One Year Later: Sharing Grief and Appreciation

“The journey of the one that is committed to awakening is becoming comfortable with the unknown. It is the great paradox of our existence.” – Lola Wright

On March 11, the Our Circle community marked the one year anniversary of COVID-19 being named a pandemic by gathering for meditation and reflection. We mourned our losses and held space for our fears and hopes for the upcoming year.

To share in our collective grief and hope, I am releasing this recent practice from the Our Circle community for everyone. I hope you find comfort, vision, and love in these exercises and conversations.

You can hear more about living through this anniversary and honoring its gifts and challenges in our recent episode Become Comfortable with the Unknown.

• (03:44) – Meditation
• (18:29) – Thrown out of the nest
• (26:32) – What comes next?
• (33:37) – Vision and appreciation

Do you want to unleash your inherent love and goodness, liberate yourself, and free humanity from the oppressive systems and structures we have created? We are here to support you in finding your fierce and loving life. Join us in Our Circle, a vibrant membership community rich in opportunities for engagement and transformation. Find out more at lolawright.com/our-circle.

You can follow Lola Wright, on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter and learn more about my work at lolawright.com.

Chicago born and built, Lola grew up in wealth and privilege, yet always sensed something was missing. She sought out aliveness and freedom in music, immersing herself in the hip hop and house music scenes of 90s Chicago. After finding herself on her own at 23, as the mother of two young children, she became determined to create a new experience.

Lola is an ordained minister with a gift for weaving together the mystical and material, she served for many years as the CEO of Bodhi Center, an organization committed to personal transformation, collective awakening, conscious activism, and community-building. 

This podcast is produced by Quinn Rose with theme music by independent producer Trey Royal.

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Lola Wright (00:01): Personal transformation and collective awakening involve being the most alive, brilliant, inspired, creative, on fire version of yourself. A version that is not consistent with the status quo. My name is Lola Wright, and this is Find Your Fierce & Loving. This podcast is a wake up call, a roadmap back to your holy purpose, an invitation to set fire to the box you’ve been living in and watch it burn.

Lola Wright (00:40): This is a special bonus episode that I’m releasing today. The last month has been a particularly intentional time of reflection for me. About a month ago, I released a podcast episode inviting you to treat this year anniversary of the pandemic as a sacred moment, a time of reflection to really explore what you’ve been navigating over the last year. On March 13, 2020, I left my role as CEO of Bodhi Center. That was a decision I had made one month prior to that, before we had any idea that we would spend the next year in a kind of isolation. I have experienced profound heartbreak and freedom at the same time in this most unusual experience. I wanted to share today’s episode with you from my membership community. I wanted you to hear a little bit about the conversation we had in our most recent gathering. I think it is a particularly potent reflection.

Lola Wright (01:50): I hope you enjoy the meditation, and I hope that you continue to reflect on that which has fallen apart in your life, the ways that you have felt perhaps, in a kind of no-man’s-land. And, I hope that you find comfort in the unknown, that this new world that is emerging, while completely distinct and perhaps lacking some very familiar functions and aspects, that in fact something new is coming forward. Enjoy.

Lola Wright (02:25): I’d really just love to encourage you to consider that we gather here together this evening for our own evolution, expansion, awakening, but that in fact, the reflection that we do tonight serves not only us but it serves collective consciousness because nothing that happens in any one of us occurs in isolation. So, we can actually do the practice of reflection and appreciation for ourselves and realize that that has an effect that goes far beyond our individual experience.

Lola Wright (03:02): So, tonight really is a completion, a completion of a year, a year of unanticipated loss, of unanticipated shifting and changing and moving. And so, we’re going to honor that loss tonight. And, I just encourage you to give yourself the gift of having whatever comes up be welcome. And realizing that whatever comes up, may be yours, but it may be in the collective experience as well. So with that in mind, I just invite you to join me as we open this evening in a practice of meditation. And so if you can bring your body still. Find yourself in a comfortable position.

