Terry Tempest Williams, Nina Simons and Eve Ensler on Grief, Anger and Reconciliation
In a time when it’s easier to hate than to empathize, it’s an act of revolutionary love to have sympathy for those who seem different or who have hurt you. Emotions like grief and anger — despite their negative connotation — are necessary to living fully and embracing the full spectrum of human emotion. After all, our world is full of dualities. Without anger, there is no love. And without pain, there is no healing.
Following, Bioneers Terry Tempest Williams, Nina Simons and Eve Ensler explore the process of balancing these emotions.
Eve Ensler
What and why should one want to undergo such a grueling and emotional process? The answer is simple: freedom. No one who commits violence or suffering upon another, or the Earth, is free of that action. It contaminates one’s spirit and being, and without amends often creates more darkness, depression, self-hatred and violence. The apology frees the victim, but it also frees the perpetrator, allowing them deep reflection and ability to finally change their ways and their life.
My father, in my book, wrote to me from limbo, and it was very strange. I have to tell you, he was present throughout the entire writing of the book. He had been stuck in limbo for 31 years. I truly believe that the dead need to be in dialogue with us, that they are around us, and they are often stuck, and they need our help in getting free.
With this exercise, I believe now that my father is free. And because he was willing to undergo this process, he’s moved on to a far more enlightened realm.
As for those of you who cannot get an apology from your perpetrator, I believe that writing an apology letter to yourself from them is one of the most powerful things I’ve ever done, and it can shift how the perpetrator actually lives inside you, for once someone has violated you, entered you, oppressed you, demeaned you, they actually occupy you. We often know our perpetrators better than ourselves, particularly if they are family. We learn to read their footsteps and the sounds of their voices in order to protect ourselves. By writing my father’s apology, I changed how my father actually lived inside me. I moved him from a monster to an apologist, a terrifying entity to a broken little boy. In doing so, he lost power and agency over me.
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