And right now, where I am is complicated. I've missed my sister.
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  I wish some things had been different. I have regrets. I have anger.
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  I have questions that may never have answers.
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  And I have love, so much love. My job right now is to make all of those feelings disappear.
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  My job is to get them somewhere to go.
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  I let myself cry when I need to cry. I rest when my body tells me to rest,
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  and I talk when I need to talk.
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  I sit in nature. I listen to music. I sing.
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  I connect spiritually in ways that actually feel authentic to me.
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  I write. I breathe. I release. And then release some more because I still have
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  a life to live. And I still have people I love. And I still have people I want to be present for.
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  And I want to be present for myself too. I can't change where my sister and I were when she passed.
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  That is one of the most painful truths I have to live with, but I can decide,
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  what I do with everything I'm carrying right now.
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  And I choose to heal, not because I'm ready to move on from my sister,
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  but because I need to keep moving forward for myself.
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  This is grief. This is love. This is regret. This is anger. This is release.
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  And for me right now, this is what living deeply looks like.
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  If you're listening to this while carrying your own complicated grief,
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  i hope you give yourself permission to feel whatever is actually there not when
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  somebody told you grief should look like not what your religion told you you
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  should feel not what your family is comfortable with hearing,
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  what you actually feel because healing doesn't require you to lie to yourself,
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  you can love somebody and be angry with them you can miss somebody and still
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  acknowledge how they hurt you.
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  You can regret how things ended without taking responsibility for everything
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  that happened and you can release what you're carrying without releasing your
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  love for the person you lost.
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  I'm still trying to figure this
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  out. I'm still grieving and shedding and releasing and I'm still healing.
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  If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who may be carrying
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  complicated grief quietly.
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  And if you want to continue living, feeling, healing, growing deeply with me,
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  you can find more episodes of the Living Deeply podcast at livingdeeplypodcast.com.
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  And you can connect with me at itsmarkita.com.
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  Until next time, give yourself permission to feel deeply heal honestly and live
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  Deeply, I'm Markieta and this is the living deeply podcast.