Becoming aware and experiencing what the heart is feeling is quite a journey-lifelong for sure-and a blessing when the movement from awareness to experience is held with care, gentleness and openness to what is.  
 
Our hearts encompass the totality of our lives, and depending on our level of attunement, it also holds the experiences of others, other life forms, even abstract ideas that may settle into our awareness and shape experience.  
 
As the fragments of our broken hearts become most acute, even the slightest extension of self-compassion practices (hand on heart; gentle words; cupping of the face, for example) can allow the feelings to be felt more tenderly, with nurturance, and maybe even love.  This movement is central to the healing of our hearts, our trauma work, our bodies-emotional and physical.  
 
The wholeness of heart sees the pain, holds her and also experiences how delicate, precious and beautiful so many things are.

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1955) provides a beautiful reflection on the sublime, which he declares is "...the root of man's creative activities in art, thought, and noble living," and that which cannot be circumscribed to these alone.  No philosophical system,  no science, no art....not even nature herself can capture all of the qualities of sublimity.  Consider his reflection: 
"The sublime is not opposed to the beautiful, and must not, furthermore, be considered an esthetic category.  The sublime may be sensed in things of beauty as well as in acts of goodness and the search for truth.   The perception of beauty may be the beginning of the experience of the sublime. The sublime is that which we see and are unable to convey.  It is the silent allusion of things to meaning greater than themselves "(p. 39)

Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho 
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans 
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, 
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.  
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth. 

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and 
     purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.
​

Sometimes the death of a loved one is anticipated, other times, it’s utterly out of the blue.  In both circumstances, it can be shocking to oneself and/or the family system.  In such moments, when the heart is broken so deeply or individuals are touching the ephemeral nature of our lives, some may provide gestures, declarations and aspirations to “come together,” “create unity,” “forgive,” and tend to the pieces of brokenness within the family system.  
 
This is rather beautiful! And, it has the potential to foster healing and a lived experience of more loving, fulfilling and meaningful relationships-impacting the generations that follow.  However, such heartfelt longings in such moments become mere platitudes if the space in which the grief is encountered, along with the family dynamics, is not held in gentleness and awareness of the cognitive and emotional context of what preceded it, and what could follow if some within the system may resist change-even when well-intentioned- clinging to subtle forms of power and subsystem alliances, which change may dismantle.
 
It may be helpful to consider how years or decades of fraught relations may not be healed overnight.  An apology may be fine for some situations and/or difficulties with some family members-and clearly an apology that goes beyond the “sorry if I hurt you,” and acknowledges what one is sorry for and the awareness of the actions that were hurtful is helpful and begins to restore relational trust.  For others, it may take time. 
 
To ease the hurt and condition the heart to love as freely and generously as possible while striving to create stability and acceptance, honoring individuality and difference within the “tribe”-especially in culturally, religiously, and politically diverse families-is essential.  
 
Some things that families might consider include the following:
 
Forgiveness: Understanding it may be a process, and that it may take time to build trust again.  Lean into that sense that a steadier relationship is being cultivated.  Allow time to speak to the steadiness and trust and believe that with no quick fixes something more steady, real and honorable might emerge.  Avoid, recognize and correct interactional patterns of denial, invalidation, minimizing, attack. If one is eager to “just forgive and move on,” try to understand that the other person(s) is forgiving and moving on in their own way.  Trust them. There is learning and unlearning happening here, and the brain is also re-orienting and wiring itself to new experiences that perhaps responded to past emotional threats with fight/flight/freeze responses and/or the person has a sense of caution due to former hopes for family relationships being met with disappointment.
 
Family Diversity:  Engage in political, cultural and religious differences honoring the goodness of the other and the intention to not impose one’s own beliefs; rather, as much as possible, suspend judgment and listen openly.  If certain topics foment disconnection, find other things to connect on and perhaps have less of such discussions.  Be mindful of language, exclusion and totalizing statements made about individuals or groups.  Minimize personal reactivity by recognizing that while relatives are family, they are not you.  They are responsible for their own choices and beliefs and while you may be embarrassed or saddened by some beliefs that feel out of alignment with your sense of self and vision of the world, try to recognize that they came to orient themselves out of their own personal influences and understandings.  
 
Personality Differences and Values: What is said?  How is someone described?  What is valued in how individuals are described?  The introvert has a place and can offer their uniqueness and generativity as much as the “bubbly extrovert.”  The athlete, artist, laborer, academic, entrepreneur has an equal seat at the table that is valuable; and the one who gives from their heart a gift that may not speak to an extravagance and/or monetary value that others may provide is just as valuable and worthy of acknowledgment.  What sort of gifts of mind, heart, personality and materiality are accepted, which are rejected and devalued? Awareness of the subtle and not so subtle forms of communication create experiences that can “unite” or lead others to rightfully retreat.
 
