Opening a Gateway to Grief

“Grief is a powerful solvent, capable of softening the hardest of places in our hearts.” Francis Weller

In our fast paced world, we don’t seem to have time to catch our breath nor to reflect on the meaning of our lives.

Our attention becomes easily hijacked by multifunctional phones, TV, shopping and other distractions. We are in a hurry to get somewhere and we don’t have the time to wait, to be with the unknown or to sit in silence.

In such a contracted state a “lack of time” seems to create, the conditions are set up to not feel much. It feels normal to live in a constant state of disconnect, from ourselves and from each other.

Have you considered the possibility that a busy lifestyle and constant pursuit of success is a symptom of running away from something?
Like a feeling or an experience that you don’t want to have?

Something that frightens you.

Something that might be painful or unpleasant.

One of the feelings we run away from on a personal and collective levels is GRIEF.

Grief descends us into the territory of the heart and our bodies.

When we experience loss and we are unwilling to feel it, we create artificial resistances, we tense up our bodies and we no longer experience the world around us through our hearts, through the open space of vulnerability.

When grief is allowed to move through us, the space where grief dwelled fills with lightness and a sense of rootedness.

Numb places become alive and the icy parts of our being melt into warmth. The spectrum of our capacities becomes broader. We feel stronger. We experience greater openness and connection.

Uncried tears yearn to come to the surface and in moments of surrender, when you finally give in, the salty water can cleanse you.

Rebirthed through the pain we are once again ushered from our isolation back into the world… to live and to love…this time, more deeply.

The inherent meaning of life has a place to land.
Soulful living becomes more possible.

Life feels richer in its complexity.

We become wiser.

Grief has been a steady companion in my life. I learned to mourn the losses of childhood, the heartbreak of relationships, the transition of my career and most recently the loss of my grandma.

The refugee and immigrant experiences, which I’ve gone through, contain multiple forms of loss. The geographical transition is followed by shifts in the inner landscape. 

As immigrants, we feel like we lost a part of our identity. We relinquish outside structures of support that shaped us and held us in place. We miss people we can’t be in physical proximity with for extended periods of time. We lived “in between” countries, in liminal spaces.

In the experience of refugees, we also loose homelands that often times we can’t return to. We loose communities that our lineages used to belong to. We loose a sense of continuity and we learn to live in exile, while longing for new forms of love and belonging to take shape.

What we lost, either by choice or by force, needs to be acknowledged and felt because it matters. The weight of grief that occupies our hearts and bodies, can be lightened, not in a goal oriented way, but rather in an “ebb and flow” kind of way. 

The process is often unpredictable and asks us to surrender and to trust that deeper love is available and can contain the multiple losses we’ve endured.

I am no longer afraid of the intense emotions, nor the softer ones that spontaneously wash over me. I now know, that the less I resist, the safer I feel and the more I trust the movement of grief.

If you need support in moving through grief, then I can offer you a course that you can take “Opening a Gateway to Grief” which is available on InsightTimer app. 

This course will support you in understanding the stages of grief and it will help you identify where you are in the process. It includes a guided meditation, as well as a breathwork practice that will gently guide you through your emotions. 

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