Paul’s death has PROVED it to me that we as a society don’t know how to grieve and more so don’t know how to be there for someone in grief.
It is so sad that we have reached a state where we need to find courage to talk to a person who is in grief and don’t often know what to say or be there for that person.
It is so sad that as a collective we have to be “taught” how to process grief, how to offer support for a person who is in shock or grief and how to process our own emotions of inadequacy, numbness, shock, anger, guilt and sorrow when someone’s near and dear one passes away and we find ourselves so helpless.
I am not angry because I have no support or human connection available to me in the time of my greatest loss. I am fortunate for the love and kindness that is coming my way virtually and physically in bits and pieces.
I am angry for the sorry state of shitty affairs our collective has come down to where everyone feels grieving is a solitary process to be done in hiding and one gets befuddled in how to hold the person in tenderness & love when some one is in grief.
Why should I glorify myself ?? I was in a similar state a few years ago and only when I stepped in to the grief few years ago, I realised how this process is so difficult and yet how grief is sacred and yet how much we need someone to hold us in our grief.
We have become accustomed to grieving in isolation because of the shame associated with grief, because the grieving publicly or with someone makes us vulnerable and be perceived as weak. So we want to hide. But these defenses we have built because of our conditioning and the society not acknowledging the sacredness of grief.
Grief is a prayer. Grief is sacred. Grief is a portal. Grief is a death. Grief is re birth. Grief can be drowning if done in isolation. Grief needs a physical container to hold and keep the person afloat.
Grief needs our tender care and tending. Grief needs a reminder of the honoring of our pain and our heart. It brings down the walls we learn to build over a period of time.
It takes courage to cry and courage to allow oneself to FEEL FULLY OUR PAIN.
The more we are comfortable with our own emotions without feeling fear or shame or guilt or inadequacy, the more we will find ourselves equipped to be there for the other without questioning this or that.
The more we will understand the concept of just holding the person not just in words but through the physical embodiment of it without feeling uncomfortable, without the desire to advise or to fix.
We will know how to be fully present in our body for the other even with silence, with gentle tender loving care.
Body speaks. One doesn’t need to do or say anything.
Sometimes a person in isolation is also unable to manage the mundane or even unable to grieve. This is where the tribe would hold space in the ancient times. Let the person just BE and be there for the person in grief and manage the mundane on their behalf. Give enough time and space till the person is ready to come back.
And if someone is indeed holding the fort, this coming back becomes possible because you know you are needed back in the groove of life by one and many.
When we grieve, we have one foot in the other world. The desire to live goes away at times and there is an intense sense of despair and hopelessness.
We try to find hope in the eyes of others. We try to feel the love in the sacred touch / hug of others. We try to believe in life again through the smile of others.
We stay connected to this world through the presence of others.
The trauma gets processed in time not leading to further power loss or energy loss or soul loss and hence ensuring health and wellbeing in mind body and spirit.
I can go on and on about the importance of grief and grieving together as a community and the sole importance of just feeling our pain fully.
So much undigested pain and sorrow we carry within our bones, within the collective. This undigested pain and sorrow gets an outlet as anger, abuse, violence, greed, power, control disease and in extreme cases, even death. ,
Everything, after all, is energy, isn’t it??
It is up to you how you will shape and allow your grief and be there for others in their grief.
We are the torchbearers who will correct the deformities and dysfunctions, we have become, won’t we ??
In spite of my own grief, I feel compelled to write about this. I cannot stress the importance of all of this enough.
