Honoring and Transforming Grief

In the new book I’m working on I’ve included a section entitled Honoring and Transforming Grief. Since the book is still months away from being published and the topic is so relevant now, I’m offering the experiential practice included in that section.

It’s a practice of conscious mourning that can transform grief or any kind of pain or strong emotion into life-serving energy. I’ve been offering it for a long time and I think of it as “the master practice” because it’s useful in so many contexts. I first learned it from Robert Gonzales, a much beloved teacher of Nonviolent Communication who I did a two-year training with and who is no longer with us in physical form but still very present in the hearts of minds all the people he worked with and trained over the years (1).

Robert taught that grief is the raw emotion and mourning is the practice of consciously being with and actively integrating the energy of grief. In his words, “Natural pain (mourning) is that pain we feel when we are connected to our hearts. We feel pain because we are in touch with a beautiful life-enriching need, but experience it in the moment as not being fulfilled. There is an experience of fullness, even though it is painful. It is free from story or thoughts; it is just the heart open to life’s events” (2).

As Francis Weller teaches so beautifully, grief needs containment and release. We need to stay current, present and in the flow of life with our grief. Otherwise the same old grief stories get recycled (3). It’s no longer the natural pain Robert spoke of, and one is not engaged in a process that can transform the pain into life serving energy. Using the process outlined below, we can stay current with grief, titrate it and digest it on a regular basis.

As preparation it can be helpful to review Nonviolent Communication’s inventory of universal human needs and longings.

After reading through the practice I suggest doing it as a practice when you have at least 20 minutes to devote to it. Please take your time with each step and be sure to practice good self care as you work it.

Dropping in: Start by getting quiet and mindful. Deepen the breath, relax the face and jaw. Settle into your seat and your body.

Stimulus: When you’re ready, bring your full awareness to the cause of the pain, the stimulus, the trigger. Be present to it without any story or judgment.

Response: Then shift awareness to the reactive thoughts and judgments. Let them rip without censorship. Be fully with the mental component, the noise for a couple of minutes or until this step feels complete.

Feelings: Then turn your attention toward the body, letting the breath support you and keep you in your body. Notice and name the physical sensations that are present. Notice tension, tightness, constriction, and other signs of being triggered (rapid heart, shallow breathing, shakiness). This can be a very subtle process, and if that’s true for you, just give it space and be curious.

Needs and Longings: Next, bring your awareness to the unmet needs and longings that are in play. These could be basic universal needs for safety, connection, and belonging; for peace, ease, support, and understanding (8). Allow this connection to the needs and longings to start to soften your heart. Still no story, no judgment, just awareness of the needs that are in play.

Self-Empathy and Mourning: Hold the energy of the unmet needs and longings in your heart. Something very tender and precious is present. There are deep longings that are not being met. Allow your heart to open to the pain and sadness. There’s no one to blame, just this natural sadness. Be honest about it. There’s nothing to fix. Just give the longing space.

Feel the Beauty of the Needs: There’s beauty in the longing and the unmet needs. A life-serving energy that knows what’s needed to align with life. Tune into the beauty in the longing. Feel your connection right in this moment to yourself and to the larger whole. Let this alignment with your longing soften and open your heart further.

Notice any sense of aliveness—of presence and wakefulness, connection and love. This aliveness is beautiful, sacred. It's a gift, a reminder, coming from the pain itself, from the unmet needs.

Integration: Notice what you notice about your experience right now. What’s alive in you right now? Notice spaciousness, relaxation, whatever is true for you. And as a way to close the practice, bring the original stimulus back into your awareness and hold it in your heart. Notice how much your heart can hold when there’s nothing to fix, no one to blame.

Action: What do you want to take away from this practice? What do you want to remember? Ground that take-away in the body with a gesture or sound. And then with gratitude for your tender, resilient heart and blessings for your own journey, gently transition out of the practice.

I recorded an audio version of the practice that is available to anyone (4).

Notes

1. Robert Gonzales profile.

2. Robert Gonzales, Reflections on Living Compassion: Awakening our Passion and Living in Compassion, 2015. This is a beautiful little book that encapsulates a lot of Robert’s teaching.

3. Francis Weller website.

4. Transforming Pain audio practice.