Getting Grief Right
Dear friends,
Only a few months ago, I received word that a dear friend’s child had been tragically killed in a car accident. Although I have worked with hundreds of bereaved people in my 38 years as a grief counselor, I felt worried as I went to be with my friend. “What will I say to this dear man about his loss?”
Then I remembered: “I don’t need to be anxious about the right thing to say. My purpose as his friend is to be present for whatever he might need.”
Supporting someone in their grief is a tall order if ever there was one. How, exactly, do you show true compassion for a grieving person? Here are a few ideas I mention in my new book, Getting Grief Right:
- Simply and sincerely say: “I’m very sorry.”
- No more words are necessary. Really.
- Show up at the house, visitation, or funeral; express simple words of sorrow; and then let the mourning person dictate what happens next.
- She may open her arms for a hug, or she may clearly want to keep people at a distance. He may want to talk about his loss or about baseball. Be with them wherever they are.
- Just simply be with that person and be compassionate.
- Being with a person in grief is a unique, one-way intimacy. Don’t try to fix it or make him or her feel better.
- Listen with your eyes and respond with nods that convey, “I get it.”
- Laugh with them when it’s time to laugh. Cry if tears come.
And remember, even after the last casserole dish is picked up, many who mourn feel forgotten.
- Bring a meal on the two-month anniversary of the death.
- Take your friend to coffee six months after the death and listen carefully to what they share about their story of loss.
- Speak the name often of the one who died.
- Donate to a relevant memorial at the year anniversary of the death or on the birthday of the one who died.
I hope these ideas will help you to create a compassionate community for those who you know are grieving.
Most Sincerely,
Patrick O’Malley
Are You Enough?
Are you enough? Take a moment and be honest with yourself. Do you live with a sense that you are okay and life is okay exactly as it is? Probably not, because you, like most people, have been conditioned to think that you need to be better or different to be okay. This brings forth the belief that it is only when you get it all together (in the future) that you will be enough.
To get a glimpse into this constant seeking, ask yourself these questions:
Is your body enough because you have gotten rid of the weight, the wrinkles, the too big nose?
Is your mate enough, always relating to you in ways that you want them to?
Are your meditations enough, or are you always seeking for better states of mind?
Are your career, your finances, even your children ever enough in your mind?
If you look closely, you would have to say that, even though your life is how you want it to be for moments, your mind always takes over again in its endless search for lasting satisfaction. We are all like a hungry ghost searching, searching, searching. We seek and long and grasp at what our mind says will bring lasting satisfaction, only to get caught in the illusion that more, more, more will finally fill the empty hole inside of us:
You finally lose the weight and then think either you should lose five more pounds or you become afraid of gaining it back.
You find your perfect mate only to discover six months into the relationship that there are things about them that drive you crazy.
You finally get a raise at work only to find out that you’re living in the same financial stress because you can now buy fancier toys or more complex plastic surgeries, hoping that this will bring you lasting satisfaction.
Stephen Levine once told a story about a 93-year-old woman on her deathbed who said, “It can’t end now because it hasn’t started yet!” It is amazing that most of us don’t see this endless search for satisfaction and how unsatisfying it is in the long run.
If you look with great curiosity, you will see that this search for something out there – a skinnier body, a different mate, more money, deeper meditations, better sex, a happier mind, a fancier house, more, more, more – is a thirst that will never be quenched except for a moment here and a moment there. Read the studies on how much misery winning the lottery brings into people’s lives and you will see the truth of this.
What would happen if you discovered that there is a field of enoughness that is always with you? What would happen if you finally understood that the deep and lasting satisfaction you have been searching for your whole life is always here? To look for lasting satisfaction in the constantly changing flow of life is suffering. To relax the search for more, more, more and to discover an intimate connection with this living moment of your life is to finally come home.
