We are all grieving. Progressive and MAGA, rich and poor, young and old, everyone. Not only are we grieving, but few are relating to our grief in a way that brings us to a deeper sense of meaning and connection.
We often think of grief as feeling sad because someone has died or left or because we have lost part of our identity. Grief is much more than that. Grief is all the painful emotions that arise when we feel separate. Feeling angry, scared, helpless, frustrated, contemptuous, all of these are grief reactions and almost always when we experience grief, we get lost in the story, the trigger. “Why are we grieving?” We ask. Rarely do we explore “What does it actually feel like to grieve?” Can we grieve consciously?
Rumi said that grief can be the garden of our compassion. Wonderful! The compassionate heart has the defining quality of being a connected heart. A heart not separate but connected to others, to God, to the earth and to ourselves. Grief is not a problem to be solved, but an essential, sacred aspect of each of us as finite human beings. Feeling the grief in your body, the sensations of being angry, or arrogant, of feeling helpless or afraid, however the grief is manifesting right now, is the necessary first step into our connected, compassionate heart. Not only feeling the grief, but bringing mercy and fierce tenderness to the encounter. Love always brings loss. Grief dares us to love again, to be compassionate.
Grief can be collective as well as individual. A recent survey showed that almost 2/3 of Americans believe that our society is irreparably divided, beyond healing. Political divisiveness, economic disruption (AI, generational inequality, globalization), social injustice, mass shootings, global climate change, ancestral grief; all of these generate collective grief. This meta crisis demands a fundamental transformation in consciousness, rooted in conscious grief work both individually and collectively.
What is your response to the present conditions? We can get lost in reactive emotions. We can distract and try to stay unfeeling. There is a third possibility that is calling out to each of us. Be with these emotions intimately. Let them be the gateway to feeling connected. Only by being connected to ourselves and to each other, connected to the One, will we find our way out of this seemingly irreparable brokenness. Until we learn to live with the aliveness of our own grief, the grief of others will be too much to bear and we will keep those others at a painful and numbing distance.
— RamDev Dale Borglum
The longing you express is the return message.
The grief you cry out from draws you toward union.
Your pure sadness that wants help is the secret cup.
Rumi
