Embodiment is key for recovery from grief and loss. Some experiences in life are just awful and we are left with feelings of sadness, dismay, anger or complete overwhelm. No one wants to feel these feelings yet they are part of life. So, how do we experience them without becoming totally engulfed by them?
Recovery from grief and loss means experiencing feelings as passing states:
Biologically, chemistry creates feelings. Hormones and neurotransmitters, stress molecules and happy molecules change us. We are always changing. True, we have habits and tendencies. But we can move in ways that they don’t have to define us.
Years ago, someone told me to look at my feelings like they are weather fronts. They come and go quite naturally. The difference between our feelings and weather is that we can keep negative feelings in place by repeating the same actions, ruminating or focusing on them. But, if we just let them be they change.
The difficult emotions of loss and grief are hard to accept.
And, what makes it possible to bear these difficult emotions is to really live in our bodies.
Let me explain. Whenever we have a shock, a discomfort or a pain our natural response is to shut down the feeling or experience. Doing this saves us from an intensity that could overwhelm us. But overtime, this ability to shut down cripples us. It numbs our good feelings as well and creates bodily tension that leads to pain or injury.
As the body becomes more fluid so do our thoughts and emotions. Our bodies, minds and emotions are meant to move sequentially and fluidly. If there is a break in the sequence of fluid we experience restriction. Any place where we are blank over a long period of time causes us chronic stress. We inhibit the natural function of our system.
Experiencing your whole body allows emotions to spread and not be as intense.
Somatic Embodiment gives us more resilience to tolerate what is happening – we have less reactivity to sensory stimuli that comes from both within and without.
My 36 year old son died quite unexpectedly and suddenly this July 2020. When I heard the news I physically collapsed and then became numb. That numbness protected me from an avalanche of feeling I would not have been able to bear. But as time goes by I am melting more and more of that numbness. It is just happening because I continue to do my body practices. I am so fortunate that I have tools that let me feel the goodness of being alive and in that goodness my pain, the horror, frustration and panic can arise without overwhelming my system.
Embodiment for grief and loss helps us live life.
This experience of death and loss is changing me. I am far from completely knowing how. But, I do know the ability to live through this, become a new person and still love life is all based on the skills you can also learn. Skills of being alive in this organism we are for the time we are here. If you want to know more about somatic embodiment please watch this video. Or call me for a consultation.
