Australia’s only Griefologist, Rosemary Wanganeen, a proud South Australian Aboriginal woman of the Kaurna, Wirungu, and Koogatha nations, not only pioneered this revolutionary field but also founded and leads The Healing Centre for Griefology. Her work provides an evidence-based approach to transforming Aboriginal disadvantage into Aboriginal prosperity, shifting the conversation to healing, sustainability, and self-determination.
In this excerpt, Rosemary explains how suppressed grief exiles spirit from the body and why grieving our way back to ourselves may be the most radical act of our time. Hear the full interview on The Gifts of Trauma Podcast.
S. Salman
A real part of being human is to grieve. Where did we lose the ability to grieve and be together through suffering? Why do we need griefologists and therapists?
In a five-year period, as I was emptying all of this dark grief energy out of my physical body, I found out what stopped the grieving process. I got to a point when my intuitive intelligence switched on, and in this state of listening to my intuitive intelligence, I found a book called Why Do Christians Find It Hard to Grieve? by Jeff Walters. As I was reading, my instincts were really heightened, and I came across Plato, who in 388 BC coined the idea that grief is not only illogical, but it’s a weakness. I remember having a physical reaction as I read this. My stomach churned, and my heart rate went up a bit. So I said, “hang on, there’s something in this.” I started to read between the lines of that paragraph and came up with question after question.
If Plato coined this idea in a patriarchal society and passed it across to his peers, his generation, and that next generation passed it on to their generation, and it continues to be passed on down the line… Boys becoming men learned to fear the grieving process, to shut up and shut down their emotions for fear of being seen as weak. Those are his exact words. “Grieving is not only illogical, but it’s a weakness.” If you think about it… in 388 BC, how many generations had to shut up and shut down their grieving processes?
In shutting down our grieving processes, I believe that to protect itself, the spirit extricates itself out of our physical body because it can’t stay within a body that is churning with dark grief energy. It still hovers around the physical body, but the two are separated. And I think what happens then is that the human male, who can’t see, feel and hear their own pain, let alone the pain of other human beings, can go out and commit atrocities by suppressing their grief-anger, which can escalate to grief-rage, to grief-violence, to inhumane atrocities, and psychopathic behaviours.
It was just a matter of time before the Roman Empire came into being. Could this explain why they went around decapitating other human beings? Raping and pillaging, violating women and children, and not feeling, not being able to see, feel and hear the cries and the fear and the pain of other human beings? Not to be able to stop? And I say, yes—they can’t see, feel or hear that because their spirit has separated itself from their body. And so the patriarchal society gets more and more powerful. Individuals become mobs that rape and pillage and invade because they can’t feel the pain of what they’re doing. Over time it becomes intergenerational. A man tells his son, ”Don’t get emotional; don’t cry, because you’ll be seen as weak.” And so they pass on this learned behaviour to shut up and shut down the grieving process. We’re still living with that legacy today.
I have gone through all of my experiences to become a griefologist, to honour and respect the intergenerational suppressed, unresolved grief of my ancestors that I was carrying. But in 1788, the psychopathic behaviours also came here. A genocide happened to my ancestors in this country, who for 60 plus thousand years had very sacred honoured and respected grieving ceremonies. They enabled my ancestors to not just survive but thrive for 60 plus thousand years on this continent, tapping into not just their humanity but also their relationship with everything that walked on this continent, living or not living. They were able to stay tapped into the wisdom and knowledge of their ancestors.
But when 1788 arrived, my ancestors experienced psychopathic behaviours—what I call our invasion/colonization. The structure of that was to dismantle, fracture, and shatter traditional ways of being, doing and saying. The first generation experienced it firsthand. The next generation is born living it through the stories. Then germ warfare. Then psychological warfare. Aboriginal people were put onto missions and reserves—very similar to Native Americans’ and Canadians’ story. My parents were raised on a mission. The first five years of my life were too. We were not allowed to speak the language or to do any form of ceremonies. If you were caught speaking the language or doing ceremonies, you were punished severely. If I never heard the language of my mum, my dad, my grandparents, my aunties, my uncles, how do I learn language? I don’t. That’s a part of the psychological warfare and the outright warfare.
I still don’t have the sacred structured grieving ceremonies of my ancestors. I have a combination of my ancestors’ ways of grieving that are very contemporary and the Western ways of healing and grieving. But who hasn’t got ancestors? What human being has not got ancestry or ancestors to be able to tap into?
For me, it was a five-year process. I had to empty my physical body out of all that grief energy for my spirit to feel safe enough to come home. And once spirit comes home and is sustained through griefology, you can’t undo that. You can’t go back to harming another human being because you’ve become conscious. Because you feel. You’re no longer shut down, unable to feel the pain of another human being, and able to go out and cause pain. So that’s the purpose, I think, for griefology—for all of us to find our way back to our grieving process. To say, “Thank you, Plato, but no, thank you.” He had no idea of the power of his words. He had no idea the harm it was going to cause future generations.
We are now living in an era where we have to fight our way back. Can you imagine what society would be like for future generations if we were able to heal and grieve through griefology? Our spirit comes home where we can feel the love for humanity, for the self, for the animal kingdom, and for Mother Earth. Imagine what society would be like.
We have to wait for our rock bottom. Human beings have to wait for their rock bottom to say, “I can’t do this anymore; enough is enough.” And then tap into—how do I get myself out of this now? And do whatever we can to tap into our ancestry and our ancestors.
The Gifts of Trauma is a weekly podcast that features personal stories of trauma, transformation, healing, and the gifts revealed on the path to authenticity. Listen to the full conversation, and if you like it, please subscribe, rate, review, and share.
Editor’s Note: This post is comprised of edited excerpts drawn from The Gifts of Trauma podcast transcript. Selected passages have been carefully woven together to create a cohesive narrative that speaks in the guests’ voices and faithfully represents their perspectives. – Rosemary Davies-Janes
