subject: The Function of Grief [print this page] The Function of Grief The Function of Grief
A dear friend of a dear friend recently experienced the loss of her lifelong relationship, her soulmate of many, many years, not to death, but to leaving, and already a positive thing has been discovered, as death means no possibility for extended growth between these two lovely human beings. So long as life remains, there are always possibilities for further growth.
Because the friend friend is female, a special situation arises, for it is the female who holds the relationship within the womb of her heart, and carries this inside her soul, just as she carries her children in the womb of her belly, and this is why the loss of relationship for women is particularly difficult, and terrible, and painful. This in no way minimizes the pain such loss causes within men, but a man experiences pain in the loss of the keeper of the relationship, even when they themselves leave. Women are flowers whose energy is receptive, while men are pollinators whose energy is penetrating. This penetrating male energy is why men tend to be outwardly motivated, while women are receptively, inwardly so.
Emotions are either carried by and upon love, or they are carried by and upon its opposite. Tears are shed, excepting pain through injury, which is a physical pain, through either joy or through grief. These tears are emotional in origin, and it is at these two places emotion wraps entirely around itself and meets, in tears. For it is in the shedding of tears that joy and grief are expressed, and these emotions exist for similar, but opposite reasons.
When we experience joy, it is because the heart gate is flooded with love until there is a surfeit of it, and it cannot be contained within the heart any more, but some must be let out in joy. Crying laughter comes, pure laughter accompanied by tears, but because grief is also experienced as a release of stored joy, grief may be released also, so at times a person alternates between choking laughter and choking sobbing, unable to decide which feels more appropriate. An excess of love always produces this feeling and these hiccups.
When we experience grief, it is because love must leave the heart womb, and it is the feeling of joy leaving that causes the feeling of pain, or, put another way, the joy brought into the heart by the other person was stored for many, many years, but must now be released, and this stored joy is washed away, slowly, in sequential events, diluted, through the shedding of tears. The more joy and love received, the more grief when this long stored joy and love must at last be let go, until, at some point, a bearable equilibrium is reached, and this is felt as a dull, throbbing in the heart where cherished joy once resided. Regaining joy is the alchemical process of transmuting grief into joy within the crucible of the heart, in the taking of lead and turning it into gold, the holy grail of all alchemical reactions.
Relationships, when they begin, begin as entirely consensual ones. Marriages conducted in this condition are consensual agreements between agreeing persons. Both persons agree to this relationship in this state of development. When relationships work, they are such wonderful, joyous things, but when the relationship is unable to keep up with the changes inside the people involved, and it is a mutual understanding, then the relationship stands a good chance of a logical, orderly transition to a new form, as the basis for another, consensual agreement presents itself. We are all in relationship, all of us, as there are literally and mathematically only six or seven degrees of separation between any two of us. The nature of the relationship is what changes, its conclusions, and its definitions.
When the relationship must change at the behest of only one of the individuals, then this change is no longer consensual. It means one of the two people are resistant to the change, as it means the loss of joy love from the heart is to be experienced. One or the others has either lost this joy love, or some unforeseen situation has arisen, or an unconscious hole is laid open, or some vague feeling of entrapment is experienced, the reasons are many. If it is a relationship of marriage, this is particularly difficult, because all consensual relationships change into enforceable ones upon the introduction of the instrument of a contract. Marriages are by definition contractual, enforceable obligations.
A person who leaves any relationship, married or not, is reestablishing consensualism within that relationship, and this is always a positive thing as it tends toward optimizing freedom, or choice, within that person's individual life. And this is a cause not for unhappiness, but for celebration. Resistance, or the impotent desire for control, does not change what is. Resistance only makes something unacceptable in the mind. When resistance is dropped, after the tears are shed and equilibrium is attained, the remaining joy and love that sit so tenderly within the heart womb may be liberated as joy, in acceptance of what is, in the acceptance of the absolute perfection of what is.
No person should be punished for expressing desire for greater freedom, as the expression of freedom is an act of self-love and self-joy, and is an expansive aspect of positive growth. Rather than punish oneself for the loss of this joy love, the only life positive solution to it is to bestow upon the other person the joy love they brought to the relationship for so very long. Love them. Bring joy into their lives. Give it back to them, and to all other people, this joy. Establish a new relationship upon the foundation of the old relationship, a new one of gratitude for the many long, happy years as recipient of this joy.
To this friend, friend sister, take this stored joy surplus, and rather than try to hold it, or hoard it, give it away as joy, the choking laughter amid the choking tears, and through this the liberation of something magical and beautiful into the world. Take this stored joy and give it back to the one who gave it to you in the beginning, to anyone else who never had the chance to know anything like it, and to everyone else so that they might use the fund of it for yet another choking, sobbing, soul cleansing cry. Recycled, filtered joy love passed through the heart is a rare and precious nectar to carry to the communal feast of life. In it is found the essence of grace.
