Hello and welcome.
I've been asked to speak about grief,
And I first want to say that I'm no authority on this topic,
Or any topic for that matter.
But what I can share with you.
Is my own experience with grief.
Losing loved ones.
And also losing most of my eyesight.
And so I've spent a lot of time delving into loss and sorrow.
And I've come to a point where I can be with these things.
I can learn from them,
Not push them away.
And I hope that what I share can be of use to you.
And I'd first like to begin with something simple.
Something that might sound counterintuitive or a bit strange.
But it's just a question to keep in the background.
While I talk.
What if we stopped fighting?
Agree.
What if we stopped fighting our grief?
Now there's something unifying about grief.
It's one of the emotions that every single one of us will feel at some point in our life.
Absolutely NOBODY is exempt.
And because of that,
Grief is not a private failure or a personal weakness.
It is difficult for absolutely everyone and it is part of what it means to be human,
To love.
And to lose.
Every human who has ever lived and who will ever live.
Has grief to deal with.
And to me,
There's something beautiful about that.
And so the invitation today is this.
Can we learn to be with the fact of our grief?
With the fact about sorrow.
Now to face it does not mean to accept it.
It does not mean to stand up to it,
Or wrestle with it,
Or push it away.
It simply means to look at it.
And this is a subtle but important distinction.
Acceptance is not something we manufacture or force through willpower.
It is not an act of forcing ourselves to be okay with something that doesn't work.
Acceptance comes on its own.
When we understand something completely.
And to understand something.
We first have to be with it.
Not wish it away.
Not mask it without many forms of escape.
Busyness,
Distractions,
Numbing with drugs or alcohol.
Not even trying to fix it or remedy it.
Just being with it.
And now our thoughts will resist us.
They'll tell us it's too painful.
That going there will only lead to more hurt,
More anguish,
That it will make our grief worse.
But ask yourself honestly.
When you've listened to that voice that says,
Don't go there.
Has it actually helped you?
Perhaps there's a temporary reprieve.
A little bit of relief.
But it comes back.
It always comes back.
And so the cycle repeats,
Day after day,
Year after year.
Pushing and pulling.
And that's no way to live.
So what if instead.
.
.
We met grief exactly as it is.
Exactly as it presents itself to us.
What if we allowed ourselves to understand that our life has changed?
That as painful as it is.
With this person no longer with us.
Our life is different now,
And it will never be quite the same again.
And I know how that sounds.
It sounds terrible.
That this is simply what light is.
Life is change.
Your life today is not the life that you had 5 years ago,
Or 10,
Or 30.
We are always moving through change.
Whether we notice it or not.
And grief is just one of the more visible,
More painful forms of it.
And it is painful.
It really is.
So let it be painful.
Don't deny it.
Let yourself miss the person.
Let yourself remember them.
Let yourself look inside of you and notice how you still carry parts of this person with you.
Perhaps in the kindness they taught you.
The courage they inspired.
The jokes you shared.
Or the ways they change the course of your life.
Those things have not disappeared.
They live on in you.
And you're allowed to miss them.
You're allowed to cry.
You are allowed to feel the emptiness their absence has left.
You're allowed to feel crap.
There's nothing wrong with that.
None of this is weakness.
Is simply an echo of love.
And I want to offer a question here without an answer because I don't think there is one clean answer.
We grieve because we love.
But,
And this takes some courage to think about.
.
.
Is a part of our grief also.
For the shape of the life we once had.
The routines,
The safety,
The role we played,
The purpose the person gave us.
Who we were beside them.
Might both things be true?
That we deeply miss the person.
But also the light.
I don't say this to take anything away from your grief or to suggest that any part of it is smaller or less valid.
Because all of it is real.
All of it belongs.
But sometimes,
When we can ask,
What exactly am I grieving right now?
Is it them?
Or is it what their presence gave me?
Something loosens.
Not their love.
It's never their love.
But the parts of our sorrow tangled up with fear,
Identity,
Or habit.
Can be seen more clearly.
And what is seen clearly.
Tends to soften on its own.
It reveals itself to us.
Because we've stood toe-to-toe with it.
We've looked at it.
And I'd like to add something else,
That accepting that someone is gone is not bad.
It is not wrong and it should never be a source of guilt.
Some of us carry a fear that if we accept the loss,
We are somehow betraying the person,
Or betraying our love for them.
But accepting that someone or something has gone is not a betrayal.
It is living in truth.
It is seeing what is actually so.
Rather than living in a private argument with reality.
Because truth does not diminish love.
Never.
And as I said earlier,
We all have grief in common.
And also death.
While some of us will meet death sooner than others.
We will all meet her.
And in the same way we will all grieve too.
No one is free of it.
And we shouldn't want to be free of it.
To be free of grief would mean to be free of love.
And nothing is worse than a life without love.
And so the question becomes,
Can we go on with our lives,
Meeting our grief and our sorrows?
As they arise.
Even if it's a hundred times a day.
Meeting them again and again,
And simply finding out what happens when we do.
Because when we resist something,
We create conflict.
A conflict between what is and what we think should be.
And resistance.
In its essence,
Is an argument with reality,
With truth.
The person I loved is gone.
And part of me says,
No.
It should not be like this.
And that argument is where so much of our suffering is born.
Not because we loved,
But because we are fighting what has already happened,
What we cannot change.
And I also want to say.
.
.
That being with your grief does not mean you have to carry it alone.
Meeting it doesn't rule out reaching for a hand,
A friend,
A therapist.
Someone who will sit with you.
This is part of meeting it fully.
Not being separate from it.
And before I finish.
.
.
I'd like to leave you with this.
Grief is not something to conquer,
It isn't something to solve.
It isn't a problem asking to be fixed.
It is part of love.
It's part of loving.
And if we can meet it without running from it,
Without trying to become free of it.
Perhaps something begins to change on its own.
Not because we made it change.
But because we finally stopped resisting what was already here.
What was already true.
And I don't know where the grief ever truly leaves us.
Perhaps that's not the right question.
Perhaps the real question is whether we can meet each moment of grief without resistance.
And if grief visits you today.
Or tomorrow,
Or a year from now.
Don't ask how to get rid of it.
Just see it for a moment.
See if you can stay with it.
Without escaping it.
Without becoming frightened of it.
Simply let it be there.
And see what happens.
Thank you for listening.
