Grief

Grief is the process between losing and learning to live with that loss.

The harder you loved, the harder you’ll grieve.

Those of us who are not in the denial game want to feel this loss and to hold it close, so that its blade can cut. When those wounds become scars, they are felt reminders of the amount of our loss and the love that remains.

You can grieve a death, an ending, something you realise you never had (a parents’ full support, say, or understanding from a partner). Loss comes always and everywhere. If we never lost anything we would never gain anything new: every new step requires that we leave the last footprint behind.

Beware those who dance around their grief with busyness and denial. The grief is there, but it is not being processed. This is a like a cupboard full of junk that you keep dancing past, the cupboard stays full of junk. One day, when they try to shove that latest piece of crap in there, the door won’t shut any more and the whole messy lot of it comes tumbling out at once. This might look like ill health or even breakdown.

Beware those who give a time limit for grief. Your grief belongs to you. Nobody has the right to dictate to you how much you should be feeling it, how you express it or how long it should take.

How the hell would they know what you are feeling and what you need?! You barely know yourself and you are living it. Have you noticed that the ones who tell us how to do something are often the very same ones shoving all that rubbish into that cupboard and tap-dancing by it every day singing, “Nothing to see here”

Grief is love in absentia.

After a time you realise that the love goes on, that it is alive. The person has gone, but the love remains.

For those grieving something they did not have, a sober mother or a kind dad, say, the love becomes what you hold for yourself. You are grown now and you are learning how to love yourself in the way that they could not. There is peace in that process, and the quietness of heart that comes with forgiveness.

For those grieving the end of a relationship, the love shows up in the gratitude you have for the children you made together or in your capacity to remember past times of joy.

We need to grieve better and we need to acknowledge our losses with our friends and beloveds. Only then will we get better at allowing the process in ourselves; only then will we become more patient and generous as we travel alongside a friend moving through theirs; only then can we help our children to understand and move through their own losses and sadnesses.

Sarah x

Enough

These words won’t resonate for some, but for others they are crucially important:

How much is going to be enough?

How many promotions are you going to say yes to, because they asked, because they want you? Rather than because you want it, have the bandwidth for it, can manage your other responsibilities, be there for the ones you love and take the job.

How many marathons is enough marathons? Who are they for? What is it that you think they say about you, when your knees are shot and your back hurts? Is all that pain for that moment of glory a good deal?

How perfect does that event have to be? Are you micromanaging every tiny piece of it, lest something be missing or someone find fault with it? What does it look like when you find a way to say this is enough, leave the rest to grace and let things be. How might life be different then? Less stressful, more grounded.

How much love is enough love? Do you really need everyone to like you? Do you feel discomfort that that one person over there doesn’t seem to like you very much? Can you live with it? Can you find a way to let the love that surrounds you (I have no doubt of this) be enough?

How far?

How fast?

How many?

How perfect?

Before you understand that no amount of external can bring you peace internal.

Before you realise that you are unique, whole, loved and that everything is going to be ok.

Everything is going to be ok. Let go and let be a little more. Search inside yourself for the feeling of trust.

The photograph above is the perfect illustration: you’ve been stretching towards that final room for too long. That’s where you think love, acceptance and safety lie.

But look around you, it is here. You are already in the room. You are alive, loved and brilliantly you and there is no other who is just like you in the whole world. Your folks don’t love you because you are perfect, they love you for your insconsistencies and foibles. Those are things that make you wonderfully human.

And the ones who don’t love you? That’s their choice. There is nothing you can or should do about it. Not loving is their problem to solve, not your challenge to win.

You are enough. I know you have been broken, made mistakes and stumbled. Did you think there could be a life without pain if you just worked hard enough?

Stop killing yourself for the eternal something or someone else that will prove you are good. Learn the art of love in all its forms and acceptance, energy and joy will surely follow.

Sarah x

Beginners Mind 2 - Chandogya Upanishad

In the Chandogya Upanishad, an enlightened teacher sends his son for his traditional 12 years learning about spiritual teachings an rituals from a spiritual teacher. The son returns from this teaching thinking he knows it all - he has become a little arrogant and proud. He is young; we have all been that person.

His father sees straight through him. He asks his son what he has learned & the son lists everything.

The father admits this is very impressive, but asks: “Have you learned that by learning which everything else is known?”

The son admits he does not know this teaching. He is confused by it and humbly asks, “Please teach me, sir.”

There is a very famous story from Zen, which illustrates this need to stay humble if we are to learn important things:

A learned man once went to visit a Zen teacher to inquire about Zen. As the Zen teacher talked, the learned man frequently interrupted to express his own opinion about this or that. Finally, the Zen teacher stopped talking and began to serve tea to the learned man. He poured the cup full, then kept pouring until the cup overflowed.

“Stop,” said the learned man. “The cup is full, no more can be poured in.”

“Like this cup, you are full of your own opinions,” replied the Zen teacher. “If you do not first empty your cup, how can you taste my cup of tea?”

Likewise, in this story from the Chandogya Upanishad, the son was so full of his own accomplishments that he had failed to learn the most subtle of teachings.

Now, the father through 16 volumes of verses of the Chandogya Upanishad explains that everything in the universe is one.

“Tat tvam asi” says the father all the way through: “You are that”

He teaches that all beings are intimately connected to universal energy and cannot be separated from it. Everything emanates from that energy and returns to it. All is one. A split seed seems to contain nothing, but from that ‘nothing’ grow great trees. In the same way consciousness, which you cannot see, is the source of the entire universe, is what you are and cannot be separated from.  

Tat tvam asi – you are that. All one.

The power of the father’s own attainment allows the son to get what 12 years of spiritual learning could not teach him. When the son’s wisdom comes, it comes not from books or intellectual understanding, but from being open to receiving it.

Like all Upanishadic lessons, the teaching itself is very simple: to learn the truth, open your heart, listen and be humble. Maintain a willingness to suspect that you know nothing yet. Have an open heart, an open mind and the capacity to listen, so that what is true can fall into your lap.

Sarah x