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The human experience holds so much duality. The ability to have two opposite emotions at the same time. Trying to intellectualize both seems impossible to the mind. Currently, I am sitting with grief and gratitude. Attempting to hold space for both.

Last night, I attended a seminar on Goddesses. I went into the seminar without knowledge of who or how the event would be structured. The Goddess that remains in my mind is Dhumavati. The crone, Goddess of strife and disappointment. Those that know me personally understand that I am naturally inclined to the dark. Dhumavati sits on a horseless broken-down carriage, disappointment on her wise, drawn face, and a crow by her side.

The guide asked us where we have or are sitting with disappointment. She explained that the disappointment and heartbreak is necessary in order to feel the joy and gratitude. The disappointment is the stripping of the ego, the removal of the masks. The hope that one day we can all see who we really are in our true essence.

The next part of the process was picking up a drab rock and using it as an offering to Dhumavati. Offering our sorrow and loss, surrendering in humility and placing the rock at her feet.

Although, in the midst of these feelings of grief, the last thing I would like is for someone to tell me that the grief provides context for the joy. At the time, the preference is having no reason to experience the emotion of loss. Emotions that seem to have no end and that we cannot control is not a state we voluntarily want to subject ourselves to in order to necessitate the ability to feel joy.

Grief is a black cloud that lingers and when you thought it finally spent all the rain, it appears again, never quite going away. My offering to Dhumavati was not gratitude for the grief, but instead surrendering the grief to her so I could possibly see the gratitude of holding hope and the opportunity to have loved before loss.

The ebb and flow of the emotions is how I am holding space for both the grief and the gratitude. Some moments the sorrow is all I can feel and in others the gratitude for my body, health, and memories of what once was.

There is an American cultural expectation of picking yourself up by your bootstraps, putting your emotions in the box, and getting over it. The expectation that grief has a time limit, an expiration date, and has to make sense to the logical mind. That loss is just a hindrance to productivity. A lack of understanding that grief takes many forms, and we can feel the sorrow from any disappointment we have. There is no limit to the grief we can feel. We do not get over it, the intensity may wane in moments, but the reminder remains. The memory is where the gratitude lives. The memory of time spent or desires that are so strong they live in your body and not your mind.

The guide also led us through meditation and breathwork. During the breathing exercise she had us acknowledge the space between the exhale and the inhale. This space was described as the space of the Divine. We are not conscious of it, but it just is. My opinion is that unconscious gratitude lives here. In between the inhale and exhale. The receiving and giving. The ebb and flow. The gratitude of both experiences. The grief and the joy. Gratitude connects the two dichotomies. Unable to experience one without the other. It is the unconscious security in knowing without effort the next breath will come. The security in the ebb and flow of life. The feeling of sadness will be followed with moments of joy. If we exist long enough to give it time to come.

I do not have a gratitude practice or subscribe to toxic positivity. I try to sit with what I am feeling. If today is anger or sadness I attempt to let it be without projection, but acceptance. Some days I can, others I cannot. I believe we are not designed to always sit in love and gratitude. We are designed to experience the full gamut of emotions. We are responsible for the emotions we project, and we strive for projecting love. Striving to provide space for others to also sit in their emotions without showering them with toxic positivity. Holding the space to let them be where they are in the ebb and flow of this life filled with grief, gratitude, and joy.

The guide challenged me to acknowledge and sit in the disappointment and to show gratitude for the experience so that I can embody the joy. I hope you can also take the time to feel into the disappointment and grief you may feel knowing that the ebb and flow will bring joy if you hold on long enough.

Continue pondering..