Opting into Grief: The Price of Love

Hello and welcome to this email. Take a deep breath and know that the world isn't ok, we have so much grief/anger/joy/wonder and that it is important to note it and feel it all. Taking time to practice sitting with my grief on Sunday felt gentle and necessary and I hope that you can do more holding of grief together in your groups this week. If you haven't yet, take 35 minutes and listen to this week's podcast. Peace, Maia

Below are multiple ways to engage this week. Choose what feels right for you and your group. Find more questions and ideas on this week's Episode Page.

Check In Either draw a house or close your eyes and imagine you, your body, or your guest house. Have someone read through the poem. Take time to populate your guest house with the emotions you have had pass through this week. Take time to share if you liked your guests this week or not, How you are feeling now, Or other things that are towards your top that you want to share. 

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Group Agreement Valerie Kaur, the author of See No Stranger uses these ground rules in her book clubs. Share this image and take turns reading them to set the tone for your group.

Opting into Grief feel hard? Listen to what Stephen Colbert has to say about it all. Watch or listen to 10:0-15:30 of Stephen Colbert's interTake a couple deep breaths. Start discussion off by sharing a 1, 2, or 3. Name the feelings you have after listening to this What does living the most look like? Share any red flags you have after listening to this.

Story and Listening Stories and listening are a major tool in wondering and bringing us back to love, especially when it comes to loving our opponents. Let's play "have you ever"! Raise your hand if... you've loved and lost you've held something precious you've ever been afraid to lose something you've grieved in community you've ever grieved with strangers you've ever grieved alone you've ever grieved alone you've ever sat with someone in grief you've ever felt suffering was a gift Did one of you have a story come to mind? Choose one or two people to share. Stuck? Listen to minutes ~23:00-26:20 of this weeks podcast to hear Kali Pliego's story about grieving in community.

Grief doesn’t need fixing, treating or healing. Grief IS the healing.  Spend 5-10 minutes drawing, journaling and reflecting on these words by Valerie Kaur: “Grief is the price of love. Loving someone means that one day, there will be grieving. They will leave you, or you will leave them. The more you love, the more you grieve. Loving someone also means grieving with them. It means letting their pain and loss bleed into your own heart. When you see that pain coming, you may want to throw up the guard rails, sound the alarm, raise the flag, but you must keep the borders of your heart porous in order to love well. It is an act of surrender...” Where is your heart porous? Where does your heart have borders? Is loving worth the grief? Keep these journal entries private. Share instead how sitting with your grief feels. Do you do this often? How can you build grief into your life more or less regularly?

No Strangers? “Uncle, auntie, sibling, neighbor…. You are part of me I do not yet know.” -Valerie Kaur Imagining strangers and opponents not as strangers, but as family is a life long practice. I'm not convinced that it is somewhere we arrive at, even though Valerie Kaur seems to be pretty great at it. Use this Just Like Me meditation to practice wondering about the strangers around us. Could you hold a stranger and their grief? This one is 6 minutes long

Closing We just sat with our grief. Mine with yours and yours with mine. Say good bye with a a group hug, a group "tail wag", put your hands in the middle and shout a cry, something that commemorates the space you created and the heaviness that may have occurred.