The 5:1 Ratio: Relationship theorist Jon Gottman demonstrates we need five positive associations for every one negative interaction.  Condition the heart in a daily practice of noting the good qualities in the family members that are the most difficult to connect with and try to recall memories of pleasant times.  Creating new pleasant memories is wonderful and can connect and assist in the healing of past hurts.  Pleasant times needn’t mean “fun” times-although such times are good, too.  It could be moments of heartfelt conversation in which each is heard, affirmed and feels seen and loved for who they are.

Be gentle with yourself and each other through this.  Commit to being a friend to yourself through it all, and, as much as possible, greeting the challenges along the way with a friendly curiosity of what's emerging. 
 
Death can bring a keen sense of life and birth family life anew.  In a desire for openness, acceptance and LOVE, may triumphs of the heart be experienced for those that seek her gifts.

"He who experiences the unity of life, sees his own Self in all beings, and all beings in his own Self, and looks on everything with an impartial eye."  The Bhagavad Gita

Aspiring to be unity consciousness- and holding impartiality- seems to me one way to heal, transform and settle into personal and societal spaces most expansively, wisely and lovingly. 

"Do I contradict myself? 
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes)." Walt Whitman

Isn't there some beauty in recognizing that we can live our lives and find that at points in time, what we knew, or thought we knew may no longer hold an absolute truth for us?  Flexibility of heart and mind supports and deepens our emotional maturity and intimacy with self and others.  It allows considerations of thoughts, feelings and experiences to be encountered anew as life flows through us.  

 In mindfulness circles, “practices” are offered to support and enrich our ability to cultivate awareness of emotional, physical and cognitive states of being.  These states, among other things, can reveal aspects of ourselves and our experiences that may no longer serve our lives and/or the lives of others, and our world.  As we come closer to discerning our individual habits of mind/heart/body, we may untangle the psychological, emotional, and/or physical knots that hold or increase our suffering, moving us through experiences and understandings beyond the “practice.” 
 
Our practices help condition our heart to love as well and as best it knows in moments in time.  Jack Kornfield has said it this way: "What would love have you do?"  Our teachers remind us, ultimately, we practice with the aspiration that our practices generate wise action, skillful responses and a loving, compassionate heart beyond the practice.  We recognize that we still have our moments of pain, suffering, clinging, reacting less skillfully, but we may notice that the unhelpful or unwholesome states are less frequent and that our encountering of pain is held more gently. We may notice over time that we are accessing with greater facility another moment to see and experience what is-just as it is.
 
The “How” of Practice:
 
Informal Practice::  Life is the practice here: walking, driving, eating, picking up the phone, not picking up the phone. Anything and everything are invitations to notice what you feel, sense, do.  What is automatic? What do you see, hear, feel, touch, or neglect due to habituation?
 
Formal Practice:  Setting time to “sit” alone or in community in mediation.  There are many approaches and ways to meditate (beyond the scope of this post), and I would say there truly is no right or wrong way; it’s what works for you.
 
Intensive Practice:  Multi-day retreats can assist in developing deeper concentration and assist in unraveling the stories we might tell ourselves about ourselves, others and the world.  Retreats will generally include sitting mediations, eating/walking/mindful movement, chants and “talks,” along with check-ins with teachers and practice group. 

​“The human soul needs actual beauty more than bread.” D.H. Lawrence
 
Sometimes there’s a struggle between wanting-and understanding our responsibility-to know what’s going on in the world and desiring ease from the heaviness of it all.  There’s something within-call it soul if you’d like- that feels deeply the pain of human suffering.  As we experience personal and communal pain and traumas of sorts, it’s important to be aware of our limits, which may change each moment, each day, depending on so many factors, both seen and those that are invisible to the human eye.

Take care to nourish yourself well and actively orient yourself to beauty. 

BEAUTY: broad, expansive, inhabiting many forms (emotional, communal, spiritual, artistic, intellectual, physical) is there each moment to be recognized, to be held, and to hold us, too.  

​I just finished reading The Beauty of What Remains, which poignantly draws upon the author's own experiences as well as others addressing death, dying and life.

Ponder this: 
 
“The beauty of what remains is neither passive nor accidental.  We create it through the deliberate choices we make-chiseled chip by chip.  If life is good, then death must be bad is the way most people think, but this isn’t really so.  I am not for a moment trying to make sense of the death of a child or anyone who has not been granted his or her full measure of life. But generally speaking, is more really better or is there something about death that defines the essence of life itself?” (Leder, 2021, p. 223).  

​“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” Marcel Proust
 
What might you “see” today in yourself, others, creation, our world, which allows you to be surprised by the discoveries there?  How exciting it is that at any age, at any moment-no matter how much we may think we know and understand what’s before us (ourselves, another being, our relationship to an ideological position, the sound of music, the taste of frozen yogurt on a warm day), when we find moments of presence and practice a deep curiosity in the quotidian “landscapes” of existence, they emerge anew.
 
While we may not be able to take this voyage in each moment, the invitation is there and asks that we notice and say yes to her at times.  And, when the moments, people, things seem stale, it, too, is okay, it just wants us to persist: The voyage is ongoing and she may reveal or conceal what the eyes see with her own wisdom, in her own time.