You Can't Hold On to Sand
Healing from Loss, Navigating an Uncertain Present, Co-Creating a Future for All
It was the middle of the night, and I was drifting in that liminal state between not fully asleep yet not really awake. That state of awareness where you can’t tell what is real and what is imagined. It’s a space I’ve come to know quite well over the years—a time and space when my rational or analytical mind is mostly out of the way, allowing messages to break through to my “conscious” mind—messages that might otherwise seem too abstract, ambiguous, or unclear.
Sometimes those messages come in words, other times in images. This time, both.
The words: You can’t hold on to sand.
The image: A figure standing on the beach, hands cupped together to hold the sand, yet the sand will not be held—almost imperceptibly, it slips through the fingers into the wind and the water.
My first conscious thought was that the message was about my own process with loss and grief over the last few years. And then my sense of grief and fear about the “breaking open” of my country; the threats to democracy, dignity, and human rights around the world; and the lack of ethical and moral leadership. It was about acknowledging that change is constant and the tides are shifting. Laws of nature at work.
Yet as the message sank in deeper, I realized there was more. It wasn’t only about grieving the past. The message was showing me something more about how to navigate the uncertainties of the present, and how to work with my fears for our collective future instead of running away from them. Maybe even about a new way of partnering with the possibilities of a future that is desperately trying to emerge for me and for all of us.
The “past” part of the message was not new, yet the “future” part was a surprise. I had never considered that how I have learned to be with grief and loss over the last few years could, in fact, show me something more about how to navigate the present and even the future, no matter what the future holds. The process of writing this article is helping me go deeper. Come along with me if you are curious. Maybe whatever I uncover will open another layer of understanding for you, too.
The ground keeps shifting, the unexpected is happening more frequently
In this era of the Great Breaking Open, the ground keeps shifting under our feet; the unexpected is happening more frequently. Circumstances, people, relationships, institutions, democratic processes that we always thought we could count on—they are all changing. Some are no longer working; others seem to have disappeared entirely. Statistics tell us that more and more people are feeling a pervasive sense of grief, loss, confusion, and even despair, not only for the present, but also for the future.
And so, we try to hold on to sand—we try to hold on to the life we have known as well as the life we dream about for the future. Because when we fear losing something or someone, or sense that something we love might change, we’re hard wired to hold on. It’s human instinct. We don’t want to lose what is dear to us.
Yet life keeps shifting and changing and morphing and evolving anyway. It’s hard to hold on to something that is constantly moving. There is no handle to grab. You can’t hold on to sand.
We start where we are
So, let’s start with healing loss and grief. Through my nearly seven decades, I have learned that nothing of my past can ever be lost to me. The people, places, feelings, and experiences of my life have all found a place somewhere within me. They live on in my soul. They are woven into the fabric of my life.
Seeing the whole of my life as a large piece of fabric is, for me, a powerful metaphor. The fabric of my life is multi-colored and multi-textured. Some parts are smooth as satin; others are rough-hewn, prickly, even razor-sharp and stinging. Some of the edges are beautifully bound, while others are torn and frayed. It’s all there—everyone I have ever known, everything I have experienced, every bit of ground on which I’ve walked, all that ever came into my life and all that went away. And even the seeds of all that is yet to come. How I remember and interpret the past and how I anticipate the future will shift and evolve as long as I don’t try to hold on to it—as long as I keep setting it free. If I try to hold on, to keep it a certain way, or to manipulate or control, my breath gets tight and shallow. I start to feel anxious. And soon, my memories of the past become less vibrant, and my future offers less vitality and possibility.
Sand as healer and teacher
There is something restful, healing, and even rejuvenating about sand running through your fingers. Or walking barefoot in thick sand on a beach by the sea. Allowing yourself to get lost in the wind, the sand, the rhythm of the waves, the timelessness of the earth, and the infinity of creation. It’s restorative and liberating. Yet if you reach down to fill your hands with sand and raise them up again to hold on to the moment, the sand inevitably starts to slip through your fingers. Even if you are trying your best not to let that happen. You can’t hold on to sand.
And so it is with life.
Life, too, slips through our fingers. We can touch it, we can experience it, we can feel it deeply, we can rest in it, we can mourn in it, we can laugh in it and love in it. We can feel it living and breathing inside of us. Yet try as we might, we can’t hold on to it. Life is fluid and ever changing—year to year, month to month, week to week, day to day, hour to hour, sometimes even moment to moment. People come into our lives, and they go away; we celebrate joyfully and we grieve deeply. We travel through life, life travels through us. Yet the essence of every experience, every moment, remains with us somewhere in the fabric of our being.
You can’t hold on to sand.
You can’t hold on to life.
Yet nothing is ever lost to you.
