Written by It sounds crazy, but you have this ability. It comes down to your desire to do it. Grief is manifested through emotion, and emotions are energy that comes from our brains. The Amygdala region of our brain is responsible for driving emotions. If you have ever seen the Pixar cartoon Inside Out, it depicts many emotions the brain emits and how those emotions produce actions inside and outside our bodies. Doctors have known for over 100 years that the brain produces electronic energy. Seeing this through EEG and fMRI imaging shows the electronic functioning of the brain and how it creates energy to create thoughts and make body parts perform their functions and make movements.
Since this is the case, all energy can be manipulated. According to the Laws of Conservation of Energy, energy can never die or dissipate but can be transferred and transformed. Grief is an emotion that can be manipulated to serve a griever’s needs, just like it is using the griever to bend to its will. Evidence of this has been seen in various instances that range from sporting performances to creative ventures. One of the most memorable came from Buster Douglas when he KO’d and ended the career of “Iron” Mike Tyson in 1990. Douglas became the World Heavy-Weight Champion, but 23 days prior, Douglas lost his mother, found out his son’s mother was battling Cervical Cancer, and he had just gone through a divorce. Douglas transferred the emotional energies of these events into power used to defeat Tyson, doing the seemingly impossible.
Another example is Eric Clapton. In 1991, his four-year-old son Conor died in a horrific accident. Clapton created a song in homage to his son called “Tears in Heaven” to aid his healing process. That song went on to become a multi-platinum hit.
Grief can produce strange effects on people. The effects are normally associated with pain and hurt, but along with those feelings, grief can also bring a person to find a better version of themselves. How the hurt is processed will determine how it will be used. Making the choice to use grief instead of the grief using the person will make all the difference. It is not to say that the pain of the loss or the circumstance does not negatively affect the griever. It is to say that the griever has chosen to elevate themselves and is using the grief as fuel.
I compare this to the martial arts form of Judo. Judo is a technique that relies on leverage and using an opponent’s energy against them. Grievers can do this to grieve mentally—kind of a mental Judo. Using the energy of grief to their advantage will allow them to do phenomenal things. Douglas and Clapton are just two examples, but others have done things in the name of their lost friends and family. Ester Hyman and Rose Swale-Pope are two examples.
Hyman, who lost her sister in the 2005 bombing in London as a result of her loss, began working with the University College of London’s Institute for Education to teach students to become better stewards and overcome hatred and extremism. Swale-Pope, ran across the world, collecting money for prostate cancer research in response to her husband’s death in 2002 from prostate cancer. Grief can either be a prison or an opportunity to find a better version of yourself. Energy can transform a person, similar to nuclear energy. It can either be a person’s Uranium to power them or their Plutonium to destroy them. The choice is on the griever.
The world expects people to take a Plutonium approach to grief because the emotion is negative in nature. When a person uses the energy of grief to their advantage, a few things occur. One is that they do not let the grief continue to torment them. A second benefit is that they allow the grief to raise them up to another level, and lastly, they share their tragedy with the world by benefitting it.
Grief is nasty, and no one wants to experience it. Unfortunately, it is a part of life. A person can use the grief to help them heal or to allow the grief to overtake them and keep them in prison. It is a choice that the griever must make, and their choice will result in a consequence, but as seen, the consequence does not have to be negative. Taking control of the grief allows the griever to do things that can be phenomenal.
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