As we awaken to the Divine within us, there can be a tendency to rise above the mundanity of being human, having emotions, and connecting with other people. As we are taught mindfulness and new consciousness tools, it expands our awareness into the realm of the souls, which is a very different plane than the third dimension of this human experience.
Through this process of awakening and expanding awareness, we learn all kinds of cool universal truths like… You are not alone and Everything happens for a reason and You need to be grateful for what you have and What you think about, you bring about.
Now, while these statements are true, they also can create a lot of pain for a human who is grieving. These are new, enlightened versions of statements like… There are other fish in the sea or They are in a better place or What did you do to get yourself in THIS fix? If you have gone through any form of spiritual awakening, you now would not dream of using one of these three statements – or any others like them – because you’re aware of how they lack empathy and caring. And you wouldn’t dare be anything but empathetic and caring these days because you understand the power of being so.
However, I invite you to look at what you are saying when you throw one of those universal truths – or others like them – at a human who is in a very real experience of grief.
Picture this… You are a man mourning the passing of your beloved wife and two daughters who were killed in an automobile accident caused by a drunk man. You are standing in your empty living room, being swallowed by the painful silence for the 632 day in a row since their deaths. You are aching because the emptiness is suffocating. You reach out to someone for comfort and you hear, “You are not alone.” How do you receive that? How do you convince yourself, in that moment, surrounded by absolutely nothing and no physical others, that you are not alone? When you climb into your bed, alone with no one beside you between the sheets for the 632 night in a row, how do you convince yourself that you are not alone?
Picture this… You just got home to discover you have been burglarized and everything you love has either been destroyed or taken. It is clear from the damage that several people violated your space and you discover that your beloved dog was killed in the process of the burglary. This on the heels of coming home from work after being let go from your job of 18 years. You reach out to someone for comfort and you hear, “Everything happens for a reason. You just need to be grateful for what you have.” How do you receive that? As you’re standing there in the shambles of your home, how do you understand that you just lost your job, your home has been violated, and your personal belongings have been taken? And, while you spend your time being so grateful for everything they didn’t take and the fact that your family wasn’t home so nobody was hurt, your dog was killed. How do you come to terms with that?
Picture this… You are a single woman who has been single for many years. You have tried dating apps. You’ve gone on blind dates. You’ve tried websites to meet other singles. You’ve tried every new age networking event available. You’ve done affirmations. You’re clear on what you want for yourself and what you want to experience. You’ve remained positive. You’ve done healing work. You’ve cleared your relationship patterns. And… even with all of this, you are still alone. You are mourning the loss of a partner you’ve never even met and you share with your friend that you really want to be in an intimate relationship. She responds with, “What you think about, you bring about. Maybe you just need to think more positively about relationships.” How would you feel? How do you reconcile yourself with the fact that you’ve done (and have been) everything you’ve been led to do (and be), you’ve followed all the steps in the formulas, and nothing is working?
While it is a great universal truth that NONE of us are alone, when your humans have been taken away from you (or haven’t yet arrived), it is a very, very real experience of aloneness that deserves to be honored. Even if someone reminds you that this life is temporary, that the soul is eternal, and that you’ll be with them again, even that is not comforting in the present moment when you are aching to be held by physical arms that no longer exist in this plane – or have yet to exist. There is a sensation of comfort that can only be brought by an embrace and when someone isn’t around to embrace you, the absence of that very human experience is evident and painful.
When humans are grieving loss and someone who means well tells them that there’s a reason for it and they need to be grateful, it creates dissonance for the person who is grieving. It detracts from their very human, naturally-occuring emotional experience. And when they are questioning their very existence and someone tells them that “what they think about, they bring about,” it creates a mental energy of destructiveness, an energy of “you’re not doing something right, which is why it’s not working for you.”
When you are on the road to enlightenment and you forget (or ignore) that you are actually having a human experience right now, as is the person you are interacting with, you can unwittingly inflict pain on them. While all of these statements are, at the core, true, having wisdom about when to actually use them in a conversation is vital. Parroting of new age belief axioms is the least effective way of connecting with someone who is experiencing grief.
Be conscious of the message you are really delivering when you choose to dump “enlightened” words on a hurting human. In the face of grief and loss, the kindest thing we can do for one another is to offer our presence and a shoulder to lean on and, if we have no words other than the new, cool beliefs we’re learning, then our silence will be a blessed relief and a beautiful gift.
