Learning to feel
Grief walks in our lives with many faces, showing itself through recognizable tears but also through a sense of overwhelm, confusion, anger, isolation, numbness, perhaps a deep inner sense that something is missing that we can never seem to appease. Grief comes from the loss of a loved one, of course, but also comes in many other forms: life transitions, relationships ending, witnessing and feeling the loss of the natural world around us, the loss of animal and plant life, the loss of culture and language, the slavery, abuse and colonization of our communities. Intergenerational connections bring us not only our own grief, but the lineages of grief and pain that are passed down from our ancestors. For many people, it may be the deep sense of loss of not being born into a family that was capable of loving and nurturing them in the ways they needed. Our culture does not recognize these other forms of grief. There is no place for them to be held in relationship and healed. And so we can live isolated, believing that something is wrong with us for not being able to function and ‘get over it’ like the world around us is telling us to.
Learning to grieve is one of the most important skills of resiliency that human beings can cultivate. Grieving serves an important physiological and energetic process, allowing the body to move through intense emotion and traumatic stress. My work with clients is deeply influenced by the authors Francis Weller, Martin Prechtel, Stephen Jenkinson, William Warden, and Frank Ostaseski. As a hospice social worker and grief counselor, I have sat with many people facing the loss of a loved one, or the loss of their own lives. These experiences, as well as my own losses, have shaped who I am as a therapist and human being.
I believe we need to meet and tend to the grief that we carry, not to make it ‘go away,’ but to come into relationship with it and allow ourselves to be changed. When we experience loss, or are preparing for loss, it can bring up all of the other forms of grief in our life. A hole is being carved in our hearts, and we must learn to live from this new place. It is my honor to sit with you as you do this work, and learn who you are on the other side of meeting and making room for your grief. It is my honor to offer you support as you look at the world through these new eyes.
“After a sleepless night, worrying about the world
I stand in the whispering grass,
watching the mountains crouch
under their burden of sky.
The morning sun glides above the peaks
and the field is suddenly flooded
with turquoise light. A flock of redwings rise,
they turn together like a page of poetry.
I read between the lines
realize I am lonely, and afraid.
I worry about the wars, the weather,
the end of our beautiful, broken world.
I see the way we can harden our hearts
when fear is what moves us.
Now the marsh hawk cruises the yellow reeds, she dives swiftly
and some soft-furred creature’s life is over.
For each of us, hauling our basket of dreams,
it is only one breath, one breath,
that divides this world, and the next.
What is there to do then but give thanks,
Offer praise and gratitude for the sweetness we’re allotted,
Fling open our burning hearts, and help each other.”
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