Sitting With Grief

“Don't turn away. Keep your gaze on the bandaged place. That's where the light enters you.”

Grief is not a problem to be solved. It is a form of love that has nowhere to go.

When someone or something you love is no longer present, the love does not disappear. It remains — and it has to go somewhere. Grief is where it goes. This is why grief and love feel so similar. They are the same thing, moving in different directions.

Rumi did not teach people to move through grief quickly. He taught people to sit with it — to let it speak, to let it teach. "Don't turn away. Keep your gaze on the bandaged place. That's where the light enters you."

The instinct is to close around grief, to protect the wound. But the wound is not the problem. The wound is the opening.

Related Reflections

Themes that often travel alongside grief.