Finding God through Grief
In times of diminishing light, focusing on the core longings and the source of all longings and giving them a voice is how we find God. We have all these superficial ones and underneath that is a deeper longing for union with the cosmos, which happens in times of crisis. Acknowledging the mystery of the unknown is our deepest resource. Connecting to the mystery allows for constructing alternative futures. And it's in the surrender. It's when we just fully let go into the grief that something new is birthed. From my own experience, the closest I've ever felt with God was when I almost died. The closest I've found God was when I was going through my feminine cleanse. The closest to God I am is in the deep, deep cave of the sweat lodge. In the cocoon. In the unknown.
The closest I've ever felt God was when I drowned at Yosemite.
Water filling my lungs, darkness closing in, everything I thought I knew about control before the moment of complete surrender. And in that surrender, seeing the Divine Light.
We spend so much time looking for God in the wrong places. In peak experiences. In victories. In moments when everything aligns perfectly and we feel like we've got it all figured out.
But that's not where the Beloved lives.
It's in the grief. The sacred reveals itself when we're facing that moment of crisis, when we're at our wit's end, when doubts and fears consume us.
When we're standing at the crossroads of life with no clear path forward, that's when the Beloved appears.
Not in our certainty, but in our surrender.
I've learned this through my own descents into darkness.
In my NDE at Yosemite.
During my two-year relational cleanse.
And in the sweat lodge.
God comes to us in these spaces of the abyss, the cocoon, and the mystery.
It's IN the feeling that we get to heal. We heal because we're close to God in our breaking, not in our fixing.
We have all these peak experiences where we think we're going to have the breakthrough.
The weekend workshop.
The perfect meditation.
The moment of clarity on the mountain.
But the real work happens in the unknown. In the ritualized expression of our grief. In the sacred space we create around our sorrows.
God has come to me at the end of my wits. When I have nowhere else to go and I can't do anything else but surrender.
To my fear. To my grief. To my longing.
In these moments of complete vulnerability, when all my strategies have failed and my defenses have crumbled, that's when the sacred breaks through.
The Beloved doesn't show up to rescue us from our humanity — it shows up to meet us in it.
What if your breakdown is your breakthrough? What if your grief is a gateway? What if surrender is the only way through?
The Beloved is waiting in your depths. Not to fix you, but to meet you. Not to take away your pain, but to transform it into something sacred.
The question isn't whether you'll face the darkness—you will. The question is whether you'll meet it as an enemy or as a doorway to the divine.
Where have you met the sacred in your sorrows? I'd love to hear your story. Simply reply to this email—I read every one.
If this letter resonated with you, please share it with someone who might need to hear it. Sometimes we need permission to honor our grief as sacred.
Ish
P.S. If you're interested in exploring this work more deeply, I have a few 1:1 spots opening up in my men's intensive program. We dive into the places most men are afraid to go — and discover the gifts waiting there. Schedule a call to see if you're ready for the work.