Grief is the medicine

For too long our society has misinterpreted and misrepresented the vital role that grief has to play in our lives. We see grief as a problem that needs to be solved or a malaise in need of healing, but I am here to tell you just the opposite.

Your grief isn’t an awkward phase that the world wants you to get through as quickly as possible. No, it is actually the most needed and necessary medicine that you, your community and our planet most desperately crave.

Grief itself does not hurt us; it is only the barriers that we put up against grief that cause us pain. My hope is that you don’t need this invitation, but just in case you do, I am here to tell you that your grief is a gift to this world and to give you permission to let your grief be as big as it really is. It is, after all, the evidence that your heart has dared to fully love.

Your grief means that you have allowed the hardships and the sorrows of the world to break your heart – open. Your grief is a living breathing example of being fully alive, in this moment, willing to feel it all.

I invite, encourage, implore the warrior inside you to lean into your heartbreak and use it like a map leading you towards a truer more authentic version of yourself and towards greater meaning and purpose. 

‘The sorrow, grief and rage you feel is a measure of your humanity and your emotional maturity. As your heart breaks open there will be room for the world to heal’ – Joanna Macy.

There is so much I could write about the transformational potential of grief, which is not to undervalue the pain and hardship of what it feels like to sit in the fire. All I know is that deep within the burning embers lies the potential for something beautiful to rise from the ashes.

The wounds we carry, are the medicine we bring.