Lola Wright (03:51): And just begin to tune into your physical environment and see if there are any distractions that are pulling on your attention, anything that you need to adjust in this now moment, perhaps an unbuttoning of your pants. That’s always a favorite one for me like if you’re noticing constriction in your belly, now would be a perfect time to just let it all hang out. We are going to channel the experience of surrender. So make whatever adjustments that you need in this now moment. And begin to deepen the breath into the body. Noticing that Skip is reminding us that today is also the ten-year anniversary of the great earthquake and tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan. And so it really is a very cosmic evening, cosmic moment, cosmic day. And we can call forward all of the ancestral wisdom, all of the saints and sages, mystics and masters that live in each of us. So with that, I invite you to close your eyes and deepen your breath into your belly.

Lola Wright (05:16): Breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth. Giving yourself the gift of oxygenating every cell of your body. Perhaps noticing any residual influence of the time that preceded this gathering, any interactions, any distractions, anything that may be hooking your attention.

Lola Wright (05:49): Allow your breath to loosen the attachment of the mind.

Lola Wright (06:02): And invite your consciousness to begin to expand, to begin to wander. Allow your attention to go wherever it goes. There’s nothing to remain focused on here. As you allow your consciousness, your awareness, to begin to drift.

Lola Wright (06:41): Perhaps invite your attention to dance across the landscape of the last year. Beginning to notice what areas of your life have blown up in the last year, have deconstructed, have fallen apart, have been lost. What ideas did you hold onto that you imagined going a particular way and as you drift throughout the past year, how have they gone other than you anticipated? And, can you allow yourself to simply notice that life went in a way other than you anticipated, other than you intended. Perhaps relationships that you thought would still be present are gone. Perhaps jobs that you once had have been lost. Perhaps plans that you made, canceled.

Lola Wright (08:27): Notice if your mind is protecting against any heartbreak, as you feel a sense of dis-ease, a sense of things falling apart. Notice if the mind quickly is seeking to attach to all the good that has occurred. Notice if the mind is trying to explain the loss, the heartbreak, the unraveling. Well, no, no, no, but if we understood, then we could, you know, this is all for good. Just relieve the mind of the need to do that. And begin to sense into the unknown, the perhaps discomfort of the unknown. That the world that died a year ago has created a vast void.

Lola Wright (10:10): As you allow yourself to feel into the unknown of your life, what body sensations do you notice? What feelings states are present? What do you notice wanting to hold on to as known? As we go into this stillness and silence for a few moments together, continue to notice the inhale and the exhale, the cycle of the breath in through the nose and out through the mouth. Breathing perhaps more deeply than is comfortable or familiar for you. Allow yourself to surrender into the void, the vast unknown.

Lola Wright (12:52): Ask yourself the question, what do I miss most from this world that has died? What do I miss most from the world as I knew it? What simplicity may have existed before? Perhaps the ease of physical touch. The frequency of an unmasked smile. The freedom of travel. No matter the benefits and the gifts that you’ve gained over the last year, any time a massive shift occurs, loss is also present. So, allow yourself to take a few breaths of intentional grief for whatever may have been lost in this last year. See, is there any sadness remaining, grief that is wanting to be felt. Any tension or constriction, gripping or bracing that you’ve held in your body to make it through this birth, this death.

Lola Wright (15:56): When things fall apart and we are on the verge of we know not what, the test of each of us is to stay on that brink and not concretize. The spiritual journey is not about heaven and finally getting to a place that’s really swell.

Lola Wright (16:29): And so, here we sit on this mystical journey of we know not what.

Lola Wright (16:41): And so what I know is that there is a holy appointment that the human condition has found itself in. That as something is dying, something new is being birthed. And so, I trust very deeply this extraordinary and exquisite gathering of human beings here tonight, do this practice and this work in service of their own awareness and in service of their own expansion. But also such that we may each walk on the planet with a greater sense of grace, compassion, understanding, patience, tenderness, and trust. That we may interact with each being that we meet realizing that we are each moving through a journey of the unknown.

Lola Wright (17:51): So, I know that this evening tonight is sacred, that whatever needs to be said, is said. Whatever needs to be heard, is heard. That there is an opening here. Take in a deep breath, in through your nose and out through your mouth, allowing the presence of all that is to course through your very being. When you’re ready, go ahead and open your eyes.

