14. Grief and Acceptance

Q.

I find that grief plays a big part in life. It’s almost a continual process as things come a go. Nothing is permanent they say. It’s seems we could all learn more about acceptance. Mark, can you tell me how you manage the process of acceptance? Do you have any particular belief systems that help with it?

A.

Okay from what you’ve said here or my interpretation of it, what you’re asking about is acceptance of impermanence. Or to put it another way, that things are always changing, things come and go, yet I think what you are really interested in is the loss aspects and then the subsequent grief. I hope I’m on track.

Now, you’ve coved many different trains of thought in your question so I’ll try to address them one by one. So, firstly I don’t think grief plays a ‘big part’ for everybody, rather it’s an emotion that ends to pop up from time to time. But when it does pop up, some of these times can be pivitol or utterly brutal, for example when a loved one passes. Yet death is a part of life, it’s something we all have to face at some point.

Then, about this process and acceptance of it, honestly, I think this is a gradual journey and one that evolves as we are exposed to life cycles and such. It’s not something you can read about in a book and instantly ‘get it’, I’d say this is more so something that can take a lifetime to come to terms with (or understand). In saying this though, if I was going to give you a belief (that’s actually more of a concept rather than a belief) which has helped me grasp this, I try to think of everything as a cycle. When one thing ceases to exist it is simply replaced by another, it’s nature.

Alright, sorry to drag this out but one last thing. Yep a tiny bit off track, still I think impermanence is kinda cool and should be used for inspiration – especially in regards to human life. Like we all have a finite time here on eatch, yes one day we will be gone, so why wouldn’t we want to try and make the most of it while we’re here? To use what we’ve got and to take advantage of it while we have it. Just a thought.