I have gone through a few large transitions involving varying deep levels of grief in the last 6 months.
I have been watching my processing around it and wanted to share some about leaning towards our grief and transitioning into acceptance, what that can look like, or at least what it looks like for me from a standpoint of the tools I have been implementing around my own healing in this process.
I want to start by saying that as with all things human there is a continuum, we have have greater or lesser levels of emotional pain, situations that cause grief, so it is not useful to compare our outward experiences, just take what works for you and leave the rest, we all can share in the inner feelings of pain, loss, loneliness, rage, darkness; as well as the light from our hearts that we can bring ourselves and each other in these hard situations; so let us meet there.
When things fall apart my tendency is to insulate from the pain. If you think about it it’s a total natural way for our systems to handle things. When something punctures our skin, our natural barriers, thereby putting us on high alert for danger, our body sends blood cell warriors to the site of the puncture, and walls off or encapsulates the site in an effort to prevent system wide infection.
My initial tendency is to not experience the pain. To push away from it. Pretend it’s not happening. Use sex, shopping, social media addiction, running (I literally try to run away from it, god bless it!), work, and a new one in the last few years…. meditation, ceremony, spiritual practice.
But all these behaviors have in common a way that I am trying to change whatever feeling I am having rather than just being with the feeling and actually experiencing it so that it can naturally move through, transmute, and dissipate the emotions out of my body and field.
So what’s the answer?
Lean towards it. Whatever it is.
Rage, sadness, even the excitement of love.
What I have found is that if I don’t lean towards the feelings , they lodge in my body and turn into stuck feelings. DEPRESSION.
I used to feel depression quite often as I was in the habit of never feeling my feelings, always pushing them away in an inability to experience any emotion. So they always settled into a stuckness I began to know well as depression.
I really had no idea this was not normal until very recently when I experienced on a body-feeling level the difference in letting emotions process through and also watching what happens when I don’t and the subsequent feelings of stuckness and depressed feelings that follow.
How do we lean towards our feelings?
When we are having big feelings that feel overwhelming or constant, or cyclical/repetitive:
~Focus in on the sensations in your body when you are having the emotions.
~Where is the sensation located in your body, what’s the quality?
~Are there colors, temperatures, visual representation or auditory accompaniment that go along with the emotions?
~Focus and describe these to yourself or if working with a therapist describe them to them.
Practice this until you can get familiar with this practice, don’t try to change the emotion! Just BE with it. Be with the sensations and whatever is coming up. Try sending some curiosity, some compassion and kindness.
Treat yourself and your emotions you would someone you cherish.
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July 22nd-25th 2021 in Taos Ski Valley!Rebirthing in Nature in is 4 days/3 nights
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This retreat is all about working with your fear, befriending it and moving through it. We will be glamping in the forest above the base of Taos Ski Valley. Expand yourself through rock climbing on the Via-Ferratta, hike into the high mountains to our basecamp for 2 nights, and jump deeper into nature’s healing. Explore mindfulness practices, deep process, silence, and powerful ceremonies for women moving through major life transition and change.
Rebirthing in Nature in Taos – July 22-25, 2021
This retreat will help you break through your fear and onto releasing grief and pain–rebirthing you onto your path to the Transformed New You.
Experience the IFS Toolbox and self-compassion practices you can take home too. Co-facilitated by Donna Roe Daniell, MSW, LCSW, RYT of Women in Transformation and Jennifer Johnson, RN
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