Dearest Friends,

It was delightful to see the return of familiar faces in our last gathering.

In our most recent conversation, I focused our attention on ecological grief and shared the discoveries that I’d made in my own exploration of this phenomenon. Like I shared in our gathering, my decision to focus my doctorate dissertation on ecological grief was rooted in my own attempts to come to terms with the anguished yet impotent rage that I felt in witnessing the devastation of our beloved planet.

In examining the extensive literature that scholars have generated on grief, I encountered constructs that helped me name the different dimensions of my ecological grief experience. As our beloved insight meditation teacher Jack Kornfield has wisely observed: “Naming emotions can give you a certain power over them. Beginning to name what is arising creates more space for awareness to recognize the energy of feelings.” In this spirit of better naming what’s arising, I shared the following ideas in our session:

• Disenfranchised Grief. Coined by Kenneth Doka in 1989, disenfranchised grief refers to grief that isn’t socially recognized, validated or supported. Common examples of disenfranchised grief include grief over the loss of a pet, the death of an ex-partner, miscarriages and stigmatized deaths.
• Chronic Sorrow. Developed by Georgene Gaskill Eakes, Mary Lermann Burke and Margaret Hainsworth in 1998, chronic sorrow refers to ongoing sadness that recurs and resurfaces over time. It typically arises in parents of children with disabilities and in caregivers of chronically-ill loved ones.
• Ambiguous Loss. Coined by Pauline Boss in the 1970s, ambiguous loss refers to a loss that is unclear and unresolved. It often arises in people whose loved ones have gone missing (e.g., like soldiers in war) or are no longer the people who they used to be (e.g., because of addiction, dementia, etc.).
• Anticipatory Grief. Introduced by Erich Lindemann in 1944, anticipatory grief refers to the grief that arises before an actual loss occurs. It’s often present for people who are grieving a loved one’s decline from a chronic or terminal illness and is sometimes called “the long goodbye.”

As many of us shared in the conversation that ensued, ecological grief is typically disenfranchised (ecological losses rarely count as “mournable” losses), usually chronic (most ecological losses don’t have clearcut endings) and often anticipatory (ecological losses typically portend more losses to come). These various dimensions of ecological grief help account for why it can feel so devastating. They also highlight why it’s so important that we don’t bear this kind of grief alone. In sharing our ecological grief with each other, we can experience the truth that Helen Keller once voiced: “We bereaved are not alone. We belong to the largest company in all the world—the company of those who have known suffering.”

SUGGESTED PRACTICE:

Sit quietly and attend to your breath. As you exhale, imagine that you’re the base of a mountain: solid, steady and supported by the earth. As you inhale, imagine that you’re the peak of a mountain: elevated, majestic and one with the sky. Breathing in, embody the dignity, height and loftiness of a mountain; breathing out, embody its solidity, steadiness and stability. Close with a reminder of how mountains weather all the changes of the seasons with serenity and strength. Bring this felt sense with you into your day.  

REFLECTION PROMPTS:

1. Which of the constructs shared, i.e., disenfranchised grief, chronic sorrow, ambiguous loss and anticipatory grief, resonates most with you where your experience of ecological grief is concerned?
2. How have you experienced these dimensions of ecological grief?
3. What have you found most supportive in meeting and holding these dimensions of your ecological grief experience?