I invite you for a moment to stop reading this blog and lift your eyes to receive your life. This is a unique moment in your life and it is the only moment that matters. See it as if you have never been on this planet before. Even if you have been in this exact place a thousand times, still, it is brand new.
If your attention doesn’t yet know how to ground here, close your eyes and focus on all the sounds that are arising and passing. There are loud sounds like somebody talking in the next room and soft sounds, like the hum of your computer. There are sounds far away like an airplane in the sky and there are sounds very close like your breath in your nostrils.
To truly listen to your life is to come home to the only moment that matters – right now. And in an intimate connection with Life the moment it appears out of mystery, you are no longer caught in the endless and unsatisfactory search for satisfaction.
Of course, when your mind sees this, it is very likely that its newest search will be to try to live in ‘the now’, for it believes that will bring it lasting satisfaction. This doesn’t work! Why? For you are already in the now and any attempt to get there is just more searching.
But what you can do is remember that in all your searching you are already home. You don’t need to try to get here. Instead you can discover how to see and not get seduced into the endless search for satisfaction. Whenever you are caught in wanting things to be different than what they are, it can help to simply say to yourself, “This moment is enough, exactly as it is. I am enough, exactly as I am.”
In order to rest in your natural enoughness, it is important to recognize that nothing in this ever-changing world will bring lasting satisfaction. It can certainly bring temporary happiness and we can enjoy that happiness. But to require that Life, in its ever-changing flow, is where lasting satisfaction will be found is truly suffering.
You can also understand that life is putting you in the exact set of circumstances that will allow you to see how restless and busy your mind is in trying to get to the peace you long for.
You can also finally understand that it is truly a blessing to not get what you want. The pain of having your constant search blocked is the doorway out of the endless seeking and back into an intimate connection with Life. For, what is in the way IS the way!
If you are interested in exploring this further, I encourage you to visit my website and listen to my Radio Show. I am also offering a class on What’s in the Way IS the Way.
———————————–
Mary O’Malley is an author, counselor and awakening mentor in Kirkland, Washington. In the early 1970’s, a powerful awakening led Mary to begin changing her relationship with her challenges, freeing her from a lifelong struggle with darkness. Mary’s latest book, What’s In the Way Is the Way, provides a revolutionary approach for healing your fears, anxieties, shame, and confusion, so you can live from a place of ease.
It’s okay to be broken
In our own ways, each of us hears that most sacred call – to return home, to come to know ourselves at the deepest levels, and to somehow allow this precious life to be organized around love. We have also come to see that to respond to this call requires everything we have (and more); we are asked to step all the way into the unknown, taking the risk that love always requires. We sense that there is no way to make this journey without the breaking open of our tender, vulnerable hearts, in response to this blessed world.
We want so badly to figure this life out, to resolve the sticky, gooey, messiness of the heart, and to control the movement of love. We know we can do it, we can hold it all together, we can remain strong, we can find a way to not completely shatter in response the tenderness of this life as it is. But in one moment out of time, we’re flooded with a certain kind of grace, and it becomes so clear: It’s okay to fall apart, to let love take this life apart, and to reassemble it as the master architect that it is. There is no need to push this back any longer, for you were never together to begin with. What you are is love itself, which can never be contained, limited, resolved or pinned down. Love is never “together,” but is always moving within the unknown, as a raging fire seeding this world with its ever-purifying flames. Fall apart and resist the temptation to put yourself back together again – and see what is forever and into eternity untouched by concepts of “together” and “apart.”
It’s okay to be broken, for in your brokenness love can then pour through the cracks of your being by way of the most luminous light. As you open in this way, you watch in awe as that same intelligence and creativity which birthed the stars moves through your body, making use of your entire sensory system to seed this world with its essence. Through all the ways you touch and deeply listen to another, wanting so sweetly to come to know how they organize their experience and how they make meaning of their lives, through the kind words that you speak and presence that you offer them – and even (especially) through all of your broken-open places – this life comes to be revealed as something much different than you originally thought. It is seen, finally, for what it is – a grace-field; and what you are is a unique, alive, unrepeatable expression of this field, a transparent vessel for love to move in this world.