Pain is often the beginning stage of healing
It’s been said that pain, whether emotional or physical, is the beginning stage of healing. Some part of us has been torn, broken, or wounded. So first, the wound must cleanse, the toxins must be cleared. And then after cleansing comes repair, repatterning, and “knitting” or “weaving” the body or spirit back together. The deeper or more devastating the wound, the longer that process is likely to take.
However, if we brace ourselves against the pain—in effect holding on and not allowing the natural and innate healing process to happen—the pain gets stuck. Stuck pain is stuck energy. And stuck energy becomes suffering. Surrendering or “letting go” to the pain, on the other hand, allows the energy to flow, which keeps the healing process moving. And that reduces suffering. Healing has its own timeline. The more we partner with the healing process rather than resist or fight against it, or, for that matter, try to hurry it along, the more we draw to us what we need, and the sooner we find our way forward, and the stronger and more resilient we become.
Navigating an uncertain present, co-creating a future for all
Which takes us to how we choose today to meet the prospects of our future. Relationships, places, politics, feelings, situations, experiences—all of life will keep shifting and changing and morphing and evolving. That’s how life works. Sometimes it shifts and changes in directions that feel right or good; other times, not so good, maybe even dangerous. Either way, much as we might want to hold on or control or manipulate what is happening, it almost never works for very long. You can’t hold on to sand.
Right now, today, especially in politics, government, and policy, it can feel like we’re moving backwards. Conditions, situations, and realities are changing rapidly, and we’re finding ourselves in a different place than many of us thought we would be. Like it or not, it’s the reality that’s in front of us. And as with the healing process we just talked about, if we brace ourselves against what is happening, we are holding on. If we’re going to co-create changes that will serve us in the long term, we will have to move with, not hold on or keep doing what we have been doing. That’s not going to help. We have to learn a new dance. I admit that can feel like a scary prospect, because we don’t know how the future is going to unfold.
Yet here’s where I find the deeper message. I believe that there is an Intelligence within everything that happens, and that Intelligence is trying to point us towards the next level of evolution and development. “Breaking open” is what happens when it’s time for a big transformation. It’s a sign. Structures and systems break down and break open to show us that the current path, even though it may have served us in the past, is no longer working. Nor will it support us in our forward evolution. And this can feel like enormous loss.
At the same time, with all that is breaking open in the structures, systems, ethics, and ways of being together with one another, there must be something else waiting for us—a new way of partnering with our own evolutionary process, both individually and collectively.
What is happening in the world and in our lives right now is the current flow. It’s not forever, but it is what is in front of us right now. Navigating our uncertain future will require us to be fully present with “what is” in new ways. And to understand that to “heal” is to “make whole.” Our systems and structures are torn, broken, and no longer working. “Making whole” is not about “fixing” old versions of those systems or manipulating conditions to serve a select few. It’s about “making well.” It’s about partnering with the new that wants to be created for the next era—for our countries, our communities, and for ourselves. It’s about weaving a new section of the fabric of our lives.
Remember, the first stage of healing is cleansing the wound. And that first stage can be really painful. This is where we are now. We have to clear the toxins out. And remember, the deeper the wound, the longer it could take. Much as I wish it wasn’t so, we probably have a lot more “wound cleaning” and “toxin clearing” to do before we can start building. Things are likely to remain messy and painful for a while longer.
Yet then after the cleaning and clearing comes some initial repair. Just like you put a temporary bandage on a wound, we’ll have to create temporary structures and systems that can serve immediate critical needs. Yet even while that temporary work is going on, we must also get started on the next stage of the healing or “making a new whole”—the stage of repatterning. Designing new patterns that can carry us forward in creating a world that works for all. From there, we can start “knitting” and “weaving” those new patterns together. Since “what wants to happen” is probably a new kind of “fabric” for our world going forward, we’re probably going to have to invent some new “stitches” and “weaves.”
Underneath all the turmoil and uncertainty of today, new patterns of being and doing and creating and coming together are trying to emerge. It’s how evolution works. New possibilities are on the horizon just beyond what we can see at this moment—new structures and systems, new paradigms of relationships and alliances.
We often describe the Transformational Presence approach to leadership as “tending the garden.” The seeds of those possibilities are already planted in the ground we walk on today. It’s up to us to choose the seeds we want to feed and water, and which ones we refuse to give energy and support. What is the garden we choose to tend for our future and for generations to come? Every one of us makes a difference. Each one of us tills the soil and nurtures particular seeds by the choices we make in our day-to-day lives right now.
A new era is waiting for us to partner with it. A new garden is waiting to be tended. It’s not likely to be easy. Yet together, we can do it.
Alan - this article could be the reading for a graduate level class on spirituality & philosophy. So much to think about here. As we get frustrated with trying to hold to the “way things were” it is good to remember the only thing we know for sure is that things change. The image of not being able to hold onto sand is powerful. New ways of being are emerging - that thought brings hope for positive developments in all sorts of areas. Thanks for writing!
Wow!! Such an important message for where we are today in the world. Thanks, as always, for your wisdom!