Lola Wright (18:30): I’m going to read an excerpt from a book called When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron, who’s a Buddhist nun that you may be familiar with. And a year ago in February, this is the book that I referenced the last talk I did at Bodhi. It’s quite prophetic in fact. She writes, “The essence of life is that it’s challenging. Sometimes it is sweet, and sometimes it is bitter. Sometimes your body tenses, and sometimes it relaxes or opens. Sometimes you have a headache, and sometimes you feel a 100% healthy. From an awakened perspective, trying to tie up all the loose ends and finally get it together is death, because it involves rejecting a lot of your basic experience. There is something aggressive about that approach to life, trying to flatten out all the rough spots and imperfections into a nice, smooth ride.”

Lola Wright (19:51): “To be fully alive, fully human and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man’s-land. To experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again. From the awakened point of view, that is life. Death is wanting to hold on to what you have and to have every experience confirm you and congratulate you and make you feel completely together. So even though we say, Yama Mara is fear of death, it’s actually fear of life. We want to be perfect, but we just keep seeing our imperfections, and there is no room to get away from that. No exit, nowhere to run. That is when the sword turns into a flower.” And so it said that the night the Buddha awakened, he had a dream and that the dream was that swords were being flown at him.

Lola Wright (21:27): And as the swords were being flown at him, they hit him and turned into flowers. And so, I just wonder what it could be like in this human experience if we actually could sit in the seeming imperfections, in the seeming loss, in the seeming no-man’s-land. I think it’s very, very, very powerful to consider that to be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. 

Lola Wright (22:11): I just want to say again, I said this at the beginning but it’s just so extraordinary to me the way the universe is so perfectly orchestrated. Many of you know that, there was one final date left for the last project I did of House of Bodhi. And, it was scheduled for March 8th.

Lola Wright (22:41): And in February, I canceled it because something said in my soul.. This project’s complete for now. We’re not to do another date. And, it didn’t make sense at the time. And so the quote of the last talk, When Things Fall Apart and “We’re on the verge of we know not what, the test of each of us is to stay on that brink and not concretize,” not turn into concrete, not turn into stone, not solidify. That has for me been the great invocation of this last year. How can I be with the discomfort of the unknown? “The spiritual journey is not about heaven and finally getting to a place that’s really swell.” And isn’t that our humanity? That we really so want to feel the experience of comfort. That if I could just get the certainty, then I would be at peace. If I could just get to this weight on the scale, this number in the bank account, this partner, at this address, at this moment, with these clients, such that I know that everything’s going to be okay.

Lola Wright (24:21): And yet, the journey of the one that is committed to awakening is becoming uncomfortable with the unknown. It is the great paradox of our existence. And so the beauty in my view is that there was this cosmic orchestration that brought us to this moment in the last year that said this world that you knew as you knew it must not go on any longer. And so I just remain deeply curious around any remnants of being that are still lingering, that we may use this evening to release. What remnants of being? Not that tonight is done and you won’t have to do the work anymore, but just if we could just see, what remaining practices, patterns? For me, it’s ironic that some of my deepest fears have come up this year in ways that I would not have anticipated, things that I thought I have for surely transformed this by now. I have been doing this conversation for 20 years. Why again? Why now? And again, it’s sort of like those last few pushes.

Lola Wright (26:04): Bear down. You can do it. One more push. And you’re like, no, I don’t want to. I can’t. I don’t want to do that anymore. I’m tired. One more push.

Lola Wright (26:33): So just see, is there anyone that feels called like, “Hey, I just want to speak this. I just want to be known. This is what I have been hanging onto, and I am calling tonight the completion ceremony, and I’m so grateful that you all have gathered in service of my completion ceremony.” Anything that they want to speak. Bethany.

Bethany (26:57): I have a emotional response fear of falling into the patterns that I have released when the world starts to feel normal and when other people start acting normal, when my schedule goes back to normal because I feel like I’ve had so many falls forward this year. And so, I just get really preemptively frustrated with myself that I am going to fuck this up when the world becomes right again.

Lola Wright (27:37): And Bethany, is there something specific that you feel scared about?

Bethany (27:42): My patterns around allowing the social life and the extroverted Bethany to dominate the more introverted, thoughtful and frankly better human being and more insightful and more core to who I want to be, Bethany. There are more opportunities for the extrovert to appear and get that immediate validation of the material when the world returns to normal.

