My meditation teacher called it “crooked grief.”
I loved that image, as I wondered, “what in the world could that mean?” She explained, and I pondered.

Crooked grief slips out the side door of your body in the form of anxiety, fear, distractibility, irritability, and annoyance. We see it in our tone turning toxic with judgment and blame. We notice it in the breathy, speedy pace of long “to do” lists begging for our undivided, immediate attention. It haunts us as we engage in compulsive “overdoing.” Like a hawk on high alert, we find ourselves in crooked grief, sweeping down, flying upward, bypassing what we truly need.

There is no blame in crooked grief. It appears as a reminder that grief is there, wanting to be held, felt. Grief becomes crooked when it goes unacknowledged. It longs for a place to be seen and heard, a protected space in which to live.

Crooked grief is a place holder; that little tugging we feel lurking just outside our heart. It calls to us when we can’t “find time” to honor the presence of grief.

That is all it asks of us.