Moving Through Grief (orAccording With Impermanence)

Long before my teacher accreditation, I had planned to give the required presentation to a hypothetical audience of writers. T’ai Chi Chih does wonders for creativity, and I am, after all, a writer. But the night before, I couldn’t shake the sense that there were others I needed to address. I lay in bed, mentally revising what I would tell this audience, a group I had been a member of for almost two years: the bereaved.

Three years earlier, I had walked into a TCC class assuming it was the martial art form. The distinctly non-martial movements soothed me, and it felt right. I incorporated the practice into my life, thinking, “I’m preparing for something.” A year later (as my husband lay dying in a Dubai hospital), I made my plane reservations, waited for my son to come home for that dreaded trip, packed my bags and did my practice. After facing the stark reality of the foreign I.C.U., and the doctors’ insistence that I pray, I stood in my husband’s apartment, terrified, and did my practice.

By the time I got to Light at the Top of the Head, Light at the Temple, a remarkable thing happened. I opened my hands above my head and a bolt of energy – benign lightening, if you will – shot through me. I was shocked and quite literally grounded. I have never experienced anything like it before or since. In fact, I’d never“gotten” this movement, but the moment was profoundly powerful and has stayed with me. I needed energy; I did my practice, and I received what I needed.

During the next months, crushed by sadness, I did my practice. Through overwhelming anxiety, I did my practice. I focused on the tan t’ien and regained my equilibrium. When the world turned cold, I moved with softness and found connection. The daily practice of TCC gave me back my strength, allowed me to let pain ebb and flow, to move through my grief. Though the death of my husband was a personal tragedy, my life would continue. I had learned to accord with impermanence.

And so I told my presentation audience, “When you don’t know how to go on, let go. When loss robs you of your identity, put your attention on the soles of your feet, shift your weight and flow from the center. Chi will carry you forward, and you will remember who and what you are: a human being, able to experience sorrow and joy, and above all, a still Vital Force.”