We often overlook the extent to which grief affects our lives.
There are obvious times, like the loss of a loved one, when grief is recognised and accepted. Yet even then, we often underestimate how long it will linger and how deep it will cut.
We are here to evolve whether we like it or not, and very often, when we expand, or things transition around us, they inescapably transform us.
We necessarily leave something, someone, or a part of us behind to make space for what’s to come.
This inevitably involves us coming face-to-face with grief, whether for a momentary meeting or a lengthy interaction.
For where there is change, there is grief to some degree.
They are a package deal.
Hence, the truth is that grief is more like a dependable unwanted companion who inconveniently reappears as we navigate life’s transitions than a long-lost relative with whom we rarely rendezvous.
To embrace the new, we must let go of the old. And when we do, grief accompanies us like a layer of grey that dims our overall brightness and drags at our hearts like an abandoned child until it is acknowledged and felt.
We grieve missed opportunities, failed relationships, shattered hopes, unrealised dreams, and everything in between.
Let’s take a deeper look at grief together.
Why do we grieve?
Grief is the outpour of pain, sorrow and despair resulting from our hearts being cracked open.
Grief allows us to release what once was part of us in some way but no longer is.
In doing so, we reveal a rawness that strips us back to a place of vulnerability and allows more Light of our Selves to enter.
At its most intense, grief is humbling and ravages us into a position of deep surrender and personal rebirth, allowing us to vulnerably move on without what we have lost.
During its more lenient encounters, it draws us nearer to our hearts to hear what it is saying while it aids us in cleansing all the stockpiled emotional clutter that we are now ready to let go of.
Whatever force it happens upon you with, the only way out is through. Embracing it enables us to elevate to a more purified state.
Even if what we release from our lives harms us, we still need to grieve it. It was once part of our existence but no longer is. This leaves a hole within us that needs to be validated and felt through grief before it can be replenished.
As painful as grieving can be, it is essential for moving forward without having one foot in the past and one in the future. Or even both feet in the past.
Grief brings us back to presence so we can be with all that is now. It helps us fully integrate all that was or was not so we can move forward with an open heart.
“Grief can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life’s search for love and wisdom.” - Rumi
How Does Grief Operate?
Grief can either creep up on you, slowly nibbling at your heart one bite at a time. Or it can steamroll over you, leaving you stunned and wondering how you will ever be able to attempt to continue to put one flattened foot in front of another to keep going in your life.
Sometimes, grief lurks in the shadows of our hearts and compartmentalises our psyches for years or decades, abandoned for its inappropriateness, as it eagerly hopes and patiently waits for its chance to be admitted and felt so it can finally be free by our witness.
Whichever way it happens, whether what has departed is by choice or has suddenly been snatched away from you without your conscious permission, there is no established way to grieve what we release from our lives.
Every situation is unique, even to you.
Two similar situations will unlikely be the same even in your own life.
For instance, the experience of leaving one relationship could be entirely different from leaving another. By this, I don’t mean that one is less painful than the other; they might both agonise in various ways as they stir different things within us, depending on the circumstances and reasons for our departure.
And, there is no set time frame for grief.
Depending on the situation, it could last anything from a few hours to a few decades.
That is not for us to decide.
All we can do is do our best to face it bravely when it arises, holding space for it and having a faith-filled vision that a new life awaits us on the other side.
And trusting that it will greet us after our journey of mourning.
Losing A Loved One
This is probably the most accepted form of grief.
Losing a loved one when they pass away tends to be the most painful and heart-wrenching form of grief, for it is final as their physical body has literally left this world.
However, we also lose loved ones when relationships end, such as in divorces and other relationship break-ups. Even though the other person is still living in this situation, it often doesn’t lessen the intensity of the grief one can feel when facing it.
Relationships play a significant part in this life journey.
When there is a strong connection, whether to a parent, child, sibling, or friend that is so dear, they have become chosen family; suffering a loss in this area can be excruciating.
Whether it be because of a disagreement, someone moving away to a different country, or fill in the__________ to an experience, you’ve encountered, facing the departure and enduring the separation of a loved one can be crippling.
It takes immense strength and courage to endure such grief and rebuild your life without them as you come out the other end.
