Grief - Our Compatriot for Change
I am not an expert on grief. What’s shared below is my understanding to date of grief and change and how it works within social change work. This is a long post, inspired and guided by adrienne maree brown’s work in Holding Change. I invite you to find a quiet spot, take a deep breath, and settle into yourself.
Grief is a deep sadness, a suffering in response to loss and sorrow. Wild and chaotic, it must be managed, corralled, subdued. Often presenting as depression, it stops us in our tracks and chips away at the armor that hides our vulnerability. It balks at any pretense of hubris and nonchalance, key ingredients in today’s hustle culture. It will take by force that which is not freely given. It will not be ignored or hidden away.
Too often, we are told to move on, think positive, get over it. We are neither given time & space to grieve (3 days bereavement leave?!), nor do we have the gumption to carve it out for ourselves. Instead, we numb ourselves from the pain. Too often, the anesthetizing leads to addiction, isolation, and all sorts of physical ailments that we seek to alleviate with other numbing and soothing agents. The cycle perpetuates itself. Is there another way to be with grief? To meet it and acknowledge it with respect and compassion? To be one with it?
Is it possible that grief also holds love, joy, and gratitude? That the opposite of grief is not joy, but indifference? In Holding Change, adrienne maree brown states that “grief is an evolutionary indicator of love – the kind of great love that guides revolutionaries.” She contends that grief is a skill all Changemakers need to cultivate.
If change is what we are seeking – to create an equitable, just world rooted in love, care, and belonging – than loss and grief will be inevitable. Change is the means and the end, and at every step change begets loss. The challenge is which losses, how much, and for whom, are we willing to bear? What needs to die to make space for what can be? How do Changemakers leading the complex work of change cope with the losses? How do we bear witness to the destruction outside our control, mourn and honor what was, and also celebrate the emergence of new life and ways of being?
adrienne marie brown offers Francis Weller’s Five Gates of Grief to understand the complexity and multiplicity of grief, as well as four steps to move through grief from Cheryl Espinosa Jones. [i] These apply to individuals, organizations, and movements as well.
Five Gates of Grief
“To move closer to grief, we must each enter into an apprenticeship with sorrow”
1) Everything we love, we lose
The very essence of the natural world is change. Change and loss are inevitable. An immutable truth. Death isn’t just something that happens at the end," teaches Pema Chodron. "Life is continually arising, dwelling, ceasing, and arising. It’s a cycle that goes on every day and continues to go on forever."
2) Places that have not known love
The places we hide and hide from, the losses we will not acknowledge keep us from being whole. “The places within us that have been wrapped in shame and banished to the furthest shores of our lives.”
3) The sorrows of the world
I cannot even begin to list these horrors -- the violence and hate that stem from fear & shame, fragmented humanity, and divisive supremacist systems of oppression. These losses are not natural.
4) What we expected and did not receive
Broken relationships, perfectionism in organizations, infighting in movements. All levels anchored in love and driven by blame when we refuse to acknowledge loss, and shame when we deny how grief has manifest in our minds and bodies.
5) Ancestral grief
Generational losses and harm caused by long-term mass trauma (conquest, colonialism, slavery, war, genocide, dehumanization), compounded by ongoing harms of deep-seated structural inequality. This is not death that comes as part of the cycle of life, this is grief that can be held and honored only when systems shift toward justice, equity, dignity, and love.
Moving Through Grief
1) Feel the loss fully
Don’t ignore it or deny others space to grieve. “…being an effective changemaker demands the right and power to feel our losses rather than escape them.”
2) Seek solace and comfort
As in all contemplative practices, allow an expansion of your understanding of grief and suffering. Cultivate an active awareness of grief, yours and others, without judgement or attachment. Consider how grief may transform into agency to reimagine a different way.
3) Find inspiration
Invite art, ritual, gathering, and community into your life. “Art in all its forms allows grief to reveal us, gives sorrow words, deepens gratitude with grief’s weight, reminds each of us that only those who grieve profoundly can love deeply”
4) Take action from this place of grounded grief
Allow action to heal from within and without. “Metabolized grief can power deep and lasting change infused with profound joy, while unmetabolized grief becomes an almost insurmountable barrier to it.”
Changemakers - Grief is not the enemy, nor a distraction to be avoided.
May we all learn to be with suffering and grief such that we develop greater agency and urgency to transform our collective way of being.
May we all experience the light of joy that sprouts from the well of loss.
May grief serve to strengthen our resolve and spirit to reshape our world.
[i] Unless otherwise noted, all quotes from adrienne marie brown, Holding Change: The Way of Emergent Strategy Facilitation and Mediation