Why attend the Wake Up Festival? – Shiva Rea responds…
We’re beginning our preparations for the Wake Up Festival, our five-day gathering of transformation, to be held this August in the glorious Rocky Mountains, and are looking forward to reconnecting and celebrating with our friends around the world.
For those of you still on the fence – or if this is the first you’re hearing about it – take a listen to Shiva Rea, as to why she thinks you might want to attend…
Learn more about the Wake Up Festival here.
3 Ways to Practice You This Holiday Season
Practicing being true to ourselves is a delicate dance of knowing ourselves, then respecting and serving that truth. This requires cultivation of both internal stability and external ease. How can we do this when we are surrounded by cultural chaos as well as our own family dramas? Here are three ways to Practice You this holiday season.
Write It Down
Set a timer for five to ten minutes; write who you are and where you’re going. Note every label and defining element of who you perceive yourself to be, and then note your vision for yourself next year, in five years and in ten years. Coming to know yourself will help you be steady when confronted, soft when you’d normally get agitated, and more kind at just the right times.
Sit With It
Nothing changes in an instant, and we can continuously and simply ask to be shown what the next step might be. If prayer is when we speak to our idea of a higher power, meditation is a moment to listen for healing, becomes a respite, a break in the day, a time to heal ourselves. Sit with it. Sit with what you learn when you listen a few minutes more.
Move More Slowly
One of the simplest ways I practice being myself is to simply slow down. I’ve learned this from every moment of deep loss, grief, or heartache–if i move more slowly, I won’t break. I can see what’s useful, what’s nourishing, what’s holy about this moment. Slowing down for myself helps me refine what I’m practicing and choosing in my life.
Elena Brower is a Mama, author of Practice You, yoga instructor, designer, and artist based in New York City. Devoted to cultivating meditation as our most healing habit, she’s created potent online coursework and produced On Meditation, a film featuring personal portraits of renowned meditators. For more, visit elenabrower.com.
Nature in the Wintertime: Making White Pine Tea
Our five primary senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell) evolved in relationship with our environment and other life-forms to become highly sensitive instruments that help us survive and thrive as a species. Perhaps you can recall walking behind someone wearing strong cologne or perfume. Now imagine that you can smell the musk of a buck or the odor of a bear that a spring breeze carries toward you. We still have the capacity; we need only to awaken our senses again. It’s not enough simply to go outside. We also need to bring our attention and intention to the senses in order to consciously invoke, awaken, and sharpen their capabilities.
Our hunter-gatherer ancestors lived in simple shelters made of poles, straw mats, animal skins, and other natural objects. These human nests were often arranged in circles, following the way energy moves in nature, and they were permeable, allowing the sounds of the earth to filter in, along with drafts, which carried information. Although we’ve improved the functionality and comfort of our homes, we’ve also sealed ourselves off from the living, breathing world out there. As a result, many people who live mostly indoors suffer from sensory anesthesia, the gradual loss of sensory experience. Think about the number of plants growing in a forest or a field, the myriad decomposing life-forms washing around the ocean, the dry herbs and tree resins in a high desert plain. All these environments have their own concoction of smells, textures, sights, sounds, and flavors, richer and more varied than the average office environment.
In the woods and out on the land, the sense of smell is essential for survival. It can help us detect an incoming storm (think of the smell of the ozone before a thunderstorm) or the musk of a predator, like a skunk we want to avoid. To awaken this sense outdoors, I often invite folks to gather eastern hemlock or balsam needles, press them between their palms to release the aromatic oils, and then cup their hands and take deep inhalations. Another great stimulus for scent are the fallen leaves in autumn; crush them in your hands and take in their sweet, earthy smell.
