There are moments in life when friends and strangers are drawn together by tragedy. In the past week I mourned the sudden loss of a beautiful young person.
Mindfulness doesn’t protect any of us from grief. If anything, we feel it all the more deeply, because in our practice we have been opening ourselves to life rather than insulating ourselves from its jagged edges.
People who practice mindfulness experience episodes of depression and distress like everybody else. But there is evidence that while they may be vulnerable, they are more able to be present to depression and recover from it faster.
Our natural reaction to trauma is to resist, deny and push away an unbearable reality. We are confronted with a truth that is not part of the way we imagined the world should be. Something is happening that shouldn't be happening. It's not part of the natural order.
Nightmare
Until we can come to terms with it, we feel like we are being dragged through a nightmare that we would give anything to wake up from.
It’s not easy to be actively mindful in the middle of emotional chaos. In fact, it’s almost impossible. I know.
I tried to sit; I tried to write, but I got nowhere. The permanence of her absence hit me in the pit of my stomach. A muddle of feelings spun around inside me and took away my focus. I was angry, I was hurt; I felt for all those whose lives her death had touched.
The more shattered we feel, the more we need to return to our most basic coping strategies. In the heat of a crisis we abandon the very routines that anchor us. What’s the point we say? Who cares if we eat or not? We don’t want to wash, dress or eat.
When we lose our moorings and we feel lost, it can seem irrelevant to honour our daily basic routines.
And yet it is those very rituals that help to pull us through.
Grief haemorrhages energy and exhausts us. Sleep that knits together our unravelled psyche and rests our body is important. Getting to bed early, taking whatever gets you through the night, and being gentle with yourself will help you bear the unbearable.
Support from friends who listen and give us space to vent our confused feelings grounds us. Remembering to eat is also critical. Without food, we cannot make the decisions that we have to make.
Family and friends will want to visit, funeral arrangements need to be made. Getting people from A to B won’t just happen. If our bodies need the support of simple routines, so do our hearts and minds.
When things fall apart, we become unhinged and find ourselves in an in-between space where we don’t quite know who we are.
We need to recognise what’s happening and we need to hold on to the handrails that lift us over the pain. Being mindful means knowing how we personally react to shock and not getting carried away. When we’re caught up in pain and confusion we confront our demons.
For one person this may mean anger, for another guilt, or it could manifest as physical pain. If we become lost in our feelings, we can easily get locked into the darker corners of our minds.
To lift us above the darkness, we need to return to wherever we find refuge. The company of someone we trust, the gentleness of nature, our favourite music or a meal shared with someone we love.
Coming together
In times of crisis, people also need simple ways of coming together. The rituals around funerals in Ireland enable us to deal with loss without having to think too much.
A funeral mass, shaking hands outside the church, helping to carry a coffin are fundamental and familiar gestures that connect us. Walking the road, passing through the streets of a home town, standing together around a grave, restore our connection with the land and with the people who give us our sense of belonging.
Tony Bates is the founding director of Headstrong – the National Centre for Youth Mental Health