A few days ago, a patient I was treating looked up from their comfy recliner and asked if they could ask me a question. Not shy about answering questions, I said “sure.” “How do you deal with all the suffering you listen to every day?” they asked. I appreciated the question because it’s something I reflect on a lot. I think it might have been the first time anyone had actually articulated something I think about every day.
I have been reflecting more and more on grief and suffering these days, especially with everything that is going on in the world. On one hand, I think the suffering I am exposed to is nothing compared with what many people face every day in this world. Still it is not insignificant. We all experience suffering of one degree or another within our lifetime. Each day of work in the clinic the suffering I witness ranges deep and wide – chronic pain, anxiety, depression, heart break, financial loss, terminal illness, abuse, addiction, suicide, death – the list is long and few are exempt.
Having devoted my life to the service of others I used to imagine that I was like a bodhisattva – my interpretation being that I could receive all suffering for the sake of another’s healing and it would flow through me, to be released back to the earth like so much compost. As I have grown older though, and accumulated more of my own suffering, I have noticed that sometimes it does weigh on me. As a result I have developed something of a grief practice, as a way of responding.
My grief practice consists of taking some time each day to feel the grief, mine, yours, the collective grief of people and the planet. Each day, usually on my morning walk, I allow the grief to move through me, to feel it. Tears usually accompany feelings of loss, hopelessness, sadness, and isolation. The feelings don’t always have direct thoughts associated with them. I just imagine that they are part of an accumulation of my hurts and the collective hurts and wounds of everyone.
Walking, I notice that nature is quite comfortable with my grief and is able to receive it without complaint, maybe even with some kindness or compassion. Regardless of what transpires I noice that I often feel lighter, grounded, and calmer after my walking ritual. I think this practice helps to make it possible for me to hold space, and to receive the sharing of others in the clinic. In the community clinic I feel like there is a sacred container, a holding place, where everyone can come and rest and lay their burdens down for a while, silently witnessed by others in the room.
I think we need places to share, silently or otherwise, our grief and suffering – perhaps now more than ever – to be reminded that we all experience similar types of suffering and loss, that we are not alone in our suffering. My belief in the importance of this is what has fuelled my desire and passion for the work that I do, and it’s why I never grow tired of listening and serving the people that come into my clinic each and every day.
Thank you for being a part of this experience of care and compassion.