Why Grieving is an Act of Self-Love

So many of us are either actively grieving or avoiding our grief—caring for ourselves or denying ourselves the love we deserve.

Photo by Mike Labrum

I don’t need to list all the personal and collective experiences of pain within and around us on a daily basis. Nor do I need to spell out the myriad ways in which people choose to deal with their pain, anger, rage, sadness, or grief—or not.

You already know why you personally allow emotion to surface for release and/or how much work it takes to pretend you’re fine. To be clear, none of us are actually fine.

Whatever you are holding right now, however old or new the pain is, I want to share a practice that might spark some curiosity or inspire you to think differently about your grief in particular.

Storyless: 40 Years of Grief

My partner has been grieving so much loss over the last two years and continues to grieve as new pain invites her to see situations differently. Bearing witness to her ongoing experience has invited me to realize how distant grief and I have grown. Not just recently but for a lifetime. I had never intentionally developed a relationship with this sacred emotion until I finally realized how much freedom was available through its very personal process.

While writing “HEAL to LEAD,” I detailed stories about my mother, my first business, my former marriage, and lots more that never made it into the book. While cathartic to recount, it became obvious that I had never grieved the loss I felt over the course of my first four decades on this earth.

I recently started an experiment called “Storyless: 40 Years of Grief.”

I started with a chronological list—as any recovering type-A would. I began journaling about my old experiences one at a time, burning amber and moss incense each time to honor the exploration and to remind me that I could release my grief back to the scared ground of Mother Earth. After each journal entry, I created a slightly different ritual—watering a plant, burning palo santo (or sage or lavender) to clear my home, or soaking in a warm tub and letting the water drain fully before getting out.

Because life is good at “life-ing,” there are additions to this project that were never intended to be on the list. Like so many young, queer lives lost and stolen in the wake of our disconnection from one another, made louder by wounded leaders who don’t recognize the impact of their words and decisions. And family members who misdirect their unprocessed pain by doubling down on ignorant perceptions about me, my voice, my work in the world, and my community.

It has been the most recent experiences that have broken me open the most, touching parts that I hadn’t been forced to encounter in 20 years. They were added to my list after it became evident that only by actively grieving them could I gain access to more life.

Grief as a Doorway to Love

Four months into this practice, my hot take is that grief is an unexpected act of self-love. Engagement with grief leads to embracing the totality of an experience. Grief and I sit down together now, and when we commune, I learn so much, namely, how well-resourced I am and what more becomes available to me during and after the release portion of the process.

“Everyone who decides to embrace integrity must mourn the known misery, the familiar patterns and dysfunctional relationships they’ve left behind. I promise: if you give your grief space and time, it will eventually bring you to a level of joy you may never have imagined. And as it does, you’ll arrive at yet another gate.”

— Martha Beck, from The Way of Integrity

Grief, I understand now, is a doorway to love. Instead of avoiding and feeling tight in its company, I find a kind of ease inside of deep pain because I know I am being forever changed. Something inside me shifts as I uncover new layers of this once-foreign emotion.

For someone who developed a formative narrative that they couldn’t trust anyone to care for them, grief feels like caring for myself in the most tender of ways. Why? Because I get to express my innermost emotions freely, without judgment. I get to feel into the corners of myself, take my time, and then commemorate the experience for no one else but me.

In these ways, I think that grieving can be an act of self-love. And I also believe in the magic of grieving in community; being witnessed and not feeling alone can be powerful allies in the process.

I will leave you with a couple of questions: Have you ever reframed your engagement with grief in a way that invites you into it? What if you did?