Transforming Grief into Wisdom & Strength
Grief Has Many Faces
Grief is generally defined as mental or emotional suffering or distress caused by loss or regret, especially related to loss from the death of a loved one, but grief can be experienced by a variety of life circumstances.
Grief is often seen as the emotional state of sadness. I’ve come to understand grief as a pseudo identity that overlays the person who is suffering from emotional pain unexpressed. It is the repression of pain on a physical, emotional and mental level that leads to depression, fatigue and malaise and more severe mental and physical health conditions.
What inspired me to write about this topic is recently recognizing and moving through my own grief in the times that we are living. It is important to recognize grief before it gets an imperious hold on your sense of freedom, happiness and worthiness.
Healing Personal Grief Can Transform Global Grief
As Ghandi said, “Be the change you wish to see in world.” Healing our personal pain becomes part of healing collective pain. It takes one person to step back into the light and let our life be guided by love and goodwill. Fighting and war is not the solution. Right and wrong imprisons our ability to create solutions that honor ourselves and those we oppose. The process of healing pain begins in own minds and hearts.
I believe we are moving through a collective grief in the wake of Covid-19, government corruption and civil unrest as well as the uprising of white supremacy, racism, and alt-right militia attacks. In the collective grief we can only begin to heal the trauma through our awareness of our own grief by taking steps to reconcile our own emotional trauma that has occurred.
Getting To The Root Of The Cause
Grief is like a caged animal. It cries out for help and begs to be loved, accepted and released. If it is not attended to it will finally succumb to the confines of its reality. The pain will bury itself deep into the heart, body and mind. If neglected it will set itself into the fabric of the soul creating an energy disruption that blocks and limits your potential, fulfillment and joy. When we don’t get to the bottom of grief, suffering becomes a way of life. One will continue to re-enact situations that create and shape an identity of what it thinks it deserves and what it can accomplish or create this lifetime.
Most people understand grief as the loss of a loved one through death, but grief is experienced in many different situations. For example, our global grief can be a result of witnessing racial crimes and the corruption of power resulting in the loss of human dignity, respect and freedom. Being witness to the pain in our world can be felt as personal pain life and create a state grief.
In some situations, grief is experienced when you lose your sense of true self, purpose, confidence worth and value. Grief can then make you the victim, it can blame you for what happened, it can punish you into thinking you are inherently wrong. The loss of something meaningful becomes a status symbol of unexpressed pain. It begins to define you and define what is possible for your life
Lifting the veil of grief begins with you. When you bring awareness to your physical, emotional, mental and physical state you can identify the suppression of grief. Many times, we tuck things out of the way because our feelings are too uncomfortable to face. And we must get on with business as usual. We either bury it or re-live it over and over.
The first step is to identify the trauma or situation that created your grief. You are then able to begin to liberate yourself from the isolation of grief. Here are 4 ways you can identify if you are experiencing a grieving state.
1. Emotional
As a way to cope, often people will compartmentalize a painful situation, but our emotional state become the backdrop to our life and once enthusiastic zest for life can become dampened in the state of grief. That is when your face smiles despite the frown in your heart. Your ability to create movement in your life feels impinged by an invisible force that feels like your feet are weighted down in sludge with each step you take. The simple things that once brought you joy, and happiness no longer become your source of fulfillment. Your emotions point to the very source of your pain.
When your pain is named your grief can find relief.
Feelings Associated With Grief
Anxiety, Depression, Fear, Guilt, Despair, Mood Swings, Shame, Easily Triggered to Anger or Resentment, Hopelessness, and Loneliness.
2. Mental
When grief is present it is often difficult to maintain a positive outlook on life. Examples of this include a negative thinking loop, lack of focus, negative self-talk, doubt, blame, resentment, procrastination, brain fatigue, and lack of motivation.
3. Physical
When our emotional pain is not addressed it begins to manifest into the body. Our body then becomes the final indicator that we have not addressed our grief. For further reading about the correlation between the emotional and the physical pain: For Huff Post Article Click Here
Physical Symptoms Experienced
Lack of energy, loss of appetite, fatigue, frequent sickness, lethargy, muscle aches and body pains that come and go.
4. Spiritual
When we experience grief we can become disconnected from our soul, the resource and abundance of our life force. This manifests itself in the loss of purpose, trust, imagination, fulfillment, love, hope, truth, peace and joy.
1. Self Care practices
When you engage in self-care practices you allow yourself a nurturing space for to begin to shift the pain into a depth of wisdom and inner strength. Here are a few:
Bodywork, spiritual guidance, movement yoga, biking, walking, breath work, martial srts, Chi Gong, being in nature, watching uplifting movies, documentaries or listening to podcasts.
2. Give grief a name
Ask the feeling to become a voice, if it had a voice what would it say. What is the core feeling of the voice. Click here for SOUL WRITE Journal Practice.
3. Give Grief a story.
Have you ever told a friend or partner a story about your past and as you told your story you could feel the well of emotions rise? Grief needs witness. Find an empathic listener to be witness to the pain you have endured by your experience.
4. Grief Needs Redemption and a Sacred Burial Ground.
Forgiveness is letting your experience become wisdom and your guiding light.
5. Get Support
Begin working with a coach, mentor or therapist who has experience or specializes in grief.
In this human life we are all going to experience grief—and now as a nation, global grief. I’ve personally experienced grief at many junctures in my life. As a spiritual coach I assist people in transforming their lives by helping them change attitudes, beliefs, judgments and their personal narratives that do not serve their human birth right to be happy, free and safe.
Grief cannot be ignored. You must excavate the pain and bring it to the light. The light heals, loves and transforms it into beautiful wisdom while the soul expands. Explore more with the SOUL WRITE journal practices.