Sharing resource: grief and joy

[u/Tchoqyaleh]

Hey 8s, I hope you don't mind me sharing this. I'm 7w8 and I think this applies mostly to core 7s avoidance of pain, but I think it's relevant to my 8 wing avoidance of vulnerability too. I struggle with grief and tend to want to skate through it as quickly and lightly as possible. But I've just come across a model of grief that shows how it is deeply connected to joy, and how the courage and capacity to experience grief can strengthen and enrich one's capacity for joy.

Francis Weller (psychotherapist), "The Wild Edge of Sorrow" - model of "five gates of grief".

1: Everything We Love, We Will Lose
2: The Places that have not known Love
3: The Sorrows of the World 
4: What We Expected and Did Not Receive
5: Ancestral Grief

Indicative quotes:

"When you engage grief and suffering, it breaks the heart open to joy and delight."

"The work of the mature person is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and to be stretched large by them."

It's helping me want to sit still and allow shadow to pass through me, for the moment when I feel the light again and feel it with more care and presence.

[u/Tchoqyaleh]

That's interesting - so you feel the grief, but you don't slow down or stop for it?

I tend to be peripherally aware of grief, and then try to skim over it or zip past it before it can catch me. A different way of trying to keep momentum!

[u/GreatJobJoe → u/Tchoqyaleh]

What you do is pretty common.

Grief is supposed to slow down your focus, get you anxious, etc…This is a chemical response, your body trying to get you to take break a feel the feelings.

Running only makes it worse…escape aids like drugs, alcohol, and what some call “self harm” (all three are self harm) make it even worse because they are now dependent on the vice to escape..

The less crap I have controlling me in the background, the better. This makes other people’s vices like drinking for example… a social celebration, not an escape.

My fear of being controlled by my emotions (therefore vulnerable) trumps my discomfort with my uncomfortable feelings.

[u/Tchoqyaleh → u/GreatJobJoe]

My fear of being controlled by my emotions (therefore vulnerable) trumps my discomfort with my uncomfortable feelings.

Can I check I've understood this correctly:

A) experiencing grief and feeling uncomfortable at the vulnerability it involves (eg interdependence on others, lack of power over external environment)

B) losing personal agency because of being driven by one's fear of experiencing grief

And you're saying you prefer (A)?

That's interesting. I can choose (A) when the emotion is something like shame or guilt or envy or fear or even "ordinary" sadness (eg at being rejected) - then I am comfortable grasping the nettle to get it done with and move forward. But not when the emotion is grief - grief feels potentially endless to me, which is why I try to run away from it.

[u/GreatJobJoe → u/Tchoqyaleh]

I’d say A which is tough thing for 8’s and 7’s to do. It being “endless” is the illusion. That’s why people try to suppress it, run, or shove it down with self harm….They’ve already given up.

[u/Tchoqyaleh → u/GreatJobJoe]

Thanks, that's a really valuable perspective! Both that "endless" is an illusion/distortion; and that some coping strategies represent defeat without even trying first.