One common thread in almost all my interactions with students and colleagues alike is the heaviness of this moment in time. More than ever, my sessions are addressing a kind of existential heaviness and sadness. It can feel so hard, maybe even impossible, to stay openhearted amidst such global hostility, devastation, and heartbreak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the years, as both a meditation teacher and a death doula, it\u2019s become clear to me that we, culturally, lack the skills to grieve. As meditators and\/or Buddhists, we may be intellectually familiar with impermanence. Everything is impermanent; we\u2019ve heard it, said it, maybe hundreds of times. But how often are we actually touching that reality in our daily lives?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With my meditation and doula clients alike, I often recommend a practice of microdosing grief. It\u2019s not unlike how we set up a sitting or walking meditation practice. It\u2019s a habit of spending a little time, regularly, getting familiar with one\u2019s grief \u2014 just as we become familiar with our bodies and minds in practice. But our tender, open, broken hearts can get left out, ignored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grief can feel like a bottomless ocean. Emotions come in waves, often unexpected. A practice of microdosing grief is like training to swim; it doesn\u2019t stop the waves or prevent us from being knocked down. But it builds the skills to navigate them, because we\u2019ve become familiar with the waters, bit by bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I love the phrase \u201ctender heart\u201d or \u201ctenderhearted.\u201d Not just because that\u2019s how I typically experience things when I\u2019m not armoring up, but because the word \u201ctend\u201d is in there. How do we tend to our hearts, in small losses as well as devastation? When your heart is heavy or scared, what does it want? Not because that pain needs to be fixed or go away \u2014 it may be a perfectly reasonable response. But how can we acknowledge it and, without invalidating it, offer ease or comfort?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are formal meditation practices like metta<\/em> or tonglen<\/em>. But tending the heart can also be less formal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I try to mourn any loss that impacts me, no matter how small. I grieve when a beloved coffee shop or bookstore closes. I don\u2019t minimize it with a shrug and \u201ceverything is impermanent.\u201d I feel the loss. It\u2019s time dedicated to becoming familiar with how I grieve. Everything is impermanent. I let myself feel that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So when Big Grief comes, it may still knock me down. But I\u2019ll have practiced swimming. I\u2019ll know how to witness it, care for myself, and accept care. We can\u2019t prepare for what grief will come \u2014 but we can train our hearts to stay open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Is there a way you can gently touch your grief today, with reverence and curiosity?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One common thread in almost all my interactions with students and colleagues alike is the heaviness of this moment in time. More than ever, my sessions are addressing a kind of existential heaviness and sadness. It can feel so hard, maybe even impossible, to stay openhearted amidst such global hostility, devastation, and heartbreak. Over the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theanxiousbuddhist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theanxiousbuddhist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theanxiousbuddhist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theanxiousbuddhist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theanxiousbuddhist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theanxiousbuddhist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":351,"href":"https:\/\/theanxiousbuddhist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions\/351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theanxiousbuddhist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theanxiousbuddhist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theanxiousbuddhist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}