Grief
loss, courage, creativity and reverence
When grief comes to visit, it feels like a river. Whether a gentle trickle or a torrent, whether personal or collective, it always wants to flow.
For me, grief has been close by. A few weeks ago, my beloved father-in-law passed away. I met him first when I was 20, a fresh-faced university student meeting her new boyfriend’s dad. The three of us sat around the fire until 2am sharing stories of adventure and wonder. Over the years he continued to show me what it looks like to live with arms wide open to life. He was a doctor, mathematician, lepidopterist, musician, artist, climber, walker and party-er extraordinaire, but mostly he loved life.
When people die, we remember how they lived. Grief points us back to what they leave behind. It invites us to reflect on what really matters.
We see the hollowness of our everyday obsessions. How meaningless our search for approval, success and control, when all that remains when we’re gone are the ripples from how we’ve touched the world.
The river collects rivulets
When the river of grief flows, it washes out old undigested grief and a wider grief for the world. It can be a time of expansion and release if we allow ourselves to receive it. Because the effort required to hold grief at bay limits our vitality and creativity. It prevents us from opening to life and participating fully.
In Chinese medicine, grief is associated with the lungs: when we suppress grief, we collapse our lungs, and the impact this has on our breathing means we’re literally less able to take in the fullness of life.
But we’re similarly diminished when we drown in grief’s stories. When we become the one abused or abandoned as if that were the whole of who we are, we fortify the river without allowing it to flow.
Both suppressing and embellishing grief means we lose contact with the parts of us empowered to respond.
We become less receptive to other emotions as well, whether the call-to-action of anger or the warmth and vitality of joy. We cut ourselves off from receiving their gifts.
Courage, creativity and reverence
One of the gifts of grief is courage. Not the courage of a soldier who armours himself, but the courage of a tree whose strength comes from deep roots growing into the soil and wide branches supporting countless life.
In order to feel grief without collapsing inside it, we need to feel present in the body and connected to safety through nature, each other and our practices.
Like a tree, we draw courage up from the ground and in from all around. We breathe it into our lungs, holding them lifted and receptive to life, even when it hurts.
The more receptive we are, the more creative we are. Creativity isn’t just about personal fulfilment: the world needs wholehearted, embodied, creative responses more than ever these days.
And the world needs reverence too.
The courage to love and let go - to live with an open heart - turns us towards reverence. It reminds us how fragile and fleeting this precious life is. It teaches us to give and receive more tenderly, to honour each other more deeply.
Reverence invites us to walk lightly on this Earth and offer ourselves back with love.
In the end, grief points us back to love.
Grief returns us to love
We wouldn’t grieve if we didn’t love.
Our practice is to establish enough safety for grief to be felt, and to create time and space for it to flow. So it can remind us what we love and why we’re here.
All our emotions long to be honoured and welcomed in this way.
Try this now:
Become still.
Feel the ground.
Relax your jaw, shoulders and belly.
Take a soft, slow breath in through the nose and breathe out with a sigh or sound.
Place your hands somewhere on your body where you sense the presence of emotions.
Ask yourself gently: What are you feeling right now, my love?
Close your eyes and take time to listen.
Welcome whatever is here.
Breathe into it.
Soften around it.
Rest beside it with love.
This really matters.
Feeling our emotions here in the body with curiosity, kindness, and appropriate support, allows us to respond to life with greater authenticity and love.
The ordinary comes alive, and with that our unique contributions come alive as well.
As the poet and socialist William Martin said, when the ordinary comes alive, the extraordinary takes care of itself…
Join me…
On Saturday March 14th 2-5pm, I’m offering a ceremonial space of yin yoga, meditation, cacao and live music with the extraordinary musicians and ceremonialists Lucidia and Rafael. An afternoon of warmth, connection and love for these times of grieving and reweaving the world. We will explore what it means to Be Kind To Yourself: receiving the heart-medicine of cacao, practising yin yoga interwoven with live guitar, harp and voice harmonies, and coming into stillness and silence with reverence. Book your space here.
My retreat in Devon in June is fully booked (join the waiting list here), but booking is open for this year’s silent yoga and meditation retreat in France from September 26 - October 2. Register your interest and ask any questions here. Retreats are where deep magic happens, which ripples out everywhere in mysterious ways.
Join me every Friday morning in London for yoga and meditation from 10.30am-12.30pm, open to all levels. My teaching is heart-centred, meditative and alignment based. We begin with one or more restorative postures to explore the theme of the class, before practising more dynamically to embody this theme. The last 30 minutes is for meditation, either seated or lying down, with an option to change posture half way through. A long, deep savasana relaxation is welcome too! Book here.
Save the date for a week of daily meditations on Sangha Live from April 13-17, 7-8am UK time. Start your day (or follow at your own pace through the recording) with reflections on the theme followed by 30 minutes guided meditation, and questions and love from a thriving and warm global online community.
So pleased I read this article, coming up for my Mum’s second anniversary of her passing xx
This is such a beautiful tribute to Mat’s dad, and such a beautiful reminder on how to live well, and how being with grief is a part of doing so. ❤️