It’s in the hopelessness, than we eventually get in touch with our grief.
I have always been a champion of Hope
I believe being hopeful, fundamentally changes how you live your life.
Would you try, or would you give up?
Do you see glass half empty or half full?
It’s no wonder that in my conversation when my dad sounded hopeless, I championed for hope
until he said.. “But it is there…”
It stopped me in my tracks…… I have also been champion of hosting emotions as they show up, without wishing them away…
I said beneath my breath
“Oh, oh….Hopelessness is visiting now”
You can repress it with excessive doing, inspirational speeches, and False “Hopes”
Until it springs back with more force….
I got restless… I had to question my naive assumptions
And it occured to me that Hope is the shield we use to avoid getting hurt
It’s a way of denial in some ways, when inevitable shows up in life.
“There would be no miracle, that’s it… It is stage 4 cancer”
“IVF has not worked for the third time… we may never be parents”
” It’s not a one time thing… I actually am diabetic, or hypertensive, or …..”
“Couples therapy is not going to work.. we are probably not going to make it”
False hopes are shields we use to protect our hearts against getting hurt….
Hopelessness is the door to embracing indiviual and collective loss…Loss of perfect health, loss of youth, loss of life, loss of hope….
And when there is loss, we need to grieve
And as long as we protect ourselves with false hopes like
“We can make it through long distance.”, when season of heart has changed already..
“Children have left the nest, but we will always stay close.”
“We are going to find solutions for climate change before it gets too bad… someone will”( that’s me)
So, why grieve? Why is it essential that we grieve? Well I could not answer that for myself for a very long time…
Why grieve when we can “hope”… So it’s no surprise that my first reaction to hopelessness is hostility… let’s “Shoo” it away.. let’s pretend it’s not there but “it’s there”…. That’s what my dad said… and I was shocked.. How I insulate my heart when the pain of a calamity is more than I can handle.
Let’s start all sentences with hopefully… Why grieve?
Hurts and losses, when not grieved, make you resentful and bitter
And when grieved properly, cook you to be wiser, deeper, and compassionate
Opens your heart, makes you reach out for connection…
Find people who know and feel what you feel
Proper grieving esp for collective traumas like failed governments and floods effecting half your country is done in communities
We offer our presence, we sing, we dance, we cry, we talk, and we DO silence… Actually we let the grief expressed through words, colors or movements.. however IT wants to be expressed….
That’s what they do in indigenous cultures… There are communities who have rituals of grief… something you do repeatedly with reverence…
Communities who can grieve well, heal well too, and amidst poverty and scarcity can experience genuine joy….
But let’s not be too quick to get there… first, lets open our hearts to the pain that surrounds us all… feel the bursting of heart that comes with intense pain that makes us sob…. there is the other side, but that is only through feeling it, there is no by-passing it..
By the way.. that does not mean, that we don’t do, what we can.. that we would not go the doctor at all, or won’t exercise, or would not try to build where we can…. and even inspire genuine hope where we can….
Let’s not waste our grief, though… and we know we have wasted it, if instead of opening our hearts, it closes it even more, makes us cynical, resentful and bitter…
It is through our common losses, that we find our way back to each other!!
Amber Tariq
Depth Coach
