Grief Work is Soul Work

_{Grief work is Soul Work. Soul Work is Grief Work.” -Francis Weller The Wild Edge of Sorrow, Rituals for Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief.}

It’s amazing to me how travel and journeying somewhere new can create new creative brain sparks. In this journey from Port Macquarie NSW to return to Nipaluna/ Hobart to re-establish our home on the foothills of Kunanyi, I’ve listened to some podcasts and reread some books that have blown me away and I have had new connections woven between many areas that I am passionate about: Internal Family Systems, Deep Ecology, The Work That Reconnects, Psychology for a Safe Climate, attachment styles / patterns, the sacred interrelationship with all beings in nature, Biomimicry, SoulCraft (see resources list below).

This is my first attempt, after many weeks of pondering, to begin to interweave these concepts here in a way that makes sense to me, fully acknowledging that others have interwoven these concepts before me in many cultures over 1,000s of years, and it may take me years to deeply understand this interweaving. (See below for the invitations to explore these concepts communally online and in person in next few months.)

_{In the Celtic tradition it was said that we suffer from soul forgetfulness. We have forgotten who we are and have fallen out of true relationship with the earth and with one another.” – John Philip Newell Sacred Earth Sacred Soul}

Grief Work is Soul Work

Grief work is soul work and when we can grieve well we can access and remember our soul and remember our scared connection to all that is (John Philip Newell, Scared Earth, Sacred Soul, read more here). In our industrialised culture we have forgotten and we are now remembering ways to honour and provide a safe container for this essential grief and soul work through ritual with Deep Ecology, The Work That Reconnects, SoulCraft by Bill Plotkin and Francis Wellers book the Wild Edge of Sorrow. When we honour our grief, express and release it safely, we open our hearts and rediscover Active Hope.

_{Active Hope is not wishful thinking.
Active Hope is not waiting to be rescued . . . .
by some savior.
Active Hope is waking up to the beauty of life
on whose behalf we can act.
We belong to this world.
The web of life is calling us forth at this time.
We’ve come a long way and are here to play our part.
With Active Hope we realize that there are adventures in store,
strengths to discover, and comrades to link arms with.
Active Hope is a readiness to discover the strengths
in ourselves and in others;
a readiness to discover the reasons for hope
and the occasions for love.
A readiness to discover the size and strength of our hearts,
our quickness of mind, our steadiness of purpose,
our own authority, our love for life,
the liveliness of our curiosity,
the unsuspected deep well of patience and diligence,
the keenness of our senses, and our capacity to lead.
None of these can be discovered in an armchair or without risk.”}

_{― Joanna Macy}

What we love we will lose

With almost all of the clients I work with and in almost all of my own IFS therapy sessions there is ‘unwept,’ unprocessed grief.   The grief we most identify with is what Francis Weller describes as the first gate of grief – the loss of someone or something we have loved, whether a loved one has died or we are no longer in relationship with them, or our relationship with them has changed or they have moved away or their life is so altered by injury or sickness that it has permanently altered our relationship with them. One of the biggest ‘unwept’ griefs are for those parents who last a child during pregnancy or at birth, or for those who hoped to have children and couldn’t.

_{my grief says that I dared to love, that I allowed another to enter the very core of my being, and find a home in my heart. Grief is akin to praise, it is how the soul recounts the depth to which someone has touched our lives. To love is to accept the rites of grief.” Francis Weller The Wild Edge of Sorrow, Rituals for Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief. P25.}

Something we can love and then grieve is also the loss of our own health or being pain free or loss of mobility or getting a serious diagnosis.   I have known very deep grief in the last couple of years after falling down a staircase at an Airbnb and losing my fit, flexible, strong, healthy body that I had completely taken for granted. Menopause, pregnancy, birth, getting older can all bring grief as we farewell the body we knew and adapt to a new body. We can also experience grief over any significant change or transition, whether we chose that change or not: becoming an adolescent, leaving home, becoming a spouse, becoming a parent, children getting older, empty nest, losing a job / retiring.