During an outdoor mindfulness retreat I led with the Audubon Society one winter, we kept coming up on fox tracks in the snow. My co-facilitator, Dale, a naturalist, kept sniffing and asking the group if we could smell the scent of fox on the air. At first the group was oblivious to it. Then Dale knelt down and lifted a small handful of snow with a small, yellow ice crystal in it, a drop of frozen fox urine. He invited us to take a whiff, and sure enough, it had a potent, musky, almost skunk-like smell. From then on, we were on our knees sniffing every little yellow patch of snow we found near fox tracks. After a few days, the group began picking up the smell on the wind.
You can feel a sensual connection with the living earth after only a few minutes of quiet and reflective nature meditation and observation. It may give you peace and joy, but it may also stir up other emotions, including grief—grief for species loss, environmental degradation, and climate change. Awakening our senses and countering sensory anesthesia is a practice of awareness, and when awareness expands, it perceives both pleasure and pain, light and dark, joy and sadness. That is why in the contemplative traditions there is an emphasis on clear seeing and calm abiding. We might be able to see the truth, to observe what is really happening, but can we handle it? Can we hold an experience of deep, clear perception without being totally swept away by it? We need to learn how to be with the expanding boundaries of our awareness. This comes as we develop a strong witness consciousness, that part of us that soars like an eagle and can see the big picture. When we can temper feeling more with wisdom, we build our capacity of true spiritual growth.
All year-round, but especially during the winter, we can often easily find natural areas where the wonderful smell of pine fills the atmosphere—freshening the senses and stimulating the mind. I do a lot of mindful breathing and tend to pause often to take deep breaths within pine forests, which has a calming effect on the mind and body. This practice is enhanced by the concentration of essential oils in the air. In ancient times, pine boughs were believed to ward off evil spirits and disease. Today, research into the power of phytoncides bears out this ancient belief in pine’s medicinal attributes. Essential oil, tea made from the needles, and ointment made from the pine resin have all been shown to have healing properties.
Below, I share my recipe for an eastern white pine tea:
In the depths of winter, the eastern white pine (Pinus strobus), like other evergreens, holds on to its green needles. Rich in vitamin C, the needles can be used to make a comforting tea. The eastern white pine is a prosperous and beautiful member of the forest community in New England. Its needles grow in packets of five, which is an easy way to identify it since white has five letters.
To make a bright, citrus-pine-flavored tea from white pine needles, you will want to gather at least 20 packets of white pine needles.
- Rub a couple of the packets between your hands to release the pine resin, as you offer a gesture of thanks to the trees for this provision.
- Drop the crushed needles into a pot of freshly boiled water and allow them to steep for 5 to 15 minutes (although I like to cut them up into smaller pieces to help release the oils before steeping them).
- Strain the needles from the boiled water and pour the tea into a mug.
- Before sipping, hold the cup up near your nose and take a few deep inhalations. Drink as is or sweeten with maple syrup or honey. Enjoy!
Safety Note: Be sure to always properly identify the tree using a field guide or the internet before consuming any part of it. Avoid pines that aren’t really pines such as yew (Podocarpus macrophylla), Norfolk Island pine (Araucaria heterophylla), as well as lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) and ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), because they are poisonous.
This is an excerpt from Rewilding: Meditations, Practices, and Skills for Awakening in Nature by Micah Mortali.
Micah Mortali is director of the Kripalu Schools, one of the largest and most established centers for yoga-based education in the world. An avid outdoorsman, mindful wilderness guide, 500-hour Kripalu yoga teacher, and popular meditation teacher, Mortali has been leading groups in wilderness and retreat settings for 20 years. In 2018, he founded the Kripalu School of Mindful Outdoor Leadership. Mortali has a passion for helping people come home to themselves and the earth, and he is finishing his master’s at Goddard College on nature awareness and mindfulness practices. He lives with his wife and children in the Berkshires. For more, visit micahmortali.com.
Read Rewilding today!
Sounds True | Amazon | Barnes&Noble | IndieBound
