Something that has surprised me in my most recent grief season is the contrast between how fine and how not fine I can be – in one day, in one minute. This morning, for example. I’ve only been awake for about two hours. But the range of emotions that I have already experienced is daunting.

Meditation as a tool in grief

Having just finished a twenty-minute meditation, my mind and heart are very clear and I feel nothing at all. This is probably why meditation is the most important tool in a grieving person’s arsenal. It returns you, briefly, but regularly to the person that you are. If you dwell longer than necessary in your suffering, meditation is like a reset button. If you sit long enough, if you allow things to rise, if you let go of them as they rise, you enter into a clearing in a field – it is the field that Rumi so famously invited the lover into: “There is a field beyond right and wrong; I’ll meet you there.” There isn’t really any morality in the place where one arrives through meditation. You aren’t assessing who was right and who was wrong anymore. You are dwelling in the delight of your own presence, the only real way to connect to the divine, through the inner doorway. The trick is that this doorway is also the only real way to connection with other people. If for only a brief few minutes, you release your self-medicating thought patterns and habits. You step out, however briefly, into the sun. The warmth on the face holds you there, and then releases you back to your life, renewed.

Some people seem to think that meditation is a kind of suppressing of feelings. Rather, it is the opposite. In meditation, one fully feels their feelings, but one doesn’t cling to them. One allows them to pass. In doing so, we learn the true nature of emotions – like waves that wash over us. We don’t have to hold on to them to validate them.

Other tools: Acupuncture, Restorative Yoga, Yoga Nidra

I am not an expert in Chinese medicine but my sense of how that system deals with emotions is similar to what I have said here. And that is why acupuncture can be so profoundly supportive of both one’s healing and one’s meditation practice. After a good acupuncture treatment, especially one from the Five Element tradition, you don’t feel anything at all. You are not happy, and you are not sad. You just are. For those experiencing really extreme emotions, this break from intensity is so very welcome. We must be careful not to spoil it. Don’t pick up your phone! Don’t go to the grocery store. Don’t go to a space that will activate your grief. Savor the essence of your own being.

[For those afraid of needles, restorative yoga has virtually the same effect, especially if you can take a class from a true master like Kathryn Robinson. I take the Friday 5:15pm class at Abhaya Yoga through Zoom with her every week. ] Restorative yoga works by calming the sympathetic nervous system and activating the parasympathetic nervous system - the rest, digest, and heal part of our nervous system. If you are interested in studying this on your own, you can also use this resource from Judith Lasater. I’ll try to post a restorative class on my Yoga page soon so you can try it for free. Any yoga Nidra can also help. I like this one.]

I had a dream many years ago that helped me to understand the nature of emotions as waves or a current. In the dream, I was white water rafting. I fell out of the boat, kind of willingly from what I remember. I felt the current draw me under. It held me there. There was a moment of question – to fight or not? But there was no real thinking, only a knowing: Do not fight the current. You will resurface at the right time. Then I woke up. That is my advice to anyone riding the rollercoaster of grief:

Do not fight the current, you will resurface at the right time. In the meantime, check out the Headwater song “Tomorrow.” Put that shit on loop. You are already under; let the wave wash over you.

“Trust the FUCKING Process”

When people say to trust the process, I want to punch them in the face. I don’t think that is helpful. I think it is a cliché that is said by people who have not even begun the process. No one giving themselves to “the process” says this. We have too much reverence for the forces shredding our lives. But I have been able to trust, even in the midst of the ugliest emotions and thoughts, that they will wash over me, that I will resurface sometime.

With this understanding of emotions as waves that wash over us, I allow myself to think or feel virtually anything. I have mined the depths of ugliness possible for the human heart. It is a valuable process. I feel compassion and deep union with others whose choices abhor the collective. I see what pain and thought processes took them there; I have had them myself. For me, it is better to allow one’s self the full range of thoughts and emotions, but to be disciplined about action. I do not say the many things that I want to say. I do not do many things that I want to do. Somewhere in this tension, between allowing and discipline, is an authenticity of experience that is deeply grounding. I see what is possible in this moment, but I discipline my own behavior to align it with my values. In doing so, my choices have even greater value. Because I do not suppress my feelings, because I truly feel them, but chose to act in a very disciplined way, I am acting from a place of integrity, not from a place of suppression and denial.

Grief and Values

Grief can be a deeply reflective time about values. When other people’s behavior grieves us, when our own behavior grieves us, it tells us what our values are. Becoming clear about these values (and I mean literally having a list on the fridge) facilitates the rebuilding process that slowly draws one out of the grief, and into one’s next life. There are many choices to make, in the rubble of grief. When we are unsure which way to go, we can trust that whichever choice is most in line with our own values will take us where we want to go. I’ll do a full post on this topic, when it feels right.

In the meantime, blessings to you on your grief journey. Keep going.

peace & love, @nn