We’ve got such an immense backlog of pain in our world. Ignoring pain has a high cost – it doesn’t just go away. It shows up all over the place, in our personal relationships, and in the wider world community.
There is so much hate in this world. So much violence. So much of people being awful to each other – on grand scales and smaller ones.
One of my favorite writers, Joanna Macy, writes – that your world is in pain is no reason to turn your back on it.
I don’t want to turn my back on it, but man, it’s overwhelming. Inside all of these violent actions, inside all the other-izing, inside all of the exclusion is grief. It’s pain. Pain and fear that has never been heard or acknowledged, and so now lashes out at the world.
Grief is everywhere.
I have to remind myself that what we’re doing here together – talking about pain, paying attention to what hurts – matters. When the world is so full of danger and hurt and seems to be spiraling ever more out of control, it matters how we come to pain. Personal pain, the pain of others, the pain of the world.
When the world is in pain, paying attention to what hurts - matters. Click To TweetBearing witness to your own pain, finding the love that lies at the foundation of our concerns for self and the world, fighting fiercely for beauty and kindness – these are the things that let us continue. They help us survive. Whether the action you take contributes to change in the world or your community, or you act to companion yourself as best you can, I have to believe that our efforts towards love and kindness matter.
There’s not a lot of action to take in the face of grief, especially in the early days. But showing up, telling the truth, paying attention to pain, offering ourselves and each other kindness and acceptance – these things make a difference.
Lets keep going, friends. For self, for each other, for the world.
How abo
ut you? How has the current explosion of escalated violence intersected with your personal grief? How do you understand the relationship of unacknowledged pain or grief and systemic violence? These are fascinating – and important – subjects. Let me know what you think.
In the early stages of grief the world begins and ends at the edges of your bed. There is no more world than that bubble that surrounds you. Everything else except your grief has no meaning. The TV and radio is turned off. Papers and magazines remain unopened and unread. There is nothing but emptiness, a great big black hole.
Jill what you shared is both so profound and true.
Upon the death of my spouse, 9 months, 23 days, and 7 hours ago, my bed has now become my personal safe haven and bubble. It provides me with warmth and comfort and peace as I know I will have hours of mental break from my long days of grieving. I look forward to sundown and my quiet evenings as my mind and body fatigues. I love this time as my mind is slowing down and I’m happy to have made it through yet another day. Grief is all consuming and absolutely a relentless black hole of constant emotional pain and suffering. I’ve learned that Grief is the price for and measure of true love. Grief deserves no apologies, no platitudes, no excuses, only expression and self compassion.
I just found your website and this post is so timely. I feel the “pain of the world” so acutely right now. Personally I have experienced many losses in life (starting with a lost childhood), and then family members, jobs, a husband. Each loss I go deeper and understand a little deeper.
Right now, I am confronting the loss of our American culture. Watching what is playing nationally is so painful, so I continue to do my work of understanding and healing my own grief so I can be there for others. It is painful work. Thank you for the wonderful reminders.
Thank you for mentioning about your Culture!… I am so trying to understand and cope with the changes in my own culture and especially the impact on my Children and how we now have to “Do Family”.
I just downloaded the Book and am jumping in…
Warmth
Rosie
In the last 4 years I have lost my aunt (she lived with us) 4 months later my husband unexpectedly died he was also my business partner, sounding board, best friend, my advisor we were together 24 hours a day for 38 years: my mother got sick just a few months after he died( she lived next door) with my stepfather at the time he was fighting cancer he had been in my life for over 40 years I was their caregiver , she died 15 months later, my stepfather did the best he could but he died of a heart attack 11 months later, my father died 3 months later, my best friend died May of this year. I tried being strong & dealing I thought but 2 months ago I went into a spiral of lose. Still trying to cope.
This is immense. Hadn’t crossed my mind before however personal pain can only feed into our wider world & vice versa. Several of my contemporaries are desperate about #Brexit, they aren’t sleeping, they’re agitated &largely powerless.
For myself I totally relate to what Jill & Kelly wrote. I make ‘my world’ small & cosy because I know I have to fight when I go out into society. The pain that is in the ether must affect everyone & when it is not expressed it festers.
I am attempting to move with my grief, it’s not helping yet. I hope that in years to come I will benefit from the now empty investment of speaking this grief out loud & trying to make connections.
I hope to live what’s left of my life honed & refined by where I am now.
I lost my mom on May 6th. This time of night, Dusk, is the time of day I miss her most. She was sick, but I did not know she was dying. The hospital released her Friday evening, and she passed Monday morning. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I can’t help but wonder if they knew. How could they not?
She was the best thing that ever happened to me. I was her caregiver for the last few years, and I continue to care for my father. I feel so heartbroken for him as they would have been married 54 years in June.
I took a month away from church where I am very involved. I had stopped working to care for her/them the month before, so I am thankful I did not have to run back to work after just the three days you are given for grieving, ridiculous. But I am going back to work soon. They re-hired me.
My heart is so broken. I know I will have to get counseling. I am going to initially sign up for group grief therapy, but I believe I need to see someone individually. Sorry for sounding so rambly, but it’s where my brain is right now. I am looking forward to reading this book.