Grief Portals: Entering the Well of your Sacred Heart

Alive Again - part 3/5 | Grief portals bring us into presence. Grief portals bring us into reality. Grief portals bring us into connection. Grief portals open our ​​❤ Sacred Hearts❤ .

When we allow ourselves to grieve, we un-stuck the energy. We let it flow. We learn to tenderly meet our sadness and hurt parts. We mother the younger parts of ourselves who desperately need our affection.  We develop the capacity to be with life, no matter what it brings.  

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Portrait by Camille Delaune

In the last Alive Again essay (which you can read right here if you missed it) we talked about how normal it is to feel frustrated, stagnant and stuck. 

Feeling stuck doesn’t mean you are stuck– feelings aren’t facts. So don’t mistake it as the end of your journey. 

In all great myths the hero/heroine feels like they want to give up right before the breakthrough. Instead of throwing in the towel, they usually find a mystical guide who reminds them of their strength, teaches them some magic, tells a few jokes and helps them alchemize all their angst and doubt into a whole, integrated victory.

All of that to say, feeling stuck, stagnant or overwhelmed is actually a sign you’re being initiated. 

You’re becoming a masterful, clear, embodied sage with a beginner's mind and an open heart. 

This is the start of your journey, not the end.

As hopeful and lovely as that sounds, moving from the tired, problem-focused stage of “whats the fucking point” to the open, alive and willing stage where “you make it look so easy” isn’t for the faint of heart. 

In fact, it might break your heart– in a good way. 

Moving to the stage of competence, where you’re open-hearted, wise and embodied means your heart has to actually open… and in softness comes grief. 

We already talked about how a tender-hearted soul might have to develop calluses to buffer the world’s pain. And how that hardened, closed and protected heart serves a purpose, until it doesn’t. If you’re resonating with these emails, chances are you’ve moved past the stage where closing and protecting your beautiful heart from hurt is necessary. It's now keeping you feeling stuck and frozen instead of open and willing. 

​​❤️‍🔥 As you know, the only way out is through.  And in this case, “through” means into the well of your own heart to soften, grieve and eventually, open. 

I know from experience that breaking open can also feel like a break down. Softening our frozen places leaves us feeling tender, exposed and weary. 

This is normal. This is to be expected. This is not a problem. Nothing has gone wrong.  

Can I share a bit of my personal experience with this?

Last summer I found myself in what I’d now call a mild depression rooted in grief. At the time, I didn’t know that’s what I was experiencing, so I judged it as wrong. 

I’d never felt this way before and it didn’t make sense to me; I was taking care of my health, getting good sleep, moving my body, doing everything “right.” I was happily in my new loft space which was decorated with a gorgeous boucle couch and fresh flowers. Plus I was falling in love with my best friend, going on trips again for the first time in a few years, devoted to a daily spiritual practice and my business was booming. Life was great. 

Despite everything in my life bursting with beauty, my body just wanted to sleep. My heart was heavy. I couldn’t find that “spark” of pollyanna I’d lived over 3 decades with.