An individual embarks on a rite of soul encounter when he recognizes the story he has been living has become too small.

He will have to sacrifice the old story, provoking the ordeal of a good deal of grief. He longs for a new, larger story but knows he cannot discern it with the limited powers of his thinking mind, which naturally clings to the old story. He has many reasons to lament. Lamenting puts the emphasis in the right place. An unrestrained lament is a crowbar into the dark depths of the self. …vision waits in those shadowy realms. The lament expresses, in essence, that the quester has lost his way, has strayed off his path of heart, or has gone as far as he could with what he knows. Your lament, once begun in earnest, gathers emotional momentum; it opens your eyes wide to the world as it opens your heart to your deepest longing. Lamenting takes you to a level of consciousness far deeper than familiar ego concerns, introducing your conscious self to your soul

Bill Plotkin