Grief-Life Balance
Last week’s Sunday email had a theme of work-life balance. It’s part of a summer series where I am homing in on a single emotion each week. This series is an exploration of what it means to have a balanced mindfulness practice.
And I’m starting at the only place mindfulness can ever start— with my own direct experiences.
This week, I’m sitting with grief.
“I was talking with a group of people about grief once when a man in his seventies asked me, ‘So, what is the 1-2-3 of grief? How do I get over this sadness?’
I knew a little about him from what he had shared earlier in the evening. He had spent his life as a scientist, someone for who there was always a solution, an equation, or a formula for the problem at hand. He had also said that he had recently lost his wife after a long and loving marriage.
So when he asked the question, I paused and then said to him, ‘I can’t accept the premise of your question. It implies and ending to your grief. I don’t think it will end. It will soften over time and turn into a tender melancholy. In fact, your grief is your new relationship with your wife. It will be the ongoing reminder of your love and your life together. This sadness keeps her in your world.’”
Except from the book The Wild Edge of Sorrow
By Francis Weller
I’m contemplating the moment when Francis Weller said ‘I can’t accept the premise of your question. It implies and ending to your grief.’
Renegotiating the premises, looking through a new lens at the things that we had wanted to get rid of, reevaluating a former search for the formula that negates pain... Now this, this is a conversation that blows my mind.
I hope you’re interested in joining me for a mind-blowing conversation soon. It doesn’t have to be about grief, of course. It could be about joy. It could be about any real experience, any emotion that you are actually sitting with.
Your comments will inform next week’s topic.
Thanks,
-Gena Bean
MindfulBeacon MBZ1 Free Radio
136 Magazine Street #4 Cambridge MA 02139
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We have a zoom call scheduled for later today.
Sunday July 21st 2pm.