In her book Coming Back to Life, Joanna Macey speaks to our sorrow for the world: “No one is exempt from that pain, any more than one could exist alone self-sufficient in empty space. Feeling pain for the world is as natural to us as the food and air we draw upon to fashion who we are…. We are not closed off from the world but integral components of it, like cells and a larger body. When the body is traumatized we sense that trauma too. When it falters and sickens, we feel its pain whether we pay attention to it or not.”
Our pain and sorrow is the price of consciousness in a threatened and suffering world. It is not only natural, it is an absolutely necessary component of our collective healing. As in all organisms, pain has a purpose: it is a warning signal designed to trigger remedial action.
The problem does not lie in our pain for the world, but in our repression of that pain. Our efforts to dodge or dull it surrender us to futility. We need support and strength to keep ourselves from falling into dysfunctional expressions of sorrow. When we lack support, internal and external, we can get stuck in depression. We can become unable to connect and engage with others, and lose interest in life. Sorrow can become an intractable heaviness that pervades every facet of life.
In The Wild Edge of Sorrow, Frances Weller says that life is an apprenticeship with sorrow: “We must learn the art and craft of grief, discover the profound ways that it ripens and deepens us. While grief is an intense emotion, it is also a skill we develop through a profound walk with loss. Facing grief is hard work… it takes profound courage to face outrageous loss… This is exactly what we are being called to do.”