Be Present and Dance with Grief

On moving forward when everything falls apart

Photo by Yuris Alhumaydy on Unsplash

The past two months have been surreal, intense, and tumultuous.

My neatly organised life went into a tailspin and left in disarray. One minute I was in the office learning the ropes of my new job and then the next I was in the hospital bidding my father farewell. While I desperately wanted to curl up and seek solace in a foetal position, I bury my sorrow deep inside and carried on honouring my father's memory, comforting my mother, and managing the estate left behind.

When I crawled into bed every night, every cell and tissue in my body would let out a big sigh. I could feel continuous waves of weariness and tension washing over my upper back, pulsating through my spine and limbs, finding their way out through the tip of my fingers and toes.

Beneath my calm presence, my mood shifted unpredictably minute by minute. From feeling bittersweet to numb, grateful to resentful, compassionate to confused. I often found myself feeling okay and not okay simultaneously. Every thought and feeling contradicted and collided with one another. Nothing made sense to my heart.

My head kept replaying reels of encounters I had with my family, friends, colleagues and even strangers since I embarked on my 13-month sabbatical last July. I dissected and questioned everything I did, every word I said, and every decision I made. Did I do things with the right intention and mindset? Was I walking the aligned path? What could I have done differently, particularly with my parents – maybe with more love and kindness?

It felt as though I was having an out-of-body experience.

I watched from afar everything that made me ‘Me’ shattered and vanished into thin air. Family. Home. Work. Connection. Identity. Purpose. Vision. I was thrust into this vast, eerie liminal space. Where grief swallowed my strength and confidence. Where everything felt distant and paradoxical. Where the old was gone and the new was yet to arrive. There was nothing I could do to stop the vortex of chaos, and nothing for me to hold onto and take refuge. The only thing I was able to do – in Alan Watts’s words – “to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.”

Yet I had no idea how I would move and dance with this new friend called grief.

Photo by Ahmad Odeh on Unsplash

I returned to full-time work after taking two and a half weeks off.

The transition was much harder than I anticipated. My head was foggy, my heart was bruised, and my body was exhausted. I dreaded being asked “how are you feeling” at the daily team huddle. I struggled to engage in conversations, process information, and adjust to the rhythms and rituals. It took tremendous effort to hold myself together and complete simple tasks. I hated the fact that I was not able to perform at the top of my usual capability. Never had I felt so uncomfortable, awkward, and exposed in my life – and this was not how I envisioned the beginning of my new professional chapter.

Time outside of work was challenging, too.

In a time when I needed silence and solitude the most, I was pulled to do the opposite – notifying countless people and services, staying on call-waiting for hours, filling out too many forms, explaining the situation repeatedly, and making one decision after another on behalf of my family. I found myself becoming angry and frustrated, not only at the cumbersomeness of our social and business systems, but also because I was overwhelmingly exhausted from managing the deceased estate on my own. Simmering deep inside my belly was an immense sense of fear and hopelessness that I might crumble and collapse soon in this long tunnel of darkness where the exit was nowhere to be seen.

Then Dr Paula Arai’s beautiful, tender words showed up in my inbox one day, like it’s meant to be:

“Immersions into the heart of grief are the raw moments in which healing activities thrive. Healing mobilizes our deepest despair and highest values. Healing occurs in the space where fear and love meet.

In the moment that had threatened to be the loneliest in my life, I experienced instead a profound connection with all grievers from the distant past and deep future.

Grieving consumes immense energy. It moves through varied rhythms and appears in sundry emotional shades, from despair to grace. Grief does not follow a straight path—instead, it circles back, lies dormant, bursts out unexpectedly. It holds you down, stirs up old wounds, breaks through walls of anger, and releases anguish. Though grief is undulating and ever-shifting, grievers share in the painful reality of losing something or someone. All losses demand adjustment. Whether the loss is of a job, mobility, confidence, health, a home, or a person who has died, grieving is about transformation. It revolves around integration and deepening acceptance. All seasons of grief involve changes and choices. Some seasons are intense and cacophonous, others subtle and quiet. Grief never completely ends, though it usually relinquishes its tight grip on you as you forge new ways to interact with the present.

When caring for someone in grief, including yourself, open the senses of your heart. Notice how the light that streams in from the cosmos shines through your eyes, warms your voice, and glows through your movements. Observe how muscles and bones provide structural support, however minimal or robust. Breathe in gratitude before talking. Breathe out lovingkindness while listening. Breathe in the beauty of the web of interconnections. Breathe out peaceful joy. Grieve one breath at a time.”

Only then I remembered I had the power of choice in spite of life’s obstacles and challenges. In that moment, I promised myself that I would choose –

• to stay present, be curious and watch the chaos emerge and unfold.

• to trust that everything is working out for me, even when it does not feel like it in the moment.

• to accept the changing meaning of “doing my best” for this season of my life.

• to take best possible action, no matter how small and slow, that would add values to myself and people around me.

• to show up fully, authentically, genuinely and consistently.

• love over fear, to care deeply over indifference, and growth over inertia.

Photo by Aron Visuals on Unsplash

Death is the greatest awakener of all.

It reminds us that we are nature. That life is always shifting in seasons and evolving in cycles. That creation and renewal can only be made possible with decay and death. That we must learn to welcome and appreciate the light of life and the darkness of death when they come.

It shatters the illusion of happily ever after. That we do not have forever do everything we want with our loved ones by our side. Remember, life can be beautifully and unpredictably short. All we really have is now – one breath, one second at a time. Start living a life true to ourselves and do more things that make our heart sing.

It shuts out all the noise and distraction so desired by our ego. In the process of cleaning the family home, it has struck me that we come to this world with nothing, and we leave with nothing when we die. Material possessions become meaningless when the person whom we used to share these things with is no longer here. The only thing that lives on is the shared memory of our time together.

It holds up the mirror and pushes us to our edge, forcing us to take a good, hard look at our human flaws and fragility. What are we doing to make this finite lifetime beautiful and worthwhile? Are we honouring the legacy and resiliency of our ancestors? Are we being good ancestors and leaving the world a better place for future generations?

It spotlights life’s true purpose: to know and be ourselves, to experience and share stories of as many human conditions as possible, and most important of all, to love, to connect, and to be of service.

(Sharing this profound video on grief by Todd Perelmuter. May it bring peace and comfort to all grievers near and far 🖤)