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Inhabiting Grief: Loving What We Cannot Keep · Infinitely Precious

• 0:00
  Intro: Welcome to the Infinitely Precious podcast produced by Infinitely Precious LLC. Your host is James Henry. Remember, you are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are.
• 0:12
  James: Hello, beloved. It's me, James. And yes, here we are for another week of the Infinitely Precious podcast. I really am very appreciative of you joining me, of being a companion on this journey with me, as well as my being a companion with you over whatever distance there is between us. Physically, spiritually, I wonder if there's really any distance at all, being connected as we all are.
• 0:42
  If this podcast is helpful to you, I am delighted. If you think someone might benefit from it, I encourage you to share it with others. That's why I do it, if I'm being honest with you. I do it hopefully to invite each of us, myself included in this journey of life to consider how we might perceive the life that we are given and live into it. As you might know, if you've been listening to the series for the last three weeks and continuing for an indeterminate amount of time, I've moved from the ripening series, which was a nine week series, to an inhabiting series.
• 1:33
  We've talked about inhabiting our very being, the fact that we are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift we already are. We've talked about inhabiting our bodies as a way of fully participating in all that is. And last week we talked about inhabiting our pain and struggle without even with the desire to run away to remain in that space and to be present to the pain and struggle. In some ways, this next step is a move deeper into this idea of perhaps pain and struggle, inhabiting grief. When I think about grief, what I think about it, it's more than this hurts, which is what the pain and struggle one in habitation was about.
• 2:34
  This is more about recognizing that we are inhabiting a space because something, someone mattered. Because this person mattered to us, the kind of pain we're feeling is the loss, what we perceive or feel as a loss of that love. It's a risky thing to love. It's a risky thing to enter into that sense of connection. And yet, it is worth the risk to love even if all love potentially ends in grief.
• 3:23
  And so I thought I might talk about today inhabiting and being connected to the grief that we feel. I'm not sure with any loss that we ever completely get over it, that we always feel it. And particularly for those folks in our lives, those things that have truly mattered to us. Last year, about a year and a half ago, I lost my dad. And even thinking about and talking about grief today I knew that he was going to be a part of this conversation whether I mentioned him or not in the way I talk and I talked about grief, he is a part of that because even eighteen months later, it's not the same intensity of grief as I felt at the time when he died, when I was there with him as he died, but it's a kind of grief that in given moments, something will come up inside of me that matters to me and I know it would have mattered to him.
• 4:41
  Maybe it still matters to him. And sometimes I say those things out loud, anticipating that he might hear me. But knowing that what mattered to me mattered to him and that I mattered to him and that he mattered to me, those things will come up inside of me and I think to myself, I wonder what daddy would have thought. Or sometimes when I'm not truly, being attentive, I think let me, I want to, I want to, the initial, it's only a nanosecond probably, very short. I want to tell daddy this.
• 5:20
  I want him to know. And then it passes. Relationship grew to matter in different ways as we both aged. And it was a relationship of interdependence. Perhaps a little dependence on his part at the very tail end of his life, But for the most part, was interdependent.
• 5:54
  He could call and talk to me about whatever was on his mind or things he was thinking about, and I could call and talk to him because he was always in my corner and he was always interested in hearing. And so rather than run away from the grief that arises, I practice inhabiting those moments. I feel what mattered. I feel what mattered about that relationship. And things like I just expressed that I was seen for who I was, that I was accepted and loved.
• 6:34
  And daddy, especially in the last decade or so was clear with me about that. Always open in sharing that. All through, he did it wordlessly prior to that. He showed up in my life. He did the hard things by being there for all kinds of things that happened in and to my life.
• 6:57
  But in the last decade, he was very expressive about that, sharing what he how he felt. And you know, his pride in my being his son. Those kinds of things. And because that relationship, that connection mattered, Grief is about the fact that because it mattered, because our relationship mattered and as it had been experienced before it was finished, I was left feeling that sadness that comes, that grief that comes and grief and habits. And rather than avoid, I let the feelings rise.
• 7:44
  Sometimes they come with tears and sometimes they just come with a sense of emptiness inside. Because as much as dad lives on in my memories and is a part of my life, even the very way I talk and the way I look is related to him and mom and all my ancestors. But as I feel that there is a kind of a spot that once was filled by my ability to just reach out that isn't the same, it's different. And I know it mattered. And that's what grief is.
• 8:29
  It's saying this really mattered and now it's not the same. It's changed. It's gone. At least the way you experienced it before cannot be experienced again. That's the challenge of grief and inhabiting that space is consenting to the fact that you and I love without being able to hold on to that which we love, to the one whom we love, because they're not ours to hold.
• 9:07
  They matter, we matter to them, it's a mutuality, it's a connection, and that connection is important. And so when it's gone, the love inside of us says something is missing and that is grief. That grief leaves us in a certain place. A loving that which I cannot keep. Loving the one whom I cannot keep.
• 9:50
  And moving on is recognizing that in every moment in every relationship there is a potential for change. I mean the relationship is changing and we'll talk about inhabiting relationship. It might even be the natural outgrowth of inhabiting grief next week when we talk perhaps we'll talk about relationship. But it becomes the recognition that grief is a way of recognizing, of experiencing in this moment and not to rush through this moment so we can get to the other side. Some people will try to tell us to get over our grief.
• 10:34
  Now, if it's intense grief and it just keeps being intense without any kind of recovery, without any kind of transformation that's happening in it months and months and months, years later, then perhaps we need someone to help us work through it. But for the most part, grief is not something that you just snap your fingers and be over with. People who you love come with you to celebrate the life of the person that you loved and that they either loved you and want to be there for you or that they loved as well. And then after a certain period of time, they're just an expectation that you'll move on. And we all move on at different rates.
• 11:22
  And a competition to get to the other side. When grief arises, when we inhabit it, we let it speak its truth into us. That people in our lives, that events in our lives have been important, that have really mattered to us. And now they're not here anymore. And it's a way of honoring that love.
• 11:47
  It's a way of claiming that love really matters. So I want to invite you to inhabit your grief. I'm inviting myself to inhabit my grief, not to rush to the other side. And grief comes in so many different forms and there's just not enough time to talk about all of them. But perhaps this has offered you some suggestions about not running from grief, not rushing through grief but letting it do its quiet and gentle work of helping you appreciate what a gift it is to be alive and to be connected and to recognize also that there are people that matter to us in our lives.
• 12:38
  There are things in our lives, events with whom we identify or connect that matter enough that when they're gone, we feel a sense of loss, an intense sense of loss that may manifest in the body. It may manifest in our emotions, in our spirit, as a kind of an emptiness, a missing spot, and that that is completely normal. And rather than rush or run, we can be present or inhabit. We can consent to the fact that we can love without being able to keep. And it's a wonderful truth and a painful one at the same time.
• 13:26
  So I invite you to inhabit your grief but whether you do or not remember, and this is really important, you are infinitely and precious, infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are. May you recognize the gifts in your life. May they teach you what they can teach you. And may you be a gift because you recognize yourself and inhabit those moments. Go in peace, my friends.
• 14:00
  Until the next time.