As humans, every seven years we have a complete turnover of all of our cells. All of our old cells die and are replaced by replacement cells, genetically the same but a little different, older and aging, somewhat modified but still integral to the whole person.
This theory was something I heard at a time of crisis in my life. To use this paradigm as a template for all of life was easy to see and to understand.
If we are human then every seven years we would got through a new metamorphosis, the shedding of the old self and the acceptance of the new.
It makes sense then that everyone would go through something every so often that would aid them in this changing of the self. It could come in seven year increments or it could just happen in your life when you are ready for it.
No matter how good and easy our lives may be, every so often we go through something that shakes us up, sometimes shaking us to the core of our being. If we resist it, the healing process only takes longer. The way to healing is to go with the experiences and accept them as life experiences meant to bring us to the core of our being in order to gain new insights, new understanding, new direction, and ultimately fresh joy as we shed our old skin and put on a new one.
If life were a straight line on a graph, then the "7 Year Blip" would be that disturbance that jolts us into new cognizance of our human being, our life on this planet. Sometimes it might be a minor blip but often it is a major blip sort of like fibrulation equipment on a stopped heart where the shock causes the blip to restart the heart so the person can continue to live.
Robert Bly in his book, Iron John, talks of going down deep into the lake and coming up renewed. This theme is repeated in literature often, the act of diving deep into the self and surviving in spite of all of the motion to the contrary.
This year for me was a "7 Year Blip," a series of events that have shaken me to my soul and left me amazed that I have survived and thrived.
I had to have my beloved shih-tzu, Toby Tyler put down because he had a ruptured disk in his neck and got to the point where he could not walk and was in tremendous pain. I have never cried over a pet like that little guy. He was such a charmer, his care of me as the Lady of the House and him in his role of The Protector of the Lady of the House. He was such a dear.
A couple of months later my beloved 93-year-old grandmother passed away. Her last weeks were full of pain from compression fractures in her back from osteoporosis. Then she got pneumonia and had a blood clot on her lungs when she went into hospice care.
At the same time in our history, my community had its worst flood in recorded history, 18 feet of water above flood stage. My nephew lost his home but the rest of my family was ok. Everyone in the community was affected by the flood, me as a Realtor because so many moderately priced homes were lost and my market sphere is really first-time- home buyers with moderate incomes. So it has been a summer of hell for everyone.
Through all of this my business has suffered this summer from everything happening nationally and locally in the real estate market. Like trying to pull the camel through the eye of a needle.
A week ago a friend at my church committed suicide. A person no one would ever expect of dealing with demons was profoundly depressed and gave up.
So what do people do to get through their "7 Year Blip"?
They Hunker Down. They do " the next best thing to do". They take inventory and make decisions about what they are going to do next.
They experience their grief as the loss of all that is known and comfortable and then like all of grief, they try to reattach to life.
They receive help from those who are giving it, whether it is churches, prayer groups or in the flood cases, help from all over the nation to clean up. It has been the lesson of our lives in my community to see people arrive with clean-up supplies and crews willing to deal with it all. We have had streets lined with belongings and all of the drywall, appliances and everything that had to be pulled out of the houses to be thrown out. While it is horrible to see, we know that the sludge from gas, oil, sewage and other toxins really stank and left huge amounts of toxic mold wherever it went. These gracious crews from all over dealt with all of this during the hottest days of the year, during July and August on top of it all. Then there were the feeders and the caregivers. Meals were brought to the crews regularly along with water.
They seek out help in appropriate places - the hospice organization where my grandmother died, has a regular grief group that has been a godsend for some family members.
During extreme grief, or a series of life-changing events it is important to get professional help if need be. This is a very personal choice but if things are terrible, a counselor can help you put things into perspective.
They cry, pray, scream. Whatever is necessary. Sometimes they go to their closets to pray so they can experience the peace that only God can bring.
I hope and pray that when you go through your "7 Year Blip," however it rears its horrible head that you take it in stride, open yourself to all that can be learned from it, draw on the experience of others to help you get through. And always take a big view of it, as "This Too Shall Pass."
