07 Aug I’m Grieving: What Should We Do About It?

Recently I experienced a very painful loss. It hurts in a deep, troubling, visceral way.

Please pause. Take a breath. Notice  your response to the above statement.

An intense emotion, whether it’s yours or someone else’s, almost always generates a response. In this case, when you read my statement of grief, did you back up for a moment, wanting to steer clear of the upset? Or, perhaps,  did your heart go out to me? Maybe it crossed your mind to send me an email, practice “tonglen”, or just send love my way however you tend to do that.

How does your response to my own grief reflect the way you relate to your own difficult emotions? Do you tend to get away from the pain as quickly as possible, understand or resolve  whatever caused it, soothe its intensity with EFT, or perhaps dive right into it as a personal growth project?

More than likely  your response varies, and includes some combination  of the above approaches.

Emotions make us want to move, to do something. Even the original Latin word  for emotion means “to move outward.”

But this is where so many of us get stuck. Because it’s the emotion itself that needs to move outward. And all we need to do, in order for that to happen, is let it.

How do we let it happen? Most of all, by doing nothing. By relaxing into the space in which the emotion moves. By letting it do its own thing, and by following along with gentle, caring, tuned-in but non-interfering attention. That’s it. Almost always. End of story.

I’m writing to you about this with a recognition that if you’re on my list you already possess significant emotional intelligence. You may even know how to “surf” your emotions the way I teach.

And still, for all of us, me included, this doing nothing is the easiest part to forget and the hardest part to practice.

We all want to help, to change, to fix, to console, to find the meaning  – whether we’re dealing with  ourselves or those we care about.

Yet, all of our efforts in this regard  are bound to create the opposite effect if we haven’t first done nothing. That’s true no matter how good our intentions. Even compassion, if it feels like the offering comes from our own need,  will end up  feeling like a cluttering intrusion.

On the other hand, if we first  facilitate  the greatest possible presence and communion, both within ourselves and between each other, then whatever aid and insight may  be called for next  will flow with the greatest ease and be integrated in the fullest possible way

So if you want to be of the greatest service to yourself and other, when painful emotions are present, above all, do nothing first. Just tune in and let the rest evolve from that attunement.

If you were here right now, I’d just want you to sit beside me. Close but not too close. I’d want to feel that you were open  to yourself, and to me. I’d want silence, at least at first. I’d want support me in creating the space of stillness in which my grief could find its own rhythm, its own inner and outer expression.

If you truly understood that anything more would be less, and therefore you offered nothing more, at least for a good, long while, that would be the greatest and rarest gift possible.

Could you give such a gift to those you love? To yourself?