Grief as a doorway to reclaim our power

One day, during a discussion on synchronicity and flow, a beautiful conflict emerged: How do we grapple with the urgency of the really big issues in the world, while needing to spend so much psychic energy just on making our own lives function? How can experiencing flow for personal gain be worth doing when the world as a whole appears (to some) to be in collapse?

We sat with this dilemma, allowing the discomfort to exist, feeling our desperate desire to help, the feelings of grief and powerlessness. We even talked about whether allowing the feelings of grief to exist was giving more weight to the problems.

In the space of our open hearts, we were able to transcend the worry about what was the right answer, and a number of us shared that making space for our authentic experience "transmuted" the anxiety that we felt, and renewed our access to an inner sense of motivation, commitment, and personal power to make positive change.

Here is a passage from Living in Flow:

"Our grief allows us to let go of what is holding us back from living fully authentic lives. Our sorrow, and the outrage that may come with it, can light a fire within us. We don’t all need to become activists. We don’t all need to follow an outward path of political or social change. Rather, allowing those authentic feelings into our hearts can give us the courage to be honest right here in our own lives, in our own homes, in our own places of work or worship. When we authentically feel our emotions, we are no longer willing to let life go by without speaking up into the microphone. We are also no longer willing to let external standards determine who we are. An important first step is allowing ourselves to feel the grief of loss—whether it's the loss of a relationship with a person we loved, the loss of ecosystems or creatures, or the loss of a profession, a way of life, or an opportunity. When we open to the full range of our experiences, we can also reconnect with our ability to feel joy, to feel gratitude for what we have, and to sense our power to direct our own lives.”

From Living in Flow (p29) by Sky Nelson-Isaacs

May we all be open to our authentic experiences.