Your Mourning Routine Will Change Your Life

Deep sorrow can be a source of joy

What if the way you mourn could provide you with a broader understanding of who you are? What if regret and lamentations could be a pathway to finding peace? Negative thought patterns produce unwanted behaviors, and frequently, you are not aware of them but a state of mourning is visceral and undeniable. Grief is palpable. Mourning and loss, the experience of impermanence,

We need to adapt in order to grow and to develop resilience. We have to mourn old habits and grieve by saying “no” to things, people and places that do not serve us.

The future is not guaranteed. As a defense mechanism we tell ourselves that we have control over what happens next. The reality is, you cannot control anything but your reaction to what occurs around you. We must learn to mourn the loss of control and let go of the illusion that we have the jurisdiction over external factors. At any moment something can and will happen that cuts your future short or alters your trajectory in a way that you could not have anticipated.

Emotional pain has a purpose. Feelings of disappointment and regret are teachers. It is challenging to sit with these unsavory sensations, but if we give space for hurt and allow ourselves to go through the grieving process, we will develop a practice of mourning that can assist in moments of despair. The waves or the symptoms of energy in the body signaling distress are not the narrator. You narrate what that reactivity means to you. This work of introspection and vulnerability, looking at the body as a map, is how we get in touch with our emotions and intuition.

When we fear pain and avoid, we are cutting off messages that the body is sending us. Each wave of heartbreak is an opportunity for growth. The wave of sadness does not require that a sad narrative be given. The wave of sadness shows up and you witness it and observe it and let it run its course. You see the wave and you don’t project your ego onto it. It’s not your sadness, it is just the experience of sadness that everyone goes through. See the sadness for what it is, truly. Sadness is a question and the answer is in the living of it. Feel the sadness but do not make it your identity. You are not sadness. You are the sky and the ache is a cloud in the sky that will pass on it’s own. You do not have to do anything and it will eventually leave. And if it comes back, it’s not the same wave of sadness. It’s a different wave. And so you get curious and you see the nuance of how this new wave has another tone to it. It’s new. You mourn the the end of the wave that just passed and move on to the next so that you live engaged in the present moment.

No matter what the present moment is, if you are in it and engaged and welcoming it with ownership then there is peace of mind. You can mourn while also experiencing the peace of mind that comes from living life fully in the now.