Lola Wright (28:08): Yeah. The thought I’m having is that once you know something, you can’t unknow it. And so the gift of the duration of time of this interruption is it has given you a sustained experience. And so, even if you have that going back, you’ll always have this past year as a point of reference. It reminds me of… I’ve shared this with many of you before, but my older children’s father always says the best day and the worst day of his life was the day he admitted he was an alcoholic. The day he admitted he was an alcoholic, he could no longer enjoy drinking because he knew something, and he couldn’t unknow that, you know? And so, life is not linear. You know, we’ve all had evolutions and awakenings and then fallen back. But, I actually think that’s sort of the brilliance of what Pema Chodron says in this book. She says it’s not about this sort of like perfectly constructed reality. And so, how can we be with ourselves when things fall apart? You know, I’ve said probably more than anything over the last year, we are all extra grace required. 

Christine (29:41): Well, I do want to create this with all of you. I’m calling it like a glass ceiling. It’s a limitation, and it’s “this is too much.” It is something I just have not given up. And so, I want to affirm in this space that it’s done. That is no longer a limitation or a thought that overpowers me. I’m giving it up.

Lola Wright (30:15): Now, what was the limitation?

Christine (30:17): This is too much.

Lola Wright (30:19): Oh, this is too much.

Christine (30:23): This is too much. It’s just there hanging like a cloud. I’m releasing it. Oh my God, I would just experience so much more joy and freedom not having that.

Lola Wright (30:42): Yeah. And, the gift will always be to dance between how is that true and how is the opposite true? How is that true, and how is the opposite true. Right? Because anything that we’re resisting, it’s got the grip. So, if I have to get away from something, there’s some amplifying power I’m giving it. So, we could say conversely, how could it be true that it is too much? It is too much. And, could I be okay with it being too much? And there’s no one to answer. This is why we say, this will never be a dogmatic approach. The power and the wisdom and the knowing lives in each of us.

Lola Wright (31:27): So, I don’t know what’s true. Only you know what’s true. And, just be malleable with it. Many of you remember in that middle section of the metaphysical chart or the Fierce & Loving framework, whichever visual you’re representing, in that subconscious mind, in the soul, one of the old school metaphysical words in that section is Maya. And, what the word Maya means is plasticity, to be malleable, to be plastic, to be moldable. So, how can it all be true?

Skip (32:12): I think you’re inviting us to make space for contradictions within ourselves and not needing to resolve them, makes it a lot easier for me to have these memory flashbacks of old Skip or even future Skip flash forwards that can be different from where I am now and just not have to resolve that. It just opens up all these possibilities that I’m going, Oh, let that be here too. Let the sadness and anger and whatever, even if it’s not now. Like these, I’m tuning into 10 years ago and making space for it. And, I feel richer for being in this now, thanks to that invitation. Does that make sense? That’s what I think.

Lola Wright (32:55): That’s beautiful.

Bethany (32:58): I think I want to be on that discomfort edge, and my fear is that I’m going to miss out. If I fall back into the old pattern. I think that’s what the fear is. It’s a fomo for the unknown.

Lola Wright (33:11): Yeah. My thought is when I hear you say that Bethany, that there’s an exhilaration in the unknown. It’s like, wow, something new really is forthcoming. And, I scare myself at the prospect of anesthetizing myself, going back into the slumber of a sleepy state. There’s a brink upon which I’m on. Okay. So, in the spirit of the powerful women in International Women’s Month, we’re going to turn to Catholic nun by the name of Joan Chittister, who wrote the book, The Time Is Now. So, I mean, if there were two books. I mean, I’ll always give you books to read because I am just a book lady. When Things Fall Apart, Pema Chodron. The Time Is Now by Joan Chittister. And if you’re reading The Science Of Getting Rich, good on you. You’re really getting after it.

Lola Wright (34:22): But, this is a quote from Helen Keller from this book. And, she says, “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.” So, we’re going to go into breakout rooms again and without the practice of visioning, which is a practice many of you are very familiar with, I want you to speak your vision. What is the vision that you hold of and for your life? It is in fact true that you don’t need to vision to tap into the vision of and for your life. You actually know the vision of and for your life.

Lola Wright (34:57): Most of us are just so risk averse that we’re not willing to really claim it. And so, if you didn’t have to figure out the how, if the how was none of your business and you could just speak into the quantum field, which is the person standing before you and you were to say “To know me, is to know my vision is.” And, my guess is if you were being really honest with yourself, you could get real clear, real fast.

