The Extraordinary Leadership of “Ordinary” People
Come be loved by others along the same journey. Come love others. Your voice and story are just as healing for others as theirs is for you.
Something that's started to emerge with extreme clarity in the Grief Circles is this capacity for each "ordinary" person who comes to offer extraordinary support and leadership to another simply because of who they are, the package they come in (old or young, from this country or that, from this culture or that, etc.) and what they've experienced.
To name just one example, in the Cantonese edition, it would have been impossible to have the healing conversations we had without the older generation present. And also, culturally, it may have been very difficult to open up the conversation in the way we did without the non-Cantonese Grief Circle regulars sharing as openly as they did. Each person played an important role in communal healing because of who they were.
Often, the times we are deeply grieving are the times we feel utterly useless and under dark water. Incapable of doing many things, except what we have to do out of necessity, while wishing for... something else. And in our present culture, that is a double hit.
And yet, here in the Grief Circle, we see that our grief is what offers solace and encouragement to another. Somehow, it has made our voice strong, we know things no one else knows, and therefore, we can offer that which no one else can.
The Grief Circle, in existing outside of therapy, says that education or credentials does not necessarily mean one knows more about grief than those who have none: Nothing can replace lived experience.
Which is not to knock therapy or education, I advocate for both, but it is to say that everyone has some sort of superpower bestowed upon them through their own respective categories of life lived.
Whatever cliff you climbed to get here -
it has given you strength,
And we may be tired of being strong,
but nevertheless,
Here we are,
in all our power and glory,
however gentle or jagged,
If only we could see it that way,
more of the time.
You are... very powerful,
you know.
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