The Magic of Grief

Grief profoundly changes people. But why?

What is it about this emotion that completely unravels people? halts lives? cements newness inside forever and journeys alongside us for life?

I can now say I’ve had the strange, awful pleasure of meeting grief. It was a cool summer evening. My ex-husband and I holding each other, weeping, saying a final goodbye. As we looked deep into each other’s eyes and thanked each other for the last four years, as hard as they were, something ravaged my body unlike anything I’ve ever known. A force that felt like a portal in my chest opening, sucking all of me into it without my consent.

The feeling was like being totally broken open by something outside myself. Broken open and then crushed. Something that torpedoed my body into itself with no option but to surrender.

As humans we find ways to numb our anger and suppress our rage; cope with our sadness or loneliness in ways that still make life liveable. But grief is the one emotion that you can’t quite escape. Grief seems to take all those feelings and package them up into this one, super-powered hyper-somatic that takes you out with one blow and you are literally never the same again.

Grief takes on this godlike form, shaking you at the shoulders saying “this thing…this loss…you have to feel this.” And your body collapses on the floor, heaving, tears streaming into your eardrums, feeling into this strange darkness.

Interestingly enough, there is a Psychological diagnosis for people that actually do attempt to escape grief- Prolonged Grief Disorder. Symptoms include persistent yearning for the deceased, preoccupation with the deceased, difficulty accepting the death, avoidance of reminders of the deceased, and impairment of daily functioning.

When individuals don’t face their grief, their lives stop functioning altogether.

Emotions make our lives ‘real’. They illuminate and guide the perception of our reality and all our human connections. As people, we also tend to subconsciously avoid unpleasant emotions and seek out the ‘good’ ones. And when we consistently seek out those pleasant emotions over feeling the less-pleasant ones lingering in our bodies, our lives almost become distorted; this layer of (aesthetic) falsity painted over our (muddy) honest truth.

Living under capitalism can heighten this distortion, as ‘good feelings’ are often just one purchase away. We can glaze over all our life with cheap goodness and become some other ‘pleasant’ self while we avoid the pain and longing in our bodies. (Our bodies can never lie.)

And that is where grief becomes our ultimate grace. Grief becomes this magic portal to reality. It knows that inviting us into the depths of pain can open us up to experience our life in all its truthfulness once again.

Grief brings us back to the present moment where there is no escape from the feelings in front of us. There is no way out but to go inward and courageously feel it all.

To grieve is to sit alone and experience the body fully as it warps into chaos; to feel the waves of stabbing pain deep in our chest. To grieve is to allow people that love us to hold us. To surrender even more to the truth that we need support. It is brave, important, deeply spiritual work.

Grief is a spirit guide. Working with grief is the only way to transcend on the journey because once we meet her, she journeys with us forever. She labours in our bodies and as we trust her with every contraction, together we birth something..some sort of remembering that

this suffering is not for nothing.

there is something good here.

there is something good in being alive.

And to surrender like this ages us. I mean ages us like a fine wine. It gives our eyes more depth, more light. We are humans that know how to be held and cared for. We are more present and alive to life, our friends, and our lovers.

Befriending grief in this lifetime simply means feeling the full spectrum of emotions and still keeping our hearts open for more. And the more we feel, the more we realize that our feelings don’t have to mean anything. It doesn’t have to mean something to feel angry. It doesn’t mean you are angry. It just means anger happens to be right here now, needing to be felt.

A vibrant life is simply one that is honest. And grief invites us into that honesty.

And that is why my divorce was one of the best things I’ve ever been a part of. It was honest. It has situated me on a path of more honesty as I continue still to feel the grief in the loss of a partner who I loved so dearly. And this has only plummeted me further into honesty. And — you guessed it — my life has continued to become more and more vibrant.

…Magic!

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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