The paradox of grief and love.

Today, my heart is heavy. Over the last few days, I have been in touch with some old pain in my being and this has opened me up even more than usual to the suffering in the world. It is a lot to hold. It almost feels like as I stay with this heaviness, not reacting or turning away or needing it to change, I feel an intense upgrading of love in the heart. How else do we do this human-ing? I saw a brilliant client this week who tends to struggle with the world’s madness and she asked, “What are we supposed to do with all of this?” My answer was simple: “I don’t know.” It felt good to me to be able to sit in the not knowing together. That was all I had to offer.

But today, deep in the grief of it all, I feel a tender opening to more love. I can’t really explain it but when I feel it, I’m moved to tears. I think when I stay with the suffering, I inevitably touch in to the tender ones in each of us. The beautiful, vulnerable, broken innocence of being here. We don’t always show these parts to ourselves or each other, but we are all trying to figure out how to manage our vulnerabilities, whether we are conscious of it or not.

The expansion of love in the heart seems forever woven into this grief and vice versa. What a gift to sit in this paradox and know that one gives life to the other. So this afternoon, when I had some time to myself, I lit a candle and my favorite incense, I put on some beautiful chanting music and allowed myself to be taken into the heaviness in the heart, into the deep love that is there. I send this love to all of you and pray that your tender places can receive this today, if only for a moment.