Endings

Endings bring up a lot of things for many folks, and so the end of the year is often both a time for celebration as well as a time of grief. Culturally, the former feels safer and cleaner to talk about than the latter. When people share with their loved ones that they are feeling sadness or grief about someone they lost - whether in the past year or many years ago - there is often a rush (at least in a large chunk of Western culture) to provide assurances, platitudes, and move on from the pain as quickly as possible. It is easier to be mindfully present when the experience is pleasant; when it is painful, we have learned to push away, to avoid. That includes our own discomfort in the face of someone else’s pain - and our own.