Grief | I Am Well When You are Well

Your grief is your own. But you already know that, hey? You might feel the support of those that care so much about you; you know just how much of the stuff of sorrow is moved through alone. There are as many ways of Being With grief as there are humans to grieve.

Shared grief

I wonder how you’re moving through these days and weeks and months…and now years of what feels like unending grief? Some of us have lost Loves. All of us have lost security. Many have lost hope and companionship. We feel disrupted and lonely and relieved and confused.

Are you stumbling about in what feels like a sworling fog of grief and uncertainty?

Our conversations here move in and out of old griefs, and confused new losses. I (Sandra) get a bit fussy and impatient with my own — I find myself reaching for Holy Mischief. A laughing God. I get a bit sardonic and dark in my tackling of Impossible Sadness. Do I grieve? Oh, yes. But it’s a bit yell-y. I’m inclined to throw rocks and wish it all away. This belongs. It is one way of Being With the yaw of sadness.

Michelle is steady-on, on the other hand. A “walk softly upon the earth” sort of gal, she knows how to sink into the rich mud of melancholy and longing. A soil that will allow things to seed and sprout and grow. She softens when she speaks of the many losses of her own life. She moves in toward them with haunting song and patient presence. This belongs. It is one way of Being With the yaw of sadness.

Maybe you shuffle your feet into sneakers and head out for a long run.

You may paint or sing or poem your I MISS YOU ache.

Or, maybe you are stuffing your own grief just as deep down and far away as you possibly can. That, too, is one way of Being With the yaw of sadness.

A blessing for our grief

May I fully face life and death, loss and sorrow.
May I be open to the pain of grief.
May I find the inner resources to be present for my sorrow.
May loving kindness sustain me.
May I accept my sadness, knowing that I am not my sadness.
May I accept my human limitations with compassion.
May I accept my anger, fear, anxiety, and sorrow.
May I forgive myself for not meeting my loved one’s needs.
May I forgive myself for mistakes made and things left undone.
May sorrow show me the way to compassion.
May I be open with others and myself about my experience of suffering and loss.
May I receive the love and compassion of others.
May I find peace and strength, that I may use my resources to help others.
May all those who grieve be released from their sorrow.

~ Roshi Joan Halifax

Wounded healers

Pat McCabe says, “Be a being that causes all other life to thrive. Every single thing we do affects the whole. We didn’t arrive without Love, and I cannot be well if you are not well…”

We need each other, don’t we? To thrive and to be whole and to heal?

However you might find yourself being with grief in this moment, you are not alone in the very true Aloneness of this time. What would it be like to have someone simply bear witness to your telling? The telling of the story of your Love, or the narrative of your loss? Someone to listen to (just listen to…without fixing or saving or helping) whatever is you need to say out loud — about whatever it may be you need to say out loud? The angry and relieved and guilty bits. The parts that feel hope and those that feel abandoned.

Your resilience. Your vulnerability. Both are welcome here. You are a wounded healer.