A few nights ago I was watching Jagmeet Singh, the leader of the New Democratic Party, offer his concession speech, as the federal election results were being announced. He offered a heartfelt and emotional appreciation to his family, staff, and everyone who had been involved in the campaign. As he was sharing he struggled to compose himself – to keep from feeling all of the emotion he was feeling. His strategy – gently hitting his heart and taking intermittent sips of water – water in instead of water out. While I can understand the need to find enough composure to get your message out, I also found myself wishing that we lived in a world where it was ok to openly share our grief and loss. I hoped that he was able to go home afterwards to be held while he grieved his loss.
As someone who holds space for people and their emotions on a regular basis it still surprises me that I have to remind someone that all of their feelings are welcome – that it is ok to feel whatever it is they are feeling – grief, fear, anxiety, worry. Despite a greater recognition of our individual and collective struggles, so many people I see in my work apologize to me when they begin to express an emotion. I always remind them that all of their feelings and emotions are welcome here. I believe in fact that feeling and releasing emotion is essential in our healing and becoming a more whole person capable of empathy. Francis Weller says it well in his book The Wild Edge Of Sorrow:
“Grief is not here to take us hostage, but instead to reshape us in some fundamental way, to help us become our mature selves, capable of living in the creative tension between grief and gratitude. In doing so our hearts are ripened and made available for the great work of loving our lives in this astonishing world. Grief is essential to finding and maintaining a feeling of emotional intimacy with life, with one another, and with our own soul.”
The relationship to grief and gratitude is often overlooked. Grief helps us to stay in touch with our gratitude, it helps us to be present, and to appreciate gifts that arrive. I long to live in a world where a leader can openly wail and share their grief and loss. In these times we need lots of reminders that we are more the same than we are different. Sharing emotion is fundamentally human and something that connects us to one another. Remember that when we openly share our feelings and emotions we give others the encouragement to do the same.