“Grieving is a way to say yes to life. When we grieve, we let out the toxins, so that we can embrace life again. When we don’t grieve, our creativity becomes dim or almost nonexistent.
But when we grieve, especially when we grieve together as a community, there’s almost a like magic that happens in the dance of the community and the individual, where the gift begins to flow, and the people can begin to drink from the Well of this gift so that they can begin to heal together and know the value of what we’re bringing.
Because the witnessing of the community has the capacity to act like scissors that cut us away from unhealthy ties, so we can rewire ourselves in the way we should be wired, to say ‘yes, I’m alive, finally, again!'” -Sobonfu Somé, Burkinabe elder.
Grief teaches us so much about how to live! Grief is a form of protest- saying No! It won’t let us stay dead or small. It is calling us back to a life of connection, intimacy, feeling and wonder.
At the same time, it encourages us to live on life’s terms, not ours – the work of grief is to accept and acknowledge what is, so our energy can flow in the present.
Francis Weller’s OBSTACLES TO GRIEF
From “The Wild Edge of Sorrow”
1. Privatized pain – The myth that grief is our own to handle alone.
2. Fear of grief and little faith in grief. Western culture has not yet prioritized the value of grief.
3. Flat line culture – There is a small window of what level of emotion is acceptable.
4. Self consciousness – Wanting to be seen as “doing good, feeling ok” not a mess in order to belong.
5. Lack of communal practices and spaces to grieve.