_{The sacred ground of grief …shakes us and breaks us open to depths of the soul we could not imagine. Grief offers a wild alchemy, transmutes suffering into fertile ground. We are made real and tangible by the experience of sorrow. …We are stripped of excess and revealed as human in our times of grief. Grief ripens us, pulls up from the depths of our souls what is most authentic in our beings.” Francis Weller The Wild Edge of Sorrow, Rituals for Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief. P8.}

Our industrialised society and the culture I am part of has forgotten how to allow and support grief….we have lost our rituals and our ways of holding space for the people grieving. I remember as a new grad Speech Pathologist in Townsville hospital 1994 listening to the loud wailing of an Italian family who had just lost a family member and I was shocked – grief in my family was a tight lip and quiet weeping in private affair, I did not know there was another way of grieving…

When I worked in the Kimberleys and in Alice Springs it was such an eye-opener for me to see First Nations people conduct Sorry business where grieving would take as long as it takes and all other aspects of life would grind to a halt for as long as needed. Something in my soul understood that this made much more sense – to grieve as a community, openly, loudly, with no shame, for as long as it takes….

_{Grief work is soul work – it takes courage to face the world as it is – and not turn away, to not burrow into a hole of comfort and anesthetisation.” Francis Weller The Wild Edge of Sorrow, Rituals for Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief. P 7}

I’m surprised (but I probably shouldn’t be) how many clients come in to see me for therapy around anxiety, depression, anger management, stress management but in the first few sessions they reveal the depths of their grief that hasn’t been safely expressed / released because there hasn’t been a safe communal container! When we work with grief (recent or in the past) there is often a shift with all the other symptoms that we experience.  As Weller states, often we feel depressed because we are suppressing grief. I have experienced this personally, discovering that at the root of my suffering, is unprocessed grief and I feel so much better after safely expressing and releasing grief.

Worden identified 4 tasks of grief: to accept the reality of the loss, to process the pain of grief, to adjust to the new way of being in the world with the loss, to find an enduring connection with the person who has died…..and yet our culture expects people to do this alone or if they are lucky with their family / social support system or within the counselling space. Knowing the tasks of mourning is helpful – it’s a map, but if we don’t have the tools and community support / rituals to travel the territory of grief, it can be a very arduous, isolating journey!

Kubler-Ross describes the range of emotions and thoughts that come with grief (denial, bargaining, anger, despair, acceptance) and yet if we don’t have community support and ritual to create a safe container for these emotions / thoughts we are often struggling to process them alone. As Frank Weller says if we don’t have a safe container to release the emotions of grief then we contain them and they become hardened sediment in our body. Almost all other cultures for 1000’s of years have had communal rituals for the release of grief so that people stay healthy and feel enlivened. These rituals have involved nature and the expressive arts (movement, sound, dance, chant, creative writing / arts, rhythmic drumming, singing, music).

_{Welcoming everything that comes to us is the challenge. This is the secret to being fully alive.” Francis Weller The Wild Edge of Sorrow, Rituals for Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief. P9.}

Internal Family Systems describes how our parts keep grief suppressed in our nervous system. We are so fearful of being overwhelmed / drowned in grief that we have manager parts that stay on high alert, stay busy, stay in control, try to keep things certain – and when those parts get fatigued we have firefighter parts that do everything possible to not feel, to escape, avoid, numb, push all feelings away.   All of these strategies are helpful at times when the grief does become overwhelming….and they can become unhealthy when we don’t allow the release of grief impeding our ability to be open to life. IFS acknowledges that all parts, all emotions belong, all are welcome and supports us to welcome grief in all levels, in a safely held space.

_{While it is difficult to embrace grief and be moved by it’s muscular demands, without it we would not know the heartening quality of compassion, could not experience the full breadth of love, the surprise of joy, we could not celebrate the sheer beautiy of the world. Grief fosters each of these capabilities, deepening them by bringing gravity to the moment. Francis Weller The Wild Edge of Sorrow, Rituals for Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief. P9.}

We struggle enough as it is in our industrialised society to grieve that which we love – and then Francis Weller in his book Wild Edge of Sorrow describes another 4 gates of grief that rarely get any attention in our society and he suggests that on some level we all carry this undigested, unwept sorrow.

