When we see how others seem to have moved through their grief, we see that grief lessens its hold on them. We see they keep their treasured experiences and memories but have somehow let go of their old life and have changed, moving into a new life.
As grief lessens its hold on us, it gives us hope that our
pain will eventually ease and we will be able to come out the other side of grief
and have a new life and be happy again. But feeling some relief can make us
feel guilty and disloyal for thinking about giving up our old life. This can
make us feel more waves of the pain of loss.
Part of us wants to stay in the past with our old life but
part of us wants to move into our new life, which sets up a struggle, like a
tug of war. The tension can make us feel like we are frozen and can’t move
either way. It can be like a long dark winter with deep sadness and more
suffering from the pain of loss. It can be helpful to ask what your loved one
would say to you. It can also help if you ask what you would say to someone
else in this position.
We do not understand what changes us and makes us slowly
move on. Perhaps we can’t endure any more pain and suffering, so we are almost
forced to make a choice to move to a different place with our treasured
memories and experiences, to a place with less pain.
Although we might appear to move away from suffering to happiness,
the scars of suffering become the foundation of happiness. Maybe like building
a house, the suffering we have endured has slowly, but unknown to us, been
forming the base on which we can build. We see that our suffering has carried
us through but perhaps we don’t carry suffering, suffering carries us. Maybe
suffering and happiness depend on each other for us to experience full
consciousness.
This slow letting go of our old life and accepting what can
be our new life, requires energy and effort in taking steps towards making a
new life. For each step you take towards making a new life, your new life takes
several steps towards you. At this time we may start to be grateful to the
person we have lost in new ways, realising they showed us certain things no one
else did. We might see what they showed us about ourselves.
Grief gives us an opportunity to question and to re-vision
what we see in our life. A place can be reached deep inside us where we can begin
to see everything differently. In grief we can ask again ‘Who am I?’ in
relation to the wider world, to everything and the whole Universe. It is an
opportunity to see we are not isolated but along with the person we have lost,
we can see our Self as part of everything.
Perhaps when we look outside we see the world but when we look
inside we see the Universe. When we look at the daytime sky we can see the
bright blue sky, the sun, the moon and maybe some clouds. At night when we look
at the sky, the sun is not seen but we can see more because we can see the
stars and we know there is so much more we cannot see.
Although we are taught to think that time and space are real
and even though this may be true, we know time and space are only ideas from
thinking. We are conscious there may be other planes of existence and levels of
consciousness which we cannot see or understand because they are beyond
thinking. If we close our eyes and look inwards, we can see with our consciousness
that we are not just an individual but part of everything in the Universe.
Albert Einstein, Ramana Maharshi, Rumi, Lau Tzu and the
Buddha show us that our biggest problem is the error in thinking we are separate
individuals. Perhaps it takes grief to show us we are not and to begin seeing
ourselves as one.
Source – Excerpts from article titled ‘Acceptance and Meaning in Grief’ published in the Mountain Path Magazine October 2022 Issue