Compassion for the unknown spaces

 I dedicate this piece to all those who are or have traveled down a path of heartbreak and loss.

I was talking with a friend this week who just lost a friend. We spoke openly and candidly about the cycles of grief, death, understanding and non-understanding. We spoke about the surreal place we find ourselves just after we receive the news that a loved one has passed unexpectedly. There is a different quality to the initial grief when it is sudden and unexpected. There is shock and sometimes disbelief mixed in with the certainty and finality of it all.

 As one who has had my heart broken, shattered really after the death of my son, I know this place of the surreal all too well. There is a weird place where life continues on. It doesn’t stop just because our world did. Animals need to be fed, garbage needs to go out, things need to be picked up at the grocery store and we walk around doing these things as a shell of ourselves. Wanting to be seen and not wanting to be seen all at the same time perhaps. It can be a lonely place to be while we are surrounded by others.

Having walked this road, having been the one in public spaces raw and barely holding it together, I valued the times when kindness was shown to me by people who had no idea what was going on inside. My friend and I were talking about how we can’t know what other people have going on when we pass them in the store aisles, when we are standing behind them in the coffee shop line, when they are sitting next to us in a restaurant. We can’t know what people have going on when they cut us off in traffic or take the parking spot we were about to pull into. We can’t and don’t know what is happening in their lives.

And this is where compassion for the unknown spaces comes in. We have all been touched by tragedy in some way. We have all gone through loss and hard times. If we allow these experiences to reshape us in a positive way, we can make room for greater compassion. We can allow our hearts to break open and become bigger, have a greater capacity for love, for light, for kindness and compassion. The light that shines through the cracks of a broken heart can be the healing balm itself. Becoming the beautiful glue that begins to mend the pieces. And in this we now have a bigger heart space that can hold greater amounts of love. This has been my experience. 

We can all reach into our expanded hearts and offer up some compassion for all those known and unknown spaces for those who are moving through challenging times. Sure, we may get aggravated and annoyed by our fellow humans, and that is just what it is and can we follow up our annoyance with a prayer of compassion for the unknown. For the parts we can’t know about somebody because we just don’t know. The parts we will never know because we don’t and won’t get to know this person. But we can open up our extra large hearts and offer some grace. 

What kind of world would we begin to see if this is how we moved through our days. If our response was a sprinkle of grace and compassion as our first (ok maybe sometimes second) move when we get triggered by somebody? I am not exactly sure, but it would sure be different than what we tend to experience these days. There is a lot of kindness out there, but there is also a lot of intolerance. Maybe we can help tip the scale a bit eh?

The point I am making here is that everybody has a story, and people are going through tough stuff and most of the time we have no idea. So, for the greater sphere of those we encounter on a daily basis can we offer up a dose of medicine from our hearts and leave the space with more love and kindness than how we found it. 

A prayer for the unknown spaces and places.

I send this prayer to all of you. For all those walking a hard road right now may you feel the grace and love that surrounds you. May you know that the heart can and does heal even when it seems impossible. That there is the other side of what you are navigating, and you too will go through your own rebirth process as you come through your own death cycle. 

With so much love and compassion for the journeys we are all on. 

Compassion for the unknown spaces

I dedicate this piece to all who have walked or are walking the path of heartbreak and loss.

This week, I had a heartfelt conversation with a friend who had just lost someone close. We talked openly about the cycles of grief, death, and that sense of trying to understand the incomprehensible. There’s a surrealness that washes over us in those first moments when the news arrives. When someone we love passes unexpectedly, grief takes on a different texture. Shock, disbelief, and the finality of it all come together in a storm of emotion.

As someone who has felt my heart break — truly shatter — after the loss of my son, I know this surreal space intimately. Life doesn’t pause for us. The world keeps moving. There are things to do: the pets still need feeding, the trash still needs to go out, groceries still need to be bought. Yet, we move through these tasks like hollow versions of ourselves, part of us wishing someone would see our pain, and part of us desperately hoping they don’t. It’s a lonely place to be, even when we’re surrounded by people.

Having walked this road and barely held it together in public spaces, I have come to deeply appreciate those moments of kindness from strangers, people who had no idea what was going on inside me. My friend and I reflected on how we rarely know what others are going through when we cross paths. Whether it’s the person in front of us in the store, the driver who cuts us off, or the person who snags the parking spot we were aiming for — we don’t know their stories.

This is where compassion for the unseen comes in. We've all been touched by loss in some form. If we allow these experiences to open us, we can create room for deeper compassion. Our hearts, broken as they may be, have the capacity to hold more love, more light, more understanding. The cracks in our hearts allow light to seep in, becoming the very medicine that starts the healing process. And in time, those broken pieces mend, leaving us with a heart that is larger and more capable of love than before.

We can tap into that expanded heart space and offer compassion for those unseen stories. Yes, we will still get frustrated, still get annoyed by our fellow humans, but what if we followed those moments with a silent prayer of compassion for what we don’t know? For the pain we can’t see? What if we chose grace as our response, more often than not?

Imagine the world we might create if we moved through it with a little more kindness. There’s a lot of good out there, but there’s also a lot of intolerance. Maybe we can help tip the scales.

The truth is, everyone has a story. And most of the time, we have no idea what others are carrying. So, let’s offer a little heart medicine wherever we can. Leave a space with more love, more grace than when we found it.

A prayer for the unknown spaces. A prayer for all of you.

For those walking difficult paths right now, may you feel the love that surrounds you. Know that your heart can heal, even when it seems impossible. There is another side to what you’re navigating, and in time, you too will experience a rebirth after this cycle of loss.

With love and compassion for all our journeys.