Terms and Invitations

David Kessler writes that in light of our world changing, many of us are experiencing collective grief in response to an invisible virus with an indefinite interruption to normal life. Incidentally Kessler co-authored On Grief and Grieving: finding the Meaning of Grief through the Five Stages of Loss with Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. The five stages of grief are well-known and familiar guideposts: denial (many of us had some form of this less than a month ago), anger (no examples needed), bargaining (if we do the two weeks inside, then maybe we can [insert activity] again), depression and then of course acceptance (https://hbr.org/2020/03/that-discomfort-youre-feeling-is-grief).

Grieving is non-linear, inconvenient as heck, messy and uncontrollable. Like a wave, it hits, and the wiser among us, know to allow it. Trying to control grief, is equivalent to putting a glass plate over the ocean’s waves thinking they will somehow realise that this experience is not for you. You cannot outwork, out- eat, out-plan or out-parent grieving when it is your turn. And I think collectively, it is our turn. We are grieving backwards for what was lost a few months ago, and we are grieving forward in anticipation of an uncertain future.

Three things that help me when grieving knocks on my door:

First: adopting grounding practices embedded in deep self-compassion: something as simple as placing a hand on the heart or using kind phrases, as if you are talking to your younger self: it’s OK. I am sorry. I care.

Second: allowing the feelings and avoiding feelings about the feelings – we tend to be quite harsh to ourselves when we notice sadness or melancholy. Buddhist scholars call those feeling-feelings second arrows and our mindfulness practices are incredibly helpful in witnessing them, detaching from them to the point where they self-liberate (we’re talking minutes, not hours).

Third, (and only third) compassionately pose a cut- through question to yourself or to those you care about. My favourite cut-through question (and for the life of me I cannot recall where I heard it the first time) is: If these are the terms, what are the invitations? Which sounds a little like acceptance, doesn’t it? If these are the terms, and these are the terms, what are we invited to do?

If the term is no restaurants being open, the invitation is to gather in the kitchen and have a home-cooked meal as a matter of routine. If the term is no face-to-face teaching, the invitation is innovative super-courses with scalability. Only a few days ago, author Arundhati Roy wrote about the pandemic as a portal (https://www.ft.com/content/10d8f5e8-74eb-11ea-95fe-fcd274e920ca) and perhaps that’s how we gather our wits and our wisdom around us. To conclude, Irish mystic John O’Donohue: as far as you can, hold your confidence. Do not allow your confusion to squander this call which is loosening your roots in false ground that you may become free from all you have outgrown. What is being transfigured here is your mind, and it is difficult and slow to become new, the more faithfully you can endure here, the more refined your heart will become for your arrival in the new dawn.