Surrendering to Reality Doesn’t Make You a Doormat
Some days, practicing acceptance means embracing the messy emotions
Just as Dr Seuss says, “sometimes you will never know the value of a moment, until it becomes a memory”. This summer, one of my students died in a drive-by shooting. I then wrote A grieving educator, to share my love for the kind faces I worked with.
I learnt that grief is an inevitable experience when we choose to vulnerably connect with people. We are gifted this full range of emotions when we allow ourselves to be touched by the warm souls all around us.
Some days, I wonder whether I would have done anything differently during our class if I knew he would die so soon. But none of us could’ve known, nor could we rewind time.
When he left my class for the last time, I never expected the next time we meet to be at his funeral. His death continues to be a glaring reminder of how unpredictable life can be, and how important it is for me to show up fully every day.
In the months that followed, I constantly grappled with grief. I still do. I questioned why so many young people had and still have to lose their lives to violence, illnesses, etc. I became resentful at the seeming injustices that occur and overwhelmed by my powerlessness over the deaths of young persons in my life.
Some days, I would walk around questioning who is next to die, when it might happen, or how I might handle the next death. I would fear that everybody in my life would die before I do.
However, I also realized my anger is a way of defending myself against the fear and discomfort of not knowing. I realized my fears are rooted in the future, which is unknowable until it becomes the present. I can choose to be victimized by the past and paralyzed by the future, or I can choose to show up in the present.
Not all things in life are knowable; not everything that happens occurs for a reason. I may never get to the bottom of everything, though I can make my life miserable by fixating on searching for meanings that don’t exist.
I might never know who needs to take responsibility for his death. The 15-year-old girl who is charged with first-degree murder for pulling the trigger on him? I might never know whether she came to that turning point on her own, or what had led her there. I might never know why or how she came to that decision.
As with any investigations and trials, any answers I get can come with more questions. My bottomless questions are mere expressions of my disbelief about a 15-year-old taking another teenager’s life. My anger is an attempt at mitigating the deeply-seated powerlessness I felt.
After extensive searching for details of my student’s case, I realized that no amount of answers will satisfy me. I was holding onto the hope, or delusion, that answers will help me move on and find inner peace.
What creates inner peace within me isn’t the answers or conclusions I might get, but my decision to let go and accept what had happened. Practicing surrender and acceptance had been instrumental forces for me during the grieving process.
In the past, I thought the processes of surrendering and accepting reality would render me powerless. I didn’t want to be a doormat! Acceptance, or rather non-resistance, of reality, actually allows me to see it with more clarity.
There was nothing I could have done to save his life, to prevent him from being shot. My fear of feeling powerless hindered me from getting in touch with this core emotion, unwilling and unable to accept my lack of control.
I don’t want to forget about Caden! Somehow, letting go was synonymous to forgetting in my mind, despite that being far from the truth. I never forgot about my past students and friends who took their lives, nor my grandparents who passed away when I was younger.
Letting go is liberating myself from the emotional entanglements that come with his death, and the deaths and traumas which preceded it. Letting go is saying to myself, I will live each day the best I can for those still alive and to honour those who passed.
If I told you acceptance was an easy fix, I’d be lying. At times, I still want to live in denial. My mind tells me that reality and feelings of helplessness may overwhelm me. Such fears are often my mind’s attempt at protecting me based on what it learnt in past experiences; I may have lacked the emotional capacity in the past.
However, in the presence of those who choose to show up with love, I am always reminded of the option to face life on life’s terms. Today, I can thank my brain for its attempt at protecting me and not letting my fears paralyze me.
Some days, practicing acceptance means embracing the messy emotions that I feel and giving myself permission to express them. As humans, we are gifted with emotions that allow us to connect with ourselves and with others.
There is so much therapeutic value in sitting with another person who can remind us that grief isn’t a linear process, that it is safe to feel my feelings with their full intensity and depth in their presence (or by ourselves). I have realized that, only after allowing myself to feel, am I able to gain perspective to act in ways that are loving.
Having experienced the deaths of two teenagers this past year, I can better accept the transient and fleeting nature of our lives. I had come to acknowledge that acceptance isn’t a destination to arrive at, more so than a transitory state.
I may drift in and out of varying degrees of acceptance in my life, whether it be in how I grieve or move through life. To actively surrender and re-surrender to reality is a lifelong process that I have only begun to tap into, and have yet to master.
There are still days where I struggle immensely with acceptance, where I doubt if I am grieving “right” (as if there is a right way). I find it calming to imagine the voice of my friend Jason who always tells me, “there is nothing is wrong with you for feeling and grieving.”
When that doesn’t work, I phone a friend or ask to meet for coffee. Somehow, reality seems a tad more palatable and less unbearable when it’s shared.
