liveapathofheart.blog

Tag: heart

  • Beginning Death

    Beginning Death

    I’ve been building a relationship with death.

    I work as a clinical director at a local hospice. I am an RN.

    I began this work on the heels of a few colleagues and friends dying and also just after my father died in Sep 2023. In the years prior to my father dying I also underwent many personal mini deaths. Deaths of parts of my ego structure, belief systems and emotional pattering that I healed and integrated into myself, thus falling away. All of this set me up to come into this hospice work and begin to build this relationship I am evaluating and exploring with death. 

    There is a way I feel that I close off connection with others when its too taxing or doesn’t serve me. This is the result of recent exploration of boundaries, new boundaries, so they may be getting out of hand. So I am noticing that now that I know I can set boundaries, maybe I need to reengage with others try for more connection knowing I can hold boundaries in place if I need to and keep myself safe. 

    This is coming up right now because I’ve been building this conversation with death, which seems to be at the base of all my of fears and terror: that I’m going to die.

    I’ve also been watching this show called, “Dying for Sex” in which we watch a woman and her best friend navigate the woman’s death from cancer and her desire to self actualize using sex before she does so. It also shows the profound love between two friends. 

    There is an interesting scene where a hospice nurse explains death and dying to them in a really quirky and explicit way. 

    I don’t do this often in hospice with my clients. Even though I perceive myself as being able to hold a lot of vulnerability in my life and profession, maybe I am stunted a bit in my capacity to really support clients in the time before death but not being super open about what is going to happen to them and openly volunteering that information. It made me wonder, does my fear of engulfment from others strong emotions prevent me from going deep with people? Do other hospice nurses do this?

    I was on a date yesterday and the man was a wonderful human, but was physically not compatible for me. We elected to continue our day long date even though there was uncertainty about compatibility. I noticed that once I identified he wasn’t a fit for me I totally shut down and went numb. Severing energetically the connection. 

    He commented on his feelings in his body, and in response to this asked me to connect more. 

    I identified that I had trust issues about men not really wanting to be friends with me but only wanting to keep me around because they like my energy and maybe want to fuck me. So I just was planning on cutting this guy out of my life as extraneous and not being it as an opportunity to lean into the potential connection as friends or colleagues. Underlying this pattern is trust. And fear of engulfment, fear of doing the wrong thing, of moving too fast and of falling in love with someone that is not right for me. And thus having pain and suffering which under that is fear of abandonment and death. 

    When I identified all this and spoke about it with him, the numbness lifted. The weirdness lifted. He said he then was able to feel connected. And we had a really nice time despite not being the right fit as romantic partners. 

    So I am wondering, how do keep myself safe and dive deep into connection without it making me feel engulfed and exhausted and worrying I will die?

    Can I expand my capacity with my clients and hold more vulnerability with them and more openness such as the TV nurse?

    Can men and women be friends? 

    Can I ask the numbness to move aside to enable more connection and thus love in my life?

    Can I stop seeing romantic love as the only love that will fill the hole?

    I feel as if I am asking death to teach me this. I don’t know how to explain that connection but it’s there for me. 

  • Letting Grief Be

    I’m going through grief. All phases of it, all stages of it; every little morsel is pelting me in the forehead and large chunks sucker punch me in the gut. There is sweet, honest gratitude for the experiences and love that was/is and that I am loosing as well.

    When I have gone through grief in the past it has felt like a truck hitting me. Stabbing pain in my gut and my heart, inability to breathe, inability to function, lots of bed time, lots of time crying. But this time seems different.

    It is definitely not different due to the quality of the loss, let me tell you. The man I am loosing is my favorite man. I would have spent the rest of my days wrapped around him if I could. But its not to be anymore. I’ve never quite gone through this type of thing where I actively love someone yet am not able to be with them anymore, feels like a death.

    Its not been easy either, I don’t want to make it sound like that, but its been a different experience of being with my grief in a way I’ve not been before.

    The difference is that while I have had time where I hurt immensely and felt like I couldn’t breathe, I was able to stay with the feelings, see them as energy, not let them take me over and even to notice that, wow I AM breathing. And cooking and working and running and taking care of my kid! I AM BREATHING! Even in the face of this loss. The energy of the grief is a painful feeling but if I switch the way I think of it as an energy I am being with, as an energy, a necessary moving through. A process that must be witnessed and allowed, then the grief does not take me over and I don’t drown in the tears.

    Some small practices : placing my hands on my heart and my solar plexus, providing holding to myself, because shiz, what I really need right now is HUG! So I’m holding myself.

    When I notice that I am making stories in my head about what the other may be doing or thinking, or feeling confounded about his motives, I am instead, again, turning towards myself, focusing on my heart and the solar plexus which for me is where the pain resides. When I notice I am reaching outward toward him, I am reaching in. I am sending all that longing for my former lover and sending the love I want so desperately to give, to. my. self.

    I am intentionally doing anger and grief release and crying for some time everyday, so that there is an outlet everyday. I have noticed that when I do not consciously release trauma and or grief out of my body with bio energetic exercise like kicking or letting my muscles shake, that it lodges in my body and becomes what begins to feel like depression. I realized this recently when my daughter had a seizure, and I was able to see the feelings solidifying into a depressive feeling from not being released properly!

    It’s important to get support. I am talking about a friend, sponsor or therapist, but I am also talking about touching and holding another human or even a dog or cat if you can. This has become some what hard for us in covid times I know, but do your best. Get a massage if you can. We all need connection.

    Please come and share in a wonderful, awesome retreat with me and my mentor Donna Roe Danielle this coming July 2021 in Taos Ski Valley in the mountains of Northern New Mexico! We are in the early sign up period so you can save some money by signing up now! Sign up before April 1st! Share with you friends and DM me with questions or on the website.

    Rebirthing in Nature in Taos – July 22-25, 2021