Grieving with Grace
CredibleMind Ambassador Blog by Leo Bierman, MS, LAc | View Original Blog
Grief is a part of life, and it comes in many forms. It often comes when we don’t expect it, whether it is from a new loss, or from an old loss that is paying our hearts a visit again. Grief is natural, just as death is, yet it can be profoundly difficult to experience. Grief can sometimes remain for a long time; far longer than we sometimes might want or expect. Despite its difficulty, grief can teach us deep lessons about how to relate to life and to death. Learning to grieve with grace can take us from a place of overwhelm and despair to a place of understanding, beauty, and transformation.
In Chinese medicine, grief is understood to be the experience of losing a part of our identity. When we lose something, the feeling of grief is the experience of our identity trying to understand how to “be” after a part of it is gone.
When something deeply connected to us is lost, the mind often reacts by either grabbing or avoiding, and trying to hold on to that which has already changed or passed, or, rejecting, denying, or dissociating from what has occurred. This is the mind moving toward the experience, or moving away from the experience. When the mind reacts in one of these ways, our relationship with reality and our capacity to receive what is present is temporarily interrupted, and we become stuck, unable to continue to flow with the ever-changing present and adapt to our circumstances. Being stuck in this way can lead to emotional pain, as well as to physical symptoms.
Coming into a healthy relationship with loss ultimately involves learning to be present with any thoughts or emotions that may arise. We learn to sit with our experience compassionately and with awareness. Neither grabbing them nor following their course, nor resisting, avoiding or rejecting them. When we can be present in this way with what arises, something simple but profound begins to occur: the emotions and thoughts begin to lose their grip and weight, and they begin to change. Over time, this allows us to come back into relationship with things as they are, and to be free to receive what is here in every moment.
One of the beautiful and mysterious consequences of this way of grieving is that as you become radically present, you may find that what you once feared or believed was lost, is somehow found to be ever-present. The form may have changed, but beneath the form you may find something that never changes. Even with the loss of a loved one, though the person may no longer be with you in form, you may find a very real inward connection to them that remains.
In Chinese medicine, grief is related to the season of Autumn, when life begins to die away and withdraw. Autumn is followed by Winter, a time when silence reigns, and a time that is connected to the ancestors, the collective unconscious, and the great Mystery. The emotional challenge associated with Winter is fear. This points to a great truth in the healing and transformation of grief. To move on from the season of Autumn, we must learn to be present in the midst of mystery and the unknown, even when it might be scary. To learn to sit with the unknown is part of the secret to allowing our mind to be present and open amidst great change and loss. When we can do this, we sheperd the loss of Autumn into the silent mystery of Winter, and sail its depths, until finally Spring begins to bloom with new life once more.
