This is shared with love & appreciation to Jenica of Passage Wellness & Acupuncture, whose blog is a well-written collection of thoughts about healing:
Loss comes to us in many different ways. We may experience loss from the death of a loved one, the ending of a partnership, or the loss of a pet. As well, we may grieve an outgrown part of our self, an ability or capacity we once held, a community we left or left us, the paths we didn’t walk, or from an unexpected experience. We may also grieve the suffering of our planet and our other-than-human kin that suffer because of this.
Because grief impacts all levels of our being -physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual, our expressions of grief can be quite broad. Physically we may experience fatigue, tightness in the chest, changes in sleep and appetite, or body pain. Emotionally we may experience anger, depression, relief, or helplessness. Grief can also be expressed as social withdrawal, keeping “busy”, or addictive urges and behaviours. Our dreams may offer us unique landscapes for expressing our grief as well, and we may experience a sense of purposelessness, existential anxiety, or increased contact with unseen realms.
Our grief is a natural response to being torn from what we love and belong to.
All of our expressions of grief are valid.
artwork: molly costello
Currently our modern culture is falling short at reflecting and modelling how to grieve well. We tend to keep it at a distance, covering it up as if we were ashamed or fearful of it. For so many, it has become normalized to live blanketed by numbness as a means to cope with the losses we experience. Denial can serve a purpose, as it helps us to compartmentalize in order to function, and this can be part of our healing. However if left unprocessed, the energy of grief can become stagnant within our bodies. On a personal level, this can limit our capacity to truly feel like we belong to our lives. On a collective level, disassociating from the grief of our planet for example, can disconnect us from the gifts of kinship, which limit us from experiencing the inspiration so needed to act.
It is important that we do open ourselves up to our grief and allow this process to carry us through our growth and into a more rich and full-spectrum encounter with our aliveness. It is through connecting to our experience of grief that we reconnect to that which we love and belong to. In this way, grief is a healing endeavour and a vessel towards a greater sense of connection in our lives.
artwork: molly costello
Learning to grieve well begins with the self and a willingness to welcome the depths of it in. And to do this in spaces with another trusted body (or bodies) as grief is very much relational. It needs the containment of another nervous system to be witnessed, held, and transformed. This containment can be provided by another human, but it can also be found within the presence of our animal kin, our ancestors, or a place within nature we revere as sacred to our hearts. When we share our tenderness in community or with another, this gives us the opportunity to confirm to each other that we are not alone.
The happening of your losses, the turbulence of your past, and any perceived “deficits” in the shaping of who you are, all create your unique story. Our painful stumbling blocks are experiences that provide the pressure and nudging to move into right relationship with your future beingness. For this we must give thanks to our pain and losses along the journey of life -they bring us the gift of healing and opportunities to step more fully into our wholeness.
With you in healing and wholeness,
Jenica