What if we honored grief on a relational-emotional scale?

When we look at grief through the lens of emotional hierarchy, we’ve already lost the plot.

You’ve probably seen it before—maybe in a wellness training, a coaching container, or floating around social media:

This is known as the Hawkins Scale of Emotional Frequency

Pulled from David R. Hawkins’ book Power vs. Force. While common in spiritual and coaching spaces, this metaphysical model—suggesting that emotions have measurable vibrational frequencies—ends up creating another hierarchy of value, where some feelings are seen as better or more evolved than others.

And according to this model?

Grief sucks.

Literally. It’s considered “contractive,” lodged down near shame and apathy. The implication is clear: grief is something to move through quickly in order to “ascend” toward higher states like acceptance, love, and peace.

This approach isn’t just oversimplified—it’s misguided.

The Problem with Ranking Emotions

When we reduce grief to a rung on a vibrational ladder, we:

• Shame people for feeling pain

• Pathologize natural, necessary processes

• Imply that those who are grieving are spiritually or energetically “low” or that those who grieve bring everyone down … UGHHHHH

• Reinforce a culture of emotional avoidance—what’s called spiritual bypassing (see previous blog post on that matter).

The truth is: grief is not a detour from healing, connection, or spiritual presence. It is one of the primary ways we access them.

What If We Honored Grief on a Relational-Emotional Scale?

Rather than organizing emotions as “high” and “low,” or “good” or “bad,” what if we honored a vibrational scale that was relational, fluid, and woven?

A scale where grief isn’t below love,
but within it.
Not separate from peace,
but part of how we arrive there.

Grief Is Not an Outlier—It’s an Intelligence

Grief is not a failure of vibration.
It’s a frequency of connection, of yearning, of remembrance.

It is deeply relational, profoundly embodied, and completely integral—
woven through our neurology,
our biology,
and our ecology of attachment, meaning, and presence.

Grief doesn’t live at the edges of life—it lives at its center.

It moves with:

• Tenderness

• Compassion

• Discernment

• Wonder

• Clarity

To make space for grief is to make space for life.
It doesn’t lower our frequency—it deepens our resonance.

The more room we give grief to move,
the more capacity we grow to show up wisely—for ourselves and each other

INTRODUCING A NEW: “Relational-Emotional Scale”

Instead of high or low, imagine emotional resonance as a relational field—where grief appears throughout the spectrum, shaping how we connect, reflect, and make meaning.

This scale doesn’t ask us to transcend anything, nor does it ask us to live in binaries or dualities. It invites us into a relational field where we befriend grief as a guide—a companion in the practice of living with grace, care, complexity, and connection.

At The Grievery we believe and come together in practice around this very concept. Grief isn’t a vibration to escape—it’s a capacity we cultivate.
It lives inside love.
It expands our range.
And when held with presence, it makes us more human.