There’s much collective and personal grief that’s moving like a wave around the planet right now, along with sparks of new hope and vision for the future.
Honor your grief. Your grieving is a sacred act that can transmute sorrow into hope, tears into compassion, and anguish into action. As you express your sorrow, it’s possible to begin healing your heart, and helps release the grief of the collective too. Grieving opens a portal that connects you to the sacredness of your heart and body, to the Earth, and to the Divine. The Earth hears you, the ancestors and greater Presence hears you. You can also reach out to a friend, or to your community to ask for help and share in your grief.
There are so many kinds of grief and it’s important to honor what your heart is feeling, so you can compassionately attend to the sorrow you feel. Grieving is a necessary process for individual and collective healing. Is your grief from the loss of a loved one? From the cruelty of how others have been treated? Perhaps it’s the collective grief around racial injustice, or the gap between how the world is right now and how you long it to be? Perhaps it’s the sorrow of feeling cut off from others during the pandemic; or the loss of plans, a job, or dreams you had, that have now changed or disappeared?
Sometimes grief comes along unexpectedly like a wave that’s impossible to name. It may feel huge. Make sure to reach out if you need to, but remember that it’s ok to feel cracked open and not know why. You’re not crazy. You’re not coming apart at the seams. It means you’re a sensitive, caring being who needs to release the emotions moving in you, that are moving through these times, that need to be transmuted in order to be resilient and whole again.
Personally, every morning for months, as I get quiet for meditation, I have found myself overflowing in tears. Many times it’s tears of love and gratitude for the planet, mixed in with great sorrow. Each time that happens, I allow myself the full range of emotions, then paradoxically feel restored afterwards, ready to face the day. The strong emotions are no longer bottled up and they’re released into new resolve.
Give yourself the room, presence and time to grieve, to take care of yourself, and be renewed.