When Grief Flows, Allow it to Open You to Connection

If you are someone who is able to move grief through you without attachment, please do it.

Do it for yourself, do it for the Earth, do it for others who cannot do it for themselves.

It’s ok to feel deeply and allow yourself to feel it—even if you’re in the presence of others, even if it makes them uncomfortable—know that it is medicine for the whole.

We need you who can feel the emotion and move it through without attachment to use your gift, because so many are disconnected from this ability right now.

Even when your friend or significant other becomes concerned or frightened by your emotion, just let them know: “I am ok, I’m just allowing it to move through me.”

The ability to feel, express, and move emotion through you is a sacred gift that many have lost touch with.

But that doesn’t mean that we as a society don’t need it anymore.

In fact, we need it now more than ever.

In a bottom-floor sauna in the San Pellegrino terme (hot springs) in Italy—as I tapped into my body, my breath, into the energy of the space and the healing frequency of the waters, the mountains, the heat—I connected with a tenderness I’d been suppressing.

And in an instant, without hesitation, I gently let it open and flow through me.

I began to weep quietly in the corner of the sauna—eyes closed, breathing steadily—I just let the tears flow.

My partner tapped me and asked what was wrong, eyes frantic and steeped in worry.

“It’s ok, my love, it’s just energy and I’m letting it move.”

I could tell he didn’t understand, but I wasn’t concerned because I could see the energy as it moved through me and I knew it wasn’t just mine.

This tenderness could only be excavated there in the belly of the San Pellegrino terme.

It needed to be acknowledged—allowed to breathe and to move.

It wasn’t just for me, it was for every person who has shut down their ability to feel, express and move their own grief through.

And it wasn’t just for the people.

It was for the Earth. And humanity’s disconnection from her.

Before I had entered the terme, I made a tobacco offering at the largest Pine in the front gardens of the grounds.

And when this being invited me to place a hand upon her, instantly a message came through: “don’t give up, trust your heart—what you are carrying is vital and it needs to be shared.”

This message was received cognitively in an instant, but energetically it processed through me more slowly.

The weight of its significance wasn’t felt somatically or moved energetically until I could access that tender place inside me while in the depths of the terme.

The wellspring of emotion that flowed with this tenderness there in the sauna carried grief, fear, and sadness.

Sadness that I had considered giving up on this vision of helping others reconnect to the Earth.

Fear that I don’t know if it will work or how I’m going to translate it clearly to others.

And grief for the collective: for humanity’s disconnection from Mother Earth, for our disconnection from our emotions and from each other, and our inability to grieve as a collective.

But as I emerged from the heat of the sauna, having moved the energy of that sadness, fear, and overwhelming grief that I know so many of us carry but do not feel safe to express fully, an enormous sense of relief flooded my system.

I went outside where the ancient pines towered above the oldest pool at the San Pellegrino Terme, surrounded by the majestic mountains and architecture.

Dipping into those timeless waters, I could almost hear the Old Pines speaking to me.

They seemed to say to me, “you who is willing to listen… do not forget us… we are still communicating with the people, even those who have forgotten how to speak our language.”

Still they are calling for connection.

And that is the spring from where the grief was swelling up.

The loss of prayer, connection, acknowledgement of our relationship to the waters and the trees, to the ancient beings of the lands, the ancient spirits who have been watching over those sacred grounds for eternity.

Still they are singing their songs, offering their medicine, for anyone who will listen, anyone who will open themselves to the calling for connection.

And even those who do not listen are receiving the medicine, even if they don’t know it.

But to open up to it and allow it, also means allowing the whole range of experiences and emotions to flow through. Which is why we often close ourselves off out of fear of feeling all of it.

But when I can feel myself opening to the grief, I can also feel myself opening to the songs of the trees and the waters. I can let it all rise up within me, fill me, and then flow through me like a healing thermal spring of life.

So I ask those of you who are still tapped into the emotion: allow it to move, for yourself, for others, for the Earth—so that you can hear the songs of the trees and the waters, and begin to open more fully to the medicine of connection.