Lola Wright (35:28): This is where I’m living. This is who I’m living with. This is what my day looks like. You know those things. You actually do know those things, and I want you to give yourself permission to speak them. And so with that, we’re to go into another breakout room, and we’re going to do something that some of you have done with me before. We’ve done in Our Circle I think once, a rampage of appreciation. And, I want you to do this practice. And look, you can feel the complexity of your humanity. You are vast enough to feel grief and gratitude simultaneously. You are living in a multiverse. You are not this one-dimensional creature that is overriding or bypassing your grief or your loss by amplifying your gratitude. They can co-exist.

Lola Wright (36:31): That is the extraordinary exquisite complex nature of reality that is you. So, rampage of appreciation. This is how this is going to go. You’re each going to get two minutes. You’re going to spend one minute speaking appreciation for the tangible. And, I want them to go in this order. First, you speak of the tangible. The material, the stuff in your life. It could be your house. It could be your favorite blanket. It could be the best tea kettle on the planet. Whatever the stuff is that you’re just, I am oozing with gratitude for my creature comforts. The second minute is the intangible, the unseen, the qualities that I experienced gratitude in. This is called a rampage of appreciation. It comes out of the work of Abraham Hicks. It literally gets your energy moving.

Lola Wright (37:33): And, I highly recommend this. I did this yesterday morning with Nathan in bed. I know that I have been susceptible to my funky attitude as of late. And so, as a sacred gift to humanity, I started yesterday with a rampage of appreciation. It was a good idea for all that would cross my path. And so, I sat in bed and for several minutes, just spoke appreciations. And, Nathan was half asleep listening with an occasional, oh, that’s nice. And, it actually gave me a lift to my day as opposed to the default, which can be, your neurotic thinking. You can very easily get into.. Yeah. So, it actually is a radical act to disrupt the inertia of the ego mind and to say, “Get yee behind me, we’re establishing a field of appreciation.” Okay.

Lola Wright (38:45): So, I’m going to do this exercise. And then, we’re going to go into groups, and you’ll do two minutes each. I’m going to do it myself, and if you would bear witness to me, and then we’re going to go into a breakout room. So, I’m just going to go one minute. 30 seconds each. So tangible. I flipping love the rings on my fingers. I feel lavish. I love sparkle. I love diamonds. I feel so… It’s like I’m a princess. I am like a princess. And, I love the magical. I love that which sparkles. I love tulle. I love tulle. I love tulle. I love texture and color and fabric and the vibrancy of life. I love beauty. I feel so excited by the budding trees that are beginning to emerge as I walk down the street.

Lola Wright (39:42): I’m beginning to see new life emerging. I am so grateful for this extraordinary visual capacity that I have, that I can actually see texture and color and distinction. So, you can begin to sense the aliveness. And, give yourself the gift of feeling it. All right. Well, I would just encourage you all, for those of you who are living with other humans, play this game, rampage of appreciation with them. Get your kids going on it, your partners, your friends, your neighbors. It is contagious. Appreciation appreciates all of life. Life literally expands when you place the quality of appreciation on it. We are creative beings. We are always bringing greater attention to whatever is in the forefront of our mind. So, if we are prioritizing our neurotic thinking that seeks deficit in all things. Guess what you find evidence of more? You find deficits.

Lola Wright (40:57): So, let us pay attention to the good that is right here now because there is an abundance. Remember, you are standing upon fertile ground. All of the resources, the desires that you have, are within you. It’s all right here. So, we’re just here to actualize, to allow, to call forward the genius, the brilliance, the glory that is you. So, so much love. Be for something and against nothing. That is an old school, Ernest Holmes quote. Be for something and against nothing.

Lola Wright (41:37): If you enjoyed this show and would like to receive new episodes as they’re published, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and consider leaving a review in Apple Podcasts. Your review helps others find this show. You can follow me at Lola P. Wright on Instagram, Facebook,  LinkedIn,  and Twitter and learn more about my work at lolawright.com. This episode was produced by Quinn Rose with theme music from independent music producer Trey Royal.

Lola Wright (42:24): We are literally midwifing a new reality. And so, I think the questions that we’re asking here tonight are very important. There was a way that I did do life before, and I’m scaring myself that I could go back to doing that life that way again. I think there’s a lot of wisdom in that.