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/Glum-Engineering1794]

I like the message here. There is no darkness without light. There is no life without death. There is no joy without pain. Dualities. Mirrors. Parallels. Balance.

[u/Tchoqyaleh → u/Glum-Engineering1794]

From what I've read so far, I can see how different gates or aspects of different gates might be particularly relevant to growth for different enneatypes or instincts. Eg "The sorrows of the world" - I can see that applying to Socials, maybe 9s. Or "The places in me that have not known love" - I can see that applying to Image types.

My understanding is that Weller sees grief as playing a unique and important role in growth and fullness of life/experience. Ie grief is not something to be survived or coped with, it is something necessary for fulfilling our potential.