Grieving What We Have Lost

With the arrival of the corona virus and our necessary social precautions to curb its spread, we have lost some of the fundamental rhythms of our lives. We are living into a new world that none of us had planned for. I find myself strangely caught between a sense of normalcy and a quality of surrealness. I still get up every morning and still have steel-cut oats for breakfast and still talk to people on the phone. But everything, including the future, feels deeply different – so different that when I talk to people I haven’t spoken to since this all started, I find myself at a loss for words to describe this what is happening.

Some part of the foundation of my life has been taken away. Things I didn’t even know I counted on are no longer here.

I went for a walk with a good friend yesterday. We’ve been walking and talking and eating lunches together for over twenty-five years. We always hug when we meet and when we say goodbye. It’s not a big deal, it’s just what we do—or did. Yesterday, both in greeting and in parting, we stood some small distance from each other and bowed. Now I love bowing as an expression of greeting and offering, but to bow to my good friend made me feel sad and slightly disoriented.

To lose what we had relied on, especially the things we didn’t even know we were relying on, is traumatic. Not only do we lose the particular behavior or experience, but we lose a sense of certainty about life itself. We realize, in these moments of traumatic loss, that our whole world is much more fragile than it seems.

On some level, we all know that everything changes and that we will all die. But most of the time, we unconsciously count on everything being pretty much the same as it was yesterday. We depend on knowing what there is to worry about—it’s the project that’s due next week, it’s making sure to get to the grocery store before we run out of bread, it’s dealing with a upset friend or child. But when we see that our whole life is more like a dream than anything solid, we are shaken to our subtle core.

We are all grieving the world we knew and the unwitting certainty we have lost. At times like these, remembering the many stages and conditions of grief can be helpful: denial, anguish, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance – to name just a few. These are not a linear progression, but rather a way to understand the many emotions and mind-states that we may cycle through after a significant loss.

The wonderful Zen advice for what to do when you find yourself in any of these states (or any other), is to ‘do nothing.’ While we all have ongoing responsibilities, we also need to cut ourselves some slack as we adjust to the new world in which we now find ourselves. If you’re having trouble focusing, instead of just trying harder, it might be helpful to realize that you are going through a necessary and useful response to a traumatic loss. Take a break. Accept that you’re not going to be as productive for a while. If find yourself being more emotional and reactive than usual, realizing that this too is a normal response to a time of unusual stress and change can be helpful in stopping and taking time to recover before moving forward.

So my advice for the day – don’t try harder. When strong emotions or strong dullness arises, know that this is part of a healthy response to these unprecedented times. Instead of powering your way through, notice where you are, consider that it might be an important place to be for a while, and see if you can learn whatever it has to teach you.