When Love Takes you Hostage

This is not the blog I had planned to write today. But Australia is grieving, and what is moving through the collective field cannot be ignored.

The atrocity of the Bondi attacks has left many of us stunned—speechless, angry, hearts cracked open. When I watched swimmers and surfers form a great circle (pictured above) in the blue Bondi waters in this reel, standing together for hope and strength, a quintessentially Australian gesture, I thought of the ripple effect. A call to community. To love—not as an idea, but as an action.

As an ocean swimmer myself, it touched me deeply. The ocean is a cleanser. A place where grief can breathe.

As one who this year, experienced the simultaneous loss of my dear mother, my closest intimate friend Gene, and another dear male friend to suicide in the span of 8 weeks, grief and its many layers have been an unwelcome but constant guest. 

The thing is, I’ve discovered there is a portal with grief.  A kind of awakening, if you will. An opening into spirit, like ‘the above’ opens up, and we are in some wide open void. 

A void that you can no longer avoid. A void that is so personal, so individual that no one else can be part of it. Just you and the beloved or beloveds who have gone. 

In that void is shock. Is numbness. Is a kind of silence that makes your ears scream. An anger that makes you want to strip the leaves off trees. A loss that makes you question everything. 

And a love, my God, a love. 

A love that takes you hostage. A love that arrests your mind, your heart, your soul. A love that has you handcuffed to its unrelenting grace.

You cannot fight it. You must surrender to it. You must. You must.

For only love can make you feel this ache, this ache of ‘not rightness’ of their absence or atrocity. Only love can take you by the hand and walk you down into that lonely valley.

And only Love can walk you out of it. 

Because in grief, love has slid into your heart and pried it open even more. It is now the guest you can welcome. You are no longer the same. Love has slain you. And in that slaying, you can emerge anew.

So if you've been affected by loss or heartache this year, or just a loss of faith, the time after loss is sacred. Don’t squander it.

Don’t miss the sacred because this sky opening up eventually closes. And if you watch closely, it will leave something behind. Almost as shocking as the first shock, you start to feel some Light. As if the wings behind your heart are starting to dry out, and you can start to stretch them out a little. 

And if you remain aware and listen quietly to its whispers, you will notice that it has left your heart somehow widened. You are quick to be moved by the sight of a child playing in the sand, by the dance of sunlight on the water, by the touch or pressing embrace of a caring loved one’s arms.

Don’t miss Love’s gift in grief. By closing off or minimising it. By distracting it. 

For what is the meaning of life but to love? And be love?

Bring this to life now. Bring this to your day. 

So this is a tender time. A time to tread lightly. We are still living with layered trauma—from Covid, from ongoing global unrest, from the relentless stream of images and stories that overload the nervous system. In my years of clinical work, I’ve never seen such reactivity, such polarisation, such urgency to be right. Grief often hides beneath that surface. And if we’re not careful, it gets projected outward.

Tragedy can harden us, or it can open us. The ego will always tempt us toward closing, blame, and division. But love asks something braver. To soften. To meet our difficult emotions with compassion, just as a parent would tend to a hurting child.

The world needs that love now more than ever.

So this, yes, it is a call to arms. Not to fight but to love. To love more. 

Not a fluffy love, a brave love. One that asks us to make a stand for it. 

So this Christmas, let’s be part of the ripple effect. Of love. Of community. Of togetherness. And in the Aussie way, of 'mateship'. Let’s take the risk of loving. Let someone know you care. Let them know they are special and why. 

Can you truly be this love? 

I wish you peace and calm this holiday season. 

All love,

Janet