Flipping the Script on Grief

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What is the thing that terrifies human beings the most? Is it fear of death? Fear of losing loved ones? Fear of failure? Fear of uncertainty? The list is infinite but, in the end, all of these fears are consistently avoided by individuals because dwelling on them makes us suffer. We don't like to suffer. In fact, we hate it.

No matter who you are in this world, no matter how happy, successful, attractive, healthy or even how rich you are, everyone is going to suffer. We cannot escape it. Everyone will experience grief, loss, and tragedy of some kind. But here's the inflection point: What if you could discover the aesthetic in your grief, not in spite of it, but because of it?

Because emotional pain is such a major part of being alive, what if we could build emotional resilience by finding the beauty in our suffering? And what if, in the process, we would not only dignify the suffering but reduce it as well? And by grief and loss, I also mean the all-encompassing pain of relationship breakups, career disappointments, financial hardships, business failures, and natural disasters, because they involve losses, too.

Neurologist, psychologist, author, and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl coined the term tragic optimism as the ability to sustain hopefulness despite the unavoidable challenges of life. Tragic optimism is not an optimism intended to placate, as though sadness is something to simply circumvent or forget about. Rather, it’s a way of recognizing the value in grief, a way of preparing ourselves for change that will certainly affect us in the future.

When we are at our lowest in the depths of grief or when we are addled by excessive worry, it may seem impossible to shoot for this kind of constructive thinking. But if we can accept pain as part of being human, grief as something inevitable to our survival, we can cope better. But, most important, we can cultivate emotional resilience.

Emotional resilience is the ability to overcome hardship and bounce back from adversity. It occurs when we find ways to manage our lives in spite of serious threats to our sense of safety and security. Emotional resilience is the result of being exposed to challenges, acquiring coping skills, and emerging with the ability to anticipate when difficulties will come again. Since resilience comes from experiencing life on its terms, we all have the power to develop it.

Consequently, what if you could really flip the script on grief from being something that you have historically dodged at all costs to something beautiful? Finding awe in your grief and the aesthetic in your suffering is one of the best things we can do for ourselves. By pairing our psychic pain with beauty, we learn to appropriately praise our struggle and transform it into something inspiring. Hence, during emotionally difficult times our ability to give ourselves uplifting chills as often as possible is our superpower.

One way to achieve this is by learning to exercise inspiration exposure, which is the practice of consciously plunging oneself in the stirring realm of artistic expression. Art and nature are instructive tools that have the power to both stimulate the human heart and soothe the troubled mind. Art can transform human pain into something honorable that slowly helps us re-associate loss with curiosity, wonder and personal growth.

Although inspiration exposure is not intended to be a panacea or a substitute for psychotherapy, its benefit in helping people ease their grief is immeasurable. We can all use some comfort from the stresses and misfortunes of our modern lives.

Here’s an example of music that I have used as inspiration exposure throughout my life.

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The Great Gig in the Sky, an instrumental song by British rock band Pink Floyd, is a haunting piece that possesses an inquisitively hopeful quality as well. The song from the iconic 1973 Dark Side of The Moon album, is for me, an anthem. It’s a rousing track but also a jarring and frightening work. Its beauty lies in its complexity as both an uplifting piece of music that conveys the benevolent nature of life and a reminder that life is also terribly painful.

The song cuts deep. The late Richard Wright, one of the songwriters, described the song as an homage to death and dying. Gig is a requiem that attempts to depict the gloomy, dramatic transition from being alive in the material world to expiring into the next stage of existence—a chilling, morbid concept most human beings are reluctant to ever think about. But Wright’s poetic track makes it easier to tolerate. The piece elevates the spirit.

The key to its intricacy is the bold and almost maddening sound of the singer’s voice. Clare Torry wails with an epic intensity as if she is crying in agony or fighting, clinging desperately to the last moments of her life. There are no song lyrics spoken by the vocalist. Her voice is an instrument in itself. The raw energy of Gig is packed with so much artistic anguish that still today it causes me to reflect on my life instead of fearing it.

Even the eerie nature of the song begs to ask, why does it uplift us so much? Perhaps because the poignant sadness it engenders is common ground––the universal ground of suffering souls. No matter who you are, you have been touched by experiences in life that are deeply unpleasant. As a result, we store the mournful memories of such experiences in the recesses of our minds and hearts. The inner pain is always there. Art, and music give us permission to feel the pain without any shame. They allow us to be human for a few minutes.

The next time you're experiencing anxiety, sadness, or any kind of adversity, ask yourself: what’s your aesthetic? What is it that inspires you? Is it a particular piece of music that moves you? Is it a touching story in a book that you love, is it a painting that you can't take your eyes off? Is it a breathtaking scene in nature?

Whatever that is, by coupling your pain with inspiration, you venerate your pain in a way that is game-changing. The inspiration we attach to it helps us to deal with grief by going through it as opposed to around it. It helps find some magic in the tragic.