Grieving is essential for our health.

06 May 2020:

Grieving is essential for our health.

Yesterday, I had a remote healing session with a talented body-worker and dear friend of mine. She had me lay down in front of an open Zoom window, and concentrate on my breath while she, in essence, did an energetic diagnostic scan of my entire body. She zeroed in on a few areas of tension, mechanical hiccups and even pain-points of which I had barely been aware myself, let alone acknowledged to another person. Often, when I let myself get busy with life, it usually takes quite a bit of pain for my brain to register and address what my body, essentially, has resorted to yelling at me—something that this session had brought to bear once again. However, in her physical and energetic observation, my friend offered something that I hadn’t even considered—something that radiated from my painful joints straight back to my resonant heart.

After identifying the musculoskeletal area of pain in my body, she asked if there was anything for which I needed to grieve. Her question gave me pause. Grief was such a strong word, which we usually reserve for the loss of a loved one, an unexpected tragedy, the enormity of profound human drama through physical transition. Yet, what she had truly asked was if I had recently endured a change—physical and/or emotional—during which I had perceived a loss of something? And, furthermore, had I grieved said loss...?

The concept immediately ignited a symphony of truth within my heart space. 

If thoughts are the language of the mind, and emotions are the language of the body, then it stands to beautiful reason that we are here, in our corporeal brilliance, to experience the full spectrum of human emotion. We are sentient beings. Built to connect, experience and express how we feel. We may have dissuading societal connotations that we attach to different emotions such as hurt, despair, grief—feelings on the radial ends of our human emotional gamut—that may make others uncomfortable while witnessing, and therefore we use as an excuse to sidestep. We may try to avoid, deny or numb ourselves to these emotions out of fear—fear that thinking these thoughts, feeling these feelings and allowing our vulnerability to show, is somehow an admission of weakness, a declaration of victimhood. But in fact, the OPPOSITE is true. 

THE MONSTERS OF UNACKNOWLEDGED, UNEXPRESSED EMOTION ONLY GROW BIGGER IN THE DARKNESS OF OUR DENIAL. 

Emotions are inherently temporary, transient. We as humans are instruments. Our feelings slide up and down the emotional scale, from extremely positive to extremely negative, as we move through each moment of our lives. They create the music of our humanness in this earthly realm. All together, they create the multifaceted, harmonic symphony of our humanity en masse. They are personal to each of us, yet universal in our corporeal beingness. They are our unique expression of personality, genius, diversity, innovation. They are varied, ever-changing, dynamic. And most importantly, they are VITAL to our health and well-being, both individually and as a whole.

What my gifted friend had tapped into was the trip that I had taken from Arizona to Michigan during this bizarre time of quarantine. The location change had naturally carried with it a change in roles and responsibilities that I felt compelled to assume. It carried with it a significantly heightened epicenter of illness, exposure to the pandemic of fear surrounding what is currently happening across our nation, our world. I had changed geographic locations, yes, but I had also changed circumstances, influences, energetic atmospheres. And the road trip had shifted energetic tectonic plates of emotion that I had not expressed. There were things I needed to feel; feelings of loss over the sense of safety, protection, and freedom that I had yet to grieve. My body was communicating beautifully with me, but I had ignored its murmurs until it finally had to start screaming in the form of physical discomfort, and eventual pain. 

OUR BODIES SPEAK THE LANGUAGE OF EMOTION. WE BENEFIT BY LISTENING TO THEM. ACKNOWLEDGING THEM. EXPRESSING THEM. AND, LOVING THEM...UNCONDITIONALLY. 

The only way to allow negative emotion to temporarily and transiently pass through the instrument of us is to let it make its sound. Play its sorrowful note. Speak its truth. Give it its solo, hold space for it in an orchestra pit of unconditional love, knowing that whatever emotion we feel is perfectly in keeping with our human brilliance. Our expression of each emotion is a perfect reflection of the facile ability we have to play the melodic scales of our own life experience. 

We all have things that we have ignored while they set up inflammatory camp in areas that become painful in our body. Instead of trying to mute them with medication, denial or anger, take twenty minutes and open your ear to them. Ask your eloquent, musically prodigious body what it needs to say...you just may be profoundly impressed by the score it plays.