Five Gates of Grief:

1. What we love we will lose (loved ones, our own health and vitality, sense of place, home)
2. The places within that haven’t known love
3. The sorrows of the world
4. What we expected and did not receive
5. Ancestral grief

The places within that haven’t known love

The second gate, The places that haven’t known love refers to all the parts within us that were banished, wrapped in shame, or were outcast when we were younger. Internal Family Systems (IFS) is such a beautiful process of supporting people to find, acknowledge these parts and to grieve them before reclaiming their strengths and qualities. (E.g. if we work with a hypervigilant part we will often ask the part what would you rather do if your energy wasn’t going into being so anxious and often parts reply that they would be more creative, more playful….)

I love how Francis Weller says we “cannot grieve for something we feel is outside the circle of worth, as shame ruptures our connection with Life and with Soul.”   In Internal Family Systems when we repair the ruptured relationship with that part, we grieve the loss of that part and begin to feel compassion for that lost part of ourselves. Often we can then open ourselves naturally to an increased sense self-compassion. I see this happen with clients all the time, such a beautiful process to witness. These banished parts are from ruptures in our early relationships….and we need to develop a secure attachment with Self, and with others and with something larger than ourselves (David Eckel Podcast)….to heal these parts, to truly see and hear them, to welcome them into belonging as part of our inner and outer ecosystem. We can only do this if first we can grieve these banished parts.

_{we need to move from feeling worthless to knowing we are wounded, from feeling contempt to feeling compassion and from keeping silent to sharing.” Francis Weller The Wild Edge of Sorrow, Rituals for Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief. P34.}

If we have parts hiding in shame then we will not be able to speak up and stand up for issues that are important for our world, we will have a deadened response to life and not a vital engaged response! This healing within (grieving what is lost and is now found) is vital to be able to bring healing and wise compassionate action to the outside world.

_{This is a dark time, filled with suffering and uncertainty. Like living cells in a larger body, it is natural that we feel the trauma of our world. So don’t be afraid of the anguish you feel, or the anger or fear, because these responses arise from the depth of your caring and the truth of your interconnectedness with all beings. – Joanna Macy}

Ancestral Grief

In the 5^th Gate, Ancestral Grief, recognised in IFS and in Deep Ecology, is an acknowledgement of our ancestral lineage and our ancestral inheritance. We can inherit ancestral gifts and we can inherit ancestral grief and shame that may block us from moving forward / healing…(more on this in a future blog). Often undigested ancestral grief, shame and healing comes up in IFS therapy sessions and within Deep Ecology / The Work That Reconnects gatherings. Francis Weller describes how healing rituals can help to clear ancestral grief.

_{We are born expecting a rich and sensuous relationship with earth and communcal rituals of celebration, grief and healing that keep us connected with the sacred.” Francis Weller The Wild Edge of Sorrow, Rituals for Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief. P54.}

What we expected and didn’t receive

In the 4^th gate, What we expected and did not receive, is the profound emptiness and loneliness we feel, the absence of something sacred, the absence of community that we can’t really identify except that when we land in the sense of a village (e.g. Deep Ecology Weekend) it feels really powerful and somehow familiar.

_{We are designed to receive touch, to hear sounds and words entering our ears that soothe and comfort. We are shaped for closeness and for intimacy in our surroundings, …we expect the container of the village.” Francis Weller The Wild Edge of Sorrow, Rituals for Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief. P54-55.}

Perhaps one reason why we buried so many parts internally (gate 2) and why we carry so much ancestral grief (gate 5) and why so many of us do not know how to grieve what we have loved and lost individually or in the world (gates 1 and 3) is because we did not have a safe and secure village to grow up in (gate 4)…. We did not experience a knowing of our worth and welcome, or have our longing to belong satisfied….   When we sit in circle or council (e.g. Deep Ecology/ Soulcraft Council) we often experience what Weller calls the sudden village / communitas, a feeling of belonging and social bonding, that reinforces connection, and we remember our affinity and communality…

_{Grief stirs the heart. It is indeed the song of a soul alive. … The work of grieving for the world translates into a fierce and undying devotion to the world.”   …find our courage to protect what is being threatened….We must participate in the repair of the world.” Francis Weller The Wild Edge of Sorrow, Rituals for Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief. P46.}

Our grief for the world

It makes sense that in our industrialised society we also suppress the 3^rd gate, our grief for the world, (Steffi Bednarek Podcast) if society role modelled to us at a young age to suppress our grief at what we have loved and lost and to suppress parts of ourselves deemed unworthy / shameful. We learned to not expect a supportive village, that it is safer to move through the world under the radar, that we don’t belong as we are and that our ancestors carry enormous undigested unwept grief. We learned it is better to numb ourselves rather than grieve what is happening in our world.

