Buckets and Burdens
There's a song we sing in the threshold singing group I lead - “Lay down your burden”. We tell the person who is dying, they can “let go”, they are “pure love now”; but I'm alive and I want to lay down my burdens now. I want to know that I am love and I am loved and be unable to distinguish the difference.
I don't feel I have permission to ask for more than I already have. “I want doesn't get”, my mother said. “Don't be greedy... don't take more than your fair share”, and “be grateful for what you have... think of others worse off than yourself”. And her all time favourite, “Don't whinge!” All good, civilised, reasonable stuff; except that perhaps I have misapplied it, so that now, I don't know how to ask for what I need.
Fair share
Six, seven years on from profound loss, haven't I had my fair share of sympathy? Shouldn't I be 'better' by now, moved on, got over it all, sorted myself out? Aren't there other people more deserving?
The trouble with this Puritan logic, is that it is based on a concept of scarcity, a concept that says there is a limited amount of a commodity and a limited amount of love, so that if I have more than my due, there won't be enough to go round, someone else will have to go without. Maybe I should be the one giving to others whose needs are greater. Yet everyone with more than one child knows, that we don't have to divide a finite amount of love between our offspring, love expands to greet each new arrival. Our hearts are limitless in how much love can flow through them.
Instead of berating myself for whinging when I find myself hurting from head to toe (yet again), how would it be to lay down my burdens? The ordinary burdens of life which are no longer shared with another – bills, house maintenance, cooking dinner, insuring the car, house, dog, travel – and the burden of loss itself, of grief and loneliness for our beloved ones. I tell myself over and over how fortunate I have been to have had two children, one of whom is still here and a joy; how amazing it is that I found love, however briefly, with a good man; how very, very lucky I am to live in a safe home in a beautiful environment, to have kind friends and enough food to eat. How can I possibly ask for more? It's not working: it simply piles guilt on top of the heaviness of responsibility and sorrow.
“Are you kind to yourself?” someone asked me the other day. Kinder than I was. “Eating well is an act of self love”. Oh yes, I do know they are right. But am I allowed to throw a tantrum and say,
“I'm tired! Sometimes cheese on toast is the best I can do because even thinking what to cook makes me weary, let alone having to chop vegetables and then wait half an hour until they are cooked. And then, to add insult to injury, eat alone!” Yes, I may sound like the spoilt brat my mother warned me against becoming but I'm hacked off that the only man who ever nurtured me has *#&%@ed off and died.
Grief is messy
Grief is messy. It isn't well behaved or reasonable. Being self contained (oh my that's a whole other blog!) isn't all it's cracked up to be. I am up to here with being polite and articulate. I want my man back. I want him to hold me when I weep and so I haven't wept because he's not there to hold me. I want him to cook me lasagne like he did that first night. I want him to stand alongside me, looking out to the world, our responsibilities shouldered together. I am sick and tired of being grown up, capable and alone
.
And since I can't have what I want, I am, like John O'Donohue says, “thrown back onto the black tide of loss”. The sea has gone out and I am washed up, stranded on this lonely shore, struggling to find the motivation to get up. Today. Perhaps not tomorrow.
“Lay down your burdens”, said a daily email post. “You are not built to carry all these worries. See yourself walking the long path to the feet of a vast Spiritual Being or even a mountain, and leave them at their feet.” I tried it and I cried with relief at feeling small in the presence of something big and benign. I can ask for help. And as I write that I can feel the shame and the “should be better by now, stop making a fuss” arise within me. The thing is, there is a hole in my bucket. Yes, I have been given many gifts but my early scripts and those of this culture, my separation from Nature, from Love and from my own well spring within, have rusted my bucket and it can't hold the wellbeing and solace I need. Which reminds me of a story
.
There was once an old wise woman who had two buckets which she filled with water at the well. The well was a good way off from her house but she loved her garden and so she gladly walked the long path to collect water for her plants. One of the buckets though had a hole in the bottom, it had carried water for many years and was getting old. The other bucket noticed that by the time they reached home, only he was carrying a full load and the other bucket was empty. This went on for some time. How could the old woman not see? Eventually he said to the old bucket,
“You are no use any more, you lose all your water by the time we get home and I have to carry all the water for the garden.” The old bucket was very sad. It's true, he thought, I must tell my mistress to get rid of me.
“ I am no use to you any more,” he told her. “Have you not noticed that on our way back from the well, I lose all the water which you give me and I can't water your plants?”
“Oh I know”, the woman replied, “but have you not seen all the flowers which have bloomed along the path? Every day you water them and now everyone who goes to the well enjoys all the colour you have brought to their lives.
”
So yes, I have a hole in my bucket – we all do, I imagine. But maybe sometimes these blogs are the result of water trickling through those holes. Maybe in offering you an insight into my path, something resonates with you and you feel less alone. And maybe together we give each other permission to be as we are and remember that Love is not a scarce commodity but a well which never runs dry.
With love
Nickie
PS Please don’t forget, I offer one on one support, in the form of ‘cup of tea’ sessions (informal time over a virtual cup of tea, to unburden, be heard, feel less alone) as well as full one hour sessions. These can be one offs, sporadic or regular - up to you. Go to my website for more details.
This blog is offered freely and you are welcome to share it with anyone you think it might benefit.
Buy me a coffee
A very big thank you to those of you who generously support this blog with your donations to Buy Me a Coffee. I gift this blog as well as my work at a local hospice and leading a threshold choir singing for those on the threshold of life, and so I am extremely grateful for any support you offer me. If you would like to donate at any time, you can do so here. Thank you.
What a beautiful; story of the buckets - I hadnt heard it before.
I remember in the 6 months I spent at a meditation retreat many years ago we were told right at the beginning that asking for help rather than suffering, in our indoctrinated need to think we can always handle everything ourselves, be self sufficient, is the key energetically to deeper connection ....it takes humility and a refusal to listen to all those thoughts (which you refer to) which say you are strong, you can handle this, what will people think, they cant help me anyway etc We are so trained to think its nobler to continue to suffer and deal with that suffering alone and our minds have all the reasons ready as to why that is a good thing.
And its true that sharing the suffering, the act of asking for help, even with little things immediately creates connection, sabotages that belief that we are separate entities, and almost always people are glad to be asked; and it opens opportunities for people to be helpful, to be kind which generally they appreciate . So now I try to remember that I am doing other people a service, rather than being a nuisance and a whimp,
and just to say you can come and stay in my home in west cork any time you'd like a little time away from your responsibilities - we can have cheese on toast together ! xx