Good Grief: How meditation can help us to sit with difficult feelings
There aren’t very many universal experiences in this life, but grief is something every living being will experience in their lifetime. That’s why I chose it as the very first meditation to include in my podcast, and it’s why I’m writing about it here now.
It can be helpful to remember that every emotion has a purpose, and grief exists to help us process loss and make meaning out of that which we lost. Practicing mindfulness meditation can be an essential tool in this process, allowing us to stay present with our emotions.
In my Buddhist Dharma trainings, I learned about the art of being present to grief, of staying with it the same way we learn to stay with our breath as we practice meditation. Mindfulness meditation can help you notice your thoughts and feelings arising, letting them go and returning (over and over and over again) to the breath or other anchor.
Grief, much like love, can be pure and beautiful when we are grieving something or someone that brings up feelings of gratitude for what was, but it can also be layered and complex, bringing up more intense and less comfy feelings like shame, regret, anger, or hurt, making the practice of sitting with it a lot more challenging.
For me, the practice of sitting with uncomfortable emotions through regular mindfulness meditation practices is sort of like training for a race, in the sense that I am building my tolerance and resilience so that when something big like grief hits, I’m a little more prepared.
Here are a few steps you could try if you are working up to sitting with your grief:
Interval training: Try sitting for a short amount of time, say even 15 seconds, followed by let’s say 30 minutes of timed “mindful distraction”. For example, let yourself watch an episode of a familiar TV show or play a game on your phone for a set amount of time, and commit to some form of stillness for a moment before and after. This kind of meditation technique can gradually help you increase your tolerance for sitting in stillness.
Therapeutic practices: If they’re accessible to you, things like guided mindful movement, art therapy, somatic therapy, grief counseling, or talk therapy can be helpful to tackle the immensity of your grief.
Vocal release: If sitting in stillness or silence is too much, you could try going for a drive and singing really loudly in your car, or deep cleaning the house with headphones on, or even putting your head under water in a pool or bathtub and screaming as loudly as you can. Emotions intensify when they don’t have a pressure release valve, and so sometimes just letting some of the pressure out can make the underlying emotions more manageable.
Disclaimer! Sometimes grief hits in a moment when we haven’t been practicing, or are just arriving at the art of practicing mindfulness meditation, or maybe it’s just so big and unexpected that it knocks us right down. Some feelings can simply be too much to sit with. In those moments, don’t try to be mindful of it (yup, you read that right). I firmly believe that in the moments when the waves of feelings are big and intense, our only job is to survive the wave. That might mean calling a friend, going outside to look at the sky while you cry, putting on a short video, taking a few deep breaths… Whatever can get you through that wave.
If and when you do feel ready, this 10 minute guided meditation will help you meet the waves of grief with tenderness so that it can move through you and create space for appreciation… and eventually joy.
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