_{Much of the grief we have is not personal, but shared, communal….It takes everything we have to deny the sorrows of the world.” Francis Weller The Wild Edge of Sorrow, Rituals for Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief. P46.}

If we were able to grieve deeply what is happening to Mother Earth, we would be able to keep our hearts open and take wise compassionate action rather than putting all our energy into suppressing grief. IFS can help us to look at our manager and firefighter parts that are keeping the grief for the world buried – both at an individual and at a collective level.   Deep Ecology / The Work That Reconnects / SoulCraft can support us to be held in safe community / village ritual to be able to express our sorrows for the world and re-develop a sense of the interconnection / interbeing with the more than human world. Francis Weller can help us develop those rituals of renewal even further as outlined in his book The Wild Edge of Sorrow.

All of these 5 gates of grief are connected: only when we can grieve the things we have loved and lost, our lost parts, our ancestral grief, our loss of the sacred and the village can we then begin to grieve the losses within our world and begin to take hopeful action. As Joanna Macy says it is essential that we grieve and enliven our response to the world.

_{Of all the dangers we face, from climate chaos to permanent war, none is so great as this deadening of our response. For psychic numbing impedes our capacity to process and respond to information. The energy expended in pushing down despair is diverted from more crucial uses, depleting the resilience and imagination needed for fresh visions and strategies. Joanna Macy}

Worden says that to grieve we need to accept reality, feel the pain of the loss, adjust and adapt and find an enduring connection to what we have lost. We can only do these tasks of mourning for the world if we can begin to go through the steps of accepting reality and feel the pain of the loss in a safe container of a communal village. Then we can adjust and adapt and establish an enduring connection. This is the power of the Active Hope spiral and the sudden village provided in Deep Ecology/ The Work that Reconnects / SoulCraft and other spaces where we can speak vulnerably from our hearts in circle or council. (More on Deep Ecology here).

_{To open our hearts to the sad history of humanity and the devastated state of the earth is the next step to reclamation of our bodies, the body of our human community and the body of the earth.” Chellis Glendinning Earth Grief in Francis Weller The Wild Edge of Sorrow, Rituals for Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief. P46.}

I was so fortunate in 2023 to be part of a SoulCraft Intensive with Animus Valley and to also be part of several Deep Ecology Gatherings and in each of these, within the safe container of a council/circle, I was able to witness others and express my own grief for the world… I didn’t know how much grief for the World I was carrying, or how strong the connection would be with others when you share your collective grief authentically in sacred space, or how refreshing it would be to grieve deeply in community and then to rediscover Active Hope, an energising sense of renewal for moving forward! As Francis Weller states it’s vital that these rituals of renewal and sacred grief are a regular practice within community to keep refreshing and renewing our sense of Active Hope.

List of Resources to explore more of what is mentioned here:

• Francis Weller The Wild Edge of Sorrow, Rituals for Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief
• Active Hope by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone.
• Deep Ecology and The Work that Reconnects
• Internal Family Systems
• SoulCraft Animus Valley
• SoulCraft by Bill Plotkin
• Sacred Earth Sacred Soul by John Philip Newell
• Psychology For Safe Climate
• Francis Weller and Thomas Hubl Podcast on Collective Grief in Community: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7AUJIiuiw8zvRNv8YnGxSu?si=h95ZgMcPRBi5_TtxyeHosw
• Francis Weller with Olivia Clementine: The Medicine that you carry: https://oliviaclementine.com/francis-weller-the-medicine-you-carry-suturing-the-inevitable-tears/
• Biomimicry; an operating manual for Earthlings with Janine Benyus on On Being Podcast.
• IFS and Climate Change with Steffi Bednarek on the One Inside Podcast
• IFS and Attachment with David Eckel on the One Inside Podcast

Invitations to join me on an exploration of our Grief for the World and Soul Work:

(More info coming soon, August 2024)

• Eco Soul Wander
• Deep Parts Wisdom Online Circle
• Tending to the Wild & Sacred Online Circle
• Deep Ecology / The Work That Reconnects / Active Hope Gatherings