Transforming Grief: The Essential Element to Heal From Loss of Community

Whenever we lose something, whether it is on an individual level, a cultural level, or a global level, the loss is a teacher. If we can remember this, we can move through our grief with greater clarity. This doesn’t necessarily make the loss any easier to bear, but it can help us transform our pain into something new. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, grief is transformed into compassion, and compassion is about action. It is the ability to empathize and then act on that empathy.

                  When we neglect to view loss as a teacher, we remain stuck in our grief. Grief remains unprocessed, stagnant in the body and the soul. We stay where we are, the loss our only reality, with no guide for how to see the loss as the call for transformation.

                  I have been feeling this most strongly with the loss of community—this loss is not cultural, it is global, as we equate isolation with civility. In “civil” societies, we live in nuclear families. It is a mark of success to be able to buy your own single-family home, to depart ways with your elders. In these homes, we all must have our own individual bedrooms, sleeping with our doors closed, obsessed with our privacy. (While, ironically, being ok with no privacy when it comes to authority figures having access to lots of private information about us, AKA “data.”) We go off to work individual jobs, many of which we can now do isolated in a room in our own homes, while we send our children off to school where they are surrounded mainly by peers of the exact same age, and we send the sick and aging off to be isolated in hospitals and nursing homes with strict visiting rules. The isolation during the pandemic only amplified all this, as isolation became not just status quo but also a question of moral character in the name of health.

                  We know that this isolation is not good for us. We understand it on many levels, from the sociological and the psychological to the economical and the environmental, and even the physical, too. Yet we feel victim to it because it is the way it is. It’s the norm, and to deviate from the norm is to risk seeming unusual. And to risk seeming unusual is to risk your relationship with others, your place in society. So we avoid trying to move toward more communal ways of living because we are worried our attempts will only further isolate us from others.

                  Of course, this is not the only reason why we struggle to admit to our grief and then try and do something about it. Isolation and individualism are so deeply embedded in our subconscious, imprinted in us from childhood, from lessons in the importance of independence above all else. And it is this deeply embedded information that traps us into believing this is it, this is the way things are. Which is why we are stuck in grief and see no possibility of transformation.

                  The release and the evolution will only come from a new understanding of our grief, to welcome it as our teacher. We grieve because we know in our souls, despite the subconscious programming, that humans are capable of so much more. We understand that we can see the pain of our isolation as a means of learning—and not just learning about our need for connection and community.

                  I don’t believe that the only reason we are facing loneliness is to learn to come together again, although I do believe that we should be moving in that direction. I see this time of loneliness as an incredible phase of growth, of learning to be with ourselves, of finding our inner strength, and of experiencing connectedness without even being within close physical proximity to another human. It’s an opportunity to strengthen our connection with non-human beings as well, from house pets and house plants to all the living beings outside our homes. In fact, it even becomes an opportunity to connect more deeply with the universe of microscopic and submicroscopic beings that make up our own bodies, too, to understand that even as individuals we are not individuals.

                  The grief of our loneliness is not meant to make us yearn for the past. It is meant to help us envision a new future full of potential. What if we could take all that we are learning individually right now and apply it toward a new way of coming together? What if we brought awareness and intention to our grief, to allow it to transform into compassion? Would we be more willing to lend a hand to others, to check in on our loved ones, to take a more active role in creating and sustaining community?

                  And how does this apply to motherhood? Mothers suffer immensely from lack of community. We easily become some of the most isolated people, as motherhood tends to make socializing extra challenging. Upon entering motherhood, we might find we quickly lose connection with friends who do not have children. Even connection with our own spouses can become fraught under the stress of such a major life upheaval. It can be difficult to know how to ask for more help, or even impossible if family and friends are limited and the only help available is financially unattainable. Lack of community becomes a major factor in maternal mental and physical dis-ease. It causes us to parent in ways that do not align with our hearts because we feel desperate and stuck in survival mode.

                  But the gift of the suffering is found in our willingness to recognize the grief and transform it into compassion. As mothers, our willingness can be tenfold because we are motivated not just for the sake of our own wellbeing, but for the sake of our children’s wellbeing, too.

                  So let us be leaders in this transformative process. Let us connect with the divine feminine, to call forth creativity born of compassion, to dream up new possibilities for the future. We know what’s at stake, as we care for the very beings who must live in that future. The change begins within, and from there our energy will ripple outward. Let the grief move, and watch what magic happens next.