Perhaps we will always keep a piece of each other in our hearts, which we can access by tuning into the windows of the memories we’ve shared.
“Never. We never lose our loved ones. They accompany us; they don’t disappear from our lives. We are merely in different rooms.” - Paulo Coelho
Changing Career
Some are affected by this more than others.
It all boils down to how passionate you are about the career in question.
As we evolve through life, sometimes we no longer resonate with a career we were once passionate about, which spurs change. Or perhaps an injury forces you out of a career you deeply love and pivots you in a different direction.
In any case, if you have been in a career for any time, you identify with that chosen career. Where there is identification, there will likely be loss upon separation.
As we move on from one career to the next, we mourn losing our identity related to that career. For instance, if you have been a dancer all your life and are no longer dancing, it can be agonising to accept the loss of a passionate identity so close to one’s heart.
It is also freeing because it opens you up to other career options you may not have otherwise considered.
Whether you choose to make a career change or it is forced upon you, you need to grieve the loss of one to fully embrace another.
Relocating To Another Country
Although it is becoming more common these days, we might not all experience this one.
When we leave the place we call home for an extended period, it feels like a tree being uprooted to be planted elsewhere.
The tree seeks different nourishment, so its roots yearn for the nurturance of foreign soil to self-actualise and grow new branches. The new growth will not be realised if it does not change its environment.
This one can be intense, and a part of you will likely always remain with every single land you have called home.
The more times you relocate, the more homes you will embody. Each one will awaken different aspects of you, like keys to your untapped potential.
Leaving one place for another can be incredibly eye-opening and enriching but also extremely challenging.
Even though our hearts are calling us forward to move on, we become attached to our lifestyles, family, friends, and the environments we have come to love,
This heartache also needs to be felt through and can be harsh, even though a much-awaited new beginning beckons us forward.
“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.” - Winnie The Pooh
Letting Go Of An Outdated Version Of You
If you are alive, you will experience this one. Countless times. Either willingly or resistantly, and sometimes, both.
Whether we are moving from adolescence to adulthood, alcoholic to sober, carefree adult to parent, smoker to non-smoker, junk food enthusiast to health food junkie, or you name it, they all involve a level of loss and separation.
Yes, even if your new version of yourself is healthier and happier than the older version, you are still separating from an aspect of yourself that needs to be honoured and grieved.
Being grateful for the outdated version of you and how it served you will undoubtedly expedite the grieving process. But one must still feel through the mourning of letting the old you go, however brief or lengthy that may be.
Every time we release an older version of ourselves, we strip back a layer of identity to reveal a more genuine version.
This is usually uncomfortable, to say the least, as we are shedding more of our personality self to bring forth more of our authentic Self.
Emerging On The Other Side
Once you do, you will never be the same again.
Grief has smashed open your heart to let more Light in.
Your endurance has taught you to embrace life with a more open heart despite how many times it has been broken if you are strong enough to make it to the other side.
And that you are.
At grief’s hand, you have been strengthened and forged in its fire that has alchemised the layer of grey into a gilded layer of strength, courage, and resilience that wasn’t present before enduring your grief encounter.
If you are grieving in any way, hold on to your vision of the light at the end of the grief tunnel.
Hold on to the faith that you will emerge.
Keep putting one broken foot in front of the other because if you didn’t have the strength to endure what you are facing, it would not have been given to you in the first place.
You have what it takes. It lies within your heart, activated upon its shattering.
You have the bravery to rise above the dark waters of sorrow and pick up the pieces of your ruptured heart. Even though life will never be the same again, you will eventually feel lighter and better.
Take one breath at a time, one step at a time, and know you are inherently loved more than you could ever imagine.
You have the fortitude to emerge on the other side, walking in a new way with your heart wider open than before, allowing you to see life’s beauty through a different lens.
Be present with all you feel and trust that you will get through this like you have gotten through everything else.
Because that’s how resilient and brave-hearted you are, right?
Eventually, having your heart cracked open by intense sorrow allows you to feel more bliss.
And you are not walking this journey alone. You never are.
Keep going.
Infinite Love,
Ponder Woman
“I don’t think of all the misery, but of all the beauty that remains.” - Anne Frank
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