Sorrow is the emotion most avoided by people. It is the one we do not wish to know about. Sorrow is basically an admission to the universe that we are not in control. It understands, on a deep fundamental level, that there has been a searing loss. It won’t let us miss this fact. Sorrow manifests as tears and utter sadness about the loss of someone, something, some dream, etc. Sorrow knows that what we wanted, who we wanted, is gone. It knows that we are alone in the world, but it can also put us in touch with our oneness.
As stated in the previous chapter on forgiveness, sorrow gets us to acceptance. Sorrow’s knowing allows us to feel our loss so that we can then find a way to live without that person, object, dream, etc. That knowing ultimately brings us to the final stage of grief: acceptance. In acceptance we begin a dance with life that hears the music coming from that empty hole left by loss; for at the bottom of that well are the singing waters of Self. Acceptance finally says, “Okay, yes, I will receive the gift in this loss.”
So sorrow is vital to the grief process, or the process of accepting any difficult reality. But that is far from all that sorrow can do for us. There is something mysterious about sorrow that, like a good rain, cleans the air and clears away the fog that keeps us from our own authenticity. Sorrow changes us inside. It grounds us in a deeper, more meaningful and spiritually accurate reality. As another energy of self-love, sorrow loves so deeply and so profoundly that there is a physical response to it—tears. And because those feelings are so deep and so profound, it makes room for deep, profound transformation in the human psyche.
No one I know who has been moved to sorrow by a grievous experience comes out of it unchanged. People who really allow themselves to experience sorrow become more authentic, more grounded, more centered, more present. And avoiding sorrow has just the opposite result. Avoidance makes us less authentic, less grounded, less centered, and less present.
For example, Jared lost his mother when he was ten years old. Not only did he lose her, but he lost her to a brutal murder. He’d always blamed himself for his mother’s death. On the night that she was killed, he’d gone to a friend’s house to spend the night. He’d always taken some kind of emotional responsibility for his mother because she was just too fragile to handle her life—or at least that’s what he thought (because that’s what she’d conveyed). But on this particular night, he had really wanted to go over to his buddy’s house because he had a crush on his sister. He had a fight with his mother on that night, successfully manipulating her into letting him go. Later, because he just couldn’t be there for that kind of sorrow, he’d turned to drug use to ease his pain.
So Jared lived the first twenty-nine years after his mother’s death in the blindness of addiction—until he’d finally burned all of his bridges with family and friends and had no other alternative but to go to treatment. He slowly started getting more and more depressed as he progressed through his treatment, and no one understood why until one day in a group he broke and started crying inconsolably. His loud sobs lasted for an entire hour as he was removed from the group and brought to his individual counselor’s office. Finally, words began to come out with the sobs, and he confessed his crime—he was to blame for his mother’s death. If only he’d not argued with her, if only he’d just understood that she needed him that night more than any other night—he would have stayed—wouldn’t he? Or, was he just a lout who didn’t give a damn about anyone but himself? His long cry and his many words were cathartic. When the crying and the words finally subsided, he just sat there in his counselor’s office for a while, staring off into space. He was exhausted. So he went to bed and slept, all the way until the next morning.
When he woke up the next day, he had a new knowing. A gentle, almost peaceful knowing had replaced the awful ache of yesterday’s sobs. He knew himself and his life differently. He knew on a deep fundamental level that he was not responsible for his mother’s death and that, while tragic, her death really had nothing to do with him. But more importantly, he knew that he knew his own deepest essence at a more profound level. And he even felt as if he loved himself.
Certainly Jared will have more work to do, maybe more sorrow to feel, but this is what sorrow has begun to give Jared. Sorrow is giving Jared back to Jared. The sorrow broke through walls that had to come down before Jared could begin to live from Jared, instead of from the carrying around of his mother’s stuff. He’d spent his entire life up to that point avoiding his sorrow. Actually, he’d spent his whole life avoiding his own healing. Sorrow was the healer and Jared was now beginning the journey to living from his authentic Self.
When we make time to be with our emotions, listening to their wise messages, they often leave us with powerful and transformative shifts toward healing. We’ll learn more about how to be with our emotions in chapter 30, but for now we will first move on to the personal powers that also help us on our healing journeys.