regret as the seed: joy after grief

Grief is the second-greatest love I have ever known.

Grief is love looking for a place to go. It’s love that kisses our heart twice - an offering of the soul that makes a u-turn… and pierces the bullseye of the heart. Grief is love that can’t be diluted through reciprocity. So, instead, we drown in our own sweetness.

While everyone knows the pain of loss, not everyone has experienced the ecstasy of grief. Loss is a human experience. Grief is a spiritual one. Grief requires acknowledgment that there was ever love to begin with. Grief is admitting that we are not in control.

So we get out of the head and into the heart. And let ourselves feel overcome with truth.

I know both loss and grief well. I’ve ebbed and flowed through my humanness since I was 12-years-old. And have learned that, while grief is strong, there is something stronger.

It’s the greatest love I know: joy after grief.

This kind of joy doesn’t happen on accident. It’s a courageous choice to go back into the world, armor-less, covered in scars from losses before. It’s a humble kind of joy. An urgent kind of joy.

Joy-after-grief comes from taking more chances, being more present, and letting our regrets transform us.

It’s reckless to think we can, or should, live without any regrets.

Regret is our greatest teacher. It’s grief’s gift to us, reminding us to feel life more deeply while we still have it.

Regret is the seed for the greatest love we will ever know.

Abrazos,
Jax