Transforming Grief

"If you get grief wrong, you get a lot of things wrong.”

I heard these words spoken by Timothy Shriver, the nephew of assassinated American President John F. Kennedy, to Oprah Winfrey on her show Super Soul Sunday.

He went on to say:

If “you hide from a lot of pain. You hide from a lot of frustration.  And in my family, of all the gifts we had, that [grieving] wasn't one of them. We didn't really know how. I didn't feel like I learned to face grief and transform it. [And] if you don’t transform it, you transmit it.”

As someone who works with chronically suicidal individuals in her work and as someone who’s family members are being treated for advanced cancer and early Alzheimer’s, I agree with this statement whole-heartedly. 

And yet, I find it very difficult to practice.

I went to a yoga class about a month ago, and the instructor talked about the need to “digest” our emotions.  She then led us through a whole series of twists to empty out our intestines, stomachs and kidneys to aid in that “digestion.”

Afterward, I reflected on how necessary it is to practice emotional digestion, particularly in regard to grief. 

I am someone who, unfortunately, long ago learned to compartmentalize her emotions so well, that now even when I want to express them more visibly to the world, I cannot.  

Of course sometimes this poker face can have its advantages, but sometimes it can leave me vulnerable because emotions can get stuck inside of me- like grief for example.

If I don’t actively engage my grief in all her myriad of forms (unresolved grief, anticipatory grief, grief associated with losses of things, with losses of people, with losses of things and people I never had in the first place but wanted or needed) , then she will come back to bite me in the ass.  Or, more poetically as Timothy Shriver put it, if I don’t transform it, I transmit it.

In my spiritual journey, I have found four ways to engage my grief:

1.)    Travel,

2.)    Movement,

3.)    Moments to Pause, &

4.)    Some combination of #1, #2 & #3.

Travel.  This one was taught to me from a young age. 

Growing up travel was a means to an end for generating greater understanding and broadening perspective- both of which are necessary to transform grief.

Recently I was reminded of the importance of travel as a vehicle for processing grief when I watched Emilio Estevez’ movie The Way starring his father Martin Sheen.

In the film the main character, Martin Sheen, is an American who makes the decision to walk the Camino de Santiago through northern France and Spain as a pilgrimage to honor his son who tragically died while trying to walk the Camino himself.

It seemed the combination of travel and movement were the healing alchemy for the character’s grief.

What is helpful to remember too is that travel does not have to be international.  Buddhist teacher and author Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us in Peace is Every Step that

“when you need to slow down and come back to yourself [which I generally do when I am grieving], you do not need to rush home to your meditation cushion or to a meditation center in order to practice conscious breathing.”

Travel can include moving from the chair to the couch. From the living room to the kitchen. From your house to your yard. From your yard to the woods.  From the woods to the ocean.  However large or small, changing scenery can be a very effective means for processing grief.

(A cautionary note from experience on travel: make sure that your decision to travel is not a decision to run away or escape what requires your immediate attention.  Choose wise action).

Movement. This is another strategy from a young age, but this one was not taught, it was more intuitive.

When I was younger, like under the age of 10 and all the way through college, when I was upset about something I would turn up the music very loud and dance it out.  Nothing choreographed. No one watching. Just me in my room. Me in my body, and yet seemingly body-less in those moments of blissful flow.

I still use my body as a means to transform grief (and other emotions too), but unfortunately it is much more structured and contained.  Now, like my emotions, movement has become an inhibited, precise action, and yet it is still so powerful- particularly in yoga asana (poses).

My awareness of how yoga had become a means toward emotional transformation increased after reading how Buddhist teacher and author Jack Kornfield utilized movement and body-centered psychotherapy to address emotions and grief that had gotten stuck inside of him.  His story increased my level of faith in the practice of yoga and movement in general for “digesting” emotions, including the sticky and corrosive ones.

Moment to Pause.  I regret to say, I did not learn this strategy until much later in life.

The simple but difficult task of slowing down for the length of 3 long breaths several times a day can be a game-changer for transforming difficult emotions like grief.

We move throughout our days with so much urgency and obligation.  Our auto-pilot switch is turned on, and we find ourselves just going through the motions.

Leave work. Drive home. Make dinner. Wash dishes. Etc. Etc.

This is not to devalue these daily activities.

On the contrary, I truly believe there is enormous spiritual value in our day to day activities (a topic I may write about at another time).  But when we are grieving, in the context of a fast-paced working parents’ life, it can be difficult to find the time for those transformative emotional moments. 

This is why the moment to pause is such an elegant strategy. 

While working, while driving, while cooking, we can almost always find the time to pause for the length of 3 long breaths.

Try it now with me.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

There. We did it.

By taking time to intentionally breathe several times a day we do not allow our grief to settle into our bones.

As Buddhist teacher and author Pema Chodron beautifully writes in Comfortable With Uncertainty,

“Practice means not continuing to strengthen the habitual patterns that keep us trapped; doing anything we can to shake up and ventilate our self justification and blame. We do our best to stay with the strong energy without acting out or repressing. In so doing, our habits become more porous.”

In other words, the moment to pause switches the automatic pilot switch off—again and again and again—even, or especially, during times of grief.

A helpful tip: if you try this strategy, try to approach it with tenderness.  As you might engage a shy animal or child, try a compassionate stance toward yourself as you take in each breath and release it.  This means, lean in with kindness and support as you engage with your pain without clinging to it or pushing it away.

Do you have any of your own strategies for transforming grief that you can share with me?