Grief, Grace & Star Wars
It has been a whole season since I've written. The holidays, new year, health crisis, political tensions, and personal special days have stacked tall these last few months. I chose to give myself some grace in my grieving by watching through the Star Wars movies, starting with The Mandalorian, of course. Thank you, Disney+.
Photo by Charlie Robert on Unsplash
It was the breathing room I needed to process my grief during these strange and hard days. No personal guilt trips for not writing or even keeping my own expectations of myself to myself. Nope. I chose to let it all go and be in the day, each day. Also, decided to check out of the heaviness a bit by watching this epic story unravel.
It was good.
I gave myself the grace and space to allow it to be a tough season. As I watched these movies, I had room to process my sadness, grief, and even joy. One of the beautiful things about films and stories is that we can relate - even to an epic intergalactic battle of the dark side against the light.
The human experience of life, celebration, joy, justice, passion, anger, truth, and loss exists in the Star Wars Episodes. It helped assist my heart in feeling all I needed to feel but struggled to do so. For me, those back to back hard days were challenging to process. Let's just call it what it is; grief is HARD. I think this must be one reason stories, written, told, and shown through film, can be such a great help to us.
I share this because I want you to be encouraged. Whatever you're going through, whatever you've faced, know it's okay to let it be difficult. It's okay to process those hard emotions in a variety of ways. It does not have to be a cookie-cutter formula for every person.
Pause and listen to what's going on internally. If you have some options to give yourself an emotional and mental break (that's not harmful), then go for it. Trust that the "knower" inside of you will let you know when you've walked through what you need to walk through and will let you know what your next step might be. You'll know when you need to push yourself a little harder, and if you let yourself, you can also know when you may just need to give yourself some grace and maybe a little Star Wars to boot.