The Kahuna believe that we have threes souls (also translated as selves, minds, parts.) One soul that can reason and speak but can’t feel Uhane, one soul that is perfectly attuned with the universe (or, for believers, the divine) Aumakua, and another soul they call the Grieving Soul, Unihipili, which holds all feeling and connects with others in deep, non-verbal ways.
Health is when the feeling soul, the grieving Unihipili part of all of us is attuned more and more of the time with our higher mind than the middle mind. That is the Ka Huna model of physical and mental health.
In my life and in my therapy practice I help people find that grieving soul for themselves.
It is a trope in therapy that when a client is folding her arms across her chest she is withholding and defensive. Instead I’ve learned to ask “what precious thing are you cradling in your arms?” They invariably move their hands away as if they were doing something wrong. I ask them to just tune into that part of the body.
(There is a core to the practice that can only be taught in person, so the above question is asked when the person is able to get into a deep almost trance-like state.)
100% describe most aspects of the Grieving Soul with no prompting. (I now describe the three parts to new clients to get informed consent to use a technique that is not yet proven.)
Resentment (the cognitive repetition and rehearsal of negative experiences, anxious and depressive thinking, self-sabotage and shame and guilt-based thinking occur only when the Grieving Soul is attuned to our middle mind. Those are emotional experiences that are paired with negative thinking.
The Grieving Soul is incapable of judgment.
Those of us with companion animals know that deep soul connection that occurs with a pet. Of course, we experience that state with our children, who run into our arms for comfort when they experience grief and pain.
The grieving soul only stays grieving if she or he is ignored. We may also call the grieving soul the “inner child.” The paradox of our emotional lives is that we can only be happy to the degree that we can feel all our emotions including pain.
It doesn’t matter whether the grieving soul is literally true but if we believe we have a grieving soul how much better off are we? We would be up front and honest with our children and allow them to have their feelings, we would be able to ask others for comfort and comfort others.
Centuries before Sigmund Freud came up with the idea of the three parts based on his own experience – id, ego and superego – the ancients came up with their three part system based also on observation. The Hawaiian idea of the three parts forms the basis of a healing system: health is when the parts or souls are in harmony.
The existence of the grieving soul is proven by looking at how strong a taboo grieving is in the west: we behave as if we are ashamed of our own grief and repelled by the grief of others. There are no more lonely families than ones that lost a child or lost a family member to suicide. People behave as grieving were contagious. The grieving soul brings us together; the rejection of the grieving soul keeps us apart.
For many people our first encounter with the grieving soul – even if we don’t name it that – is at the therapist’s office. Family therapists, like me, prefer that people learn to grieve in their families (families of choice as well as families that raised us.)
Children are shielded from the harsh realities of life in the west. A child living in the traditional way may have a goat or pig as a best friend: she greets him in the morning and finds safe ways to play, a goat may even comfort the child when she cries. Most of us have never met, named and fallen in love with an animal that we will eventually eat. In the pre-modern world we would also see our human loved ones die, including siblings and human playmates; in contemporary society death usually happens behind closed doors or in hospitals; and many parents feel, wrongly, that shielding children from reality is a good idea.
The idea of grieving goes beyond death and loss to include all the pains and hurts of life. If we fill a room with people we fill a room with grieving souls. The grieving remains in our consciousness.
The idea from Elizabeth Kubler-Ross that grief can be gotten over does a great disservice by creating a no-win situation for the person who doesn’t get over a loss. That’s what we say, right? “Get over it!”
We aren’t supposed to get over a loss – not when we lose someone who we love deeply, especially if we lose them young and haven’t been able to do a good goodbye. Losing an elder is bittersweet. They’ve lived life and, if wise, have given us the benefit of their experience.
We are able to keep the love of the one we lost only to the degree that we can grieve her.
Most Western people discover the grieving soul in the therapist’s office (whether we use that term or not) but it doesn’t belong there. If we all have grieving souls then we need to be able to grieve together – family, friends, fellow human beings. That may explain the power of groups.
The therapist should help us break the silence of grief so that we can have genuine connections in our lives outside the therapy space.
Be careful how we talk to others. People often turn the discussion into a competition – “my grief (loss, trauma, betrayal) is bigger than yours.” Comparisons are not useful and words themselves are limiting. We need to honour our grieving. Share with others and then listen, even if they play the one-up game.
We need to simply respect each others’ grief.