From Acute Grief to Healing Grace.
Welcome.
This talk has four tracks in sequence.
Fifth track,
You can listen independently,
Which is Somatic Meditation for Grief Recovery.
Starting with the track number one,
Each track is designed to build on the previous one.
And the reason I made four tracks is for you to pause,
Not to be over-consumed with content.
We need less content.
So listen one track and take a time to pause.
You can journal,
You can take a walk,
And then go to the second track.
Don't rush it.
In somatic recovery,
We know body needs seven times longer than mind to process trauma,
To heal,
To start to feel safe again,
To start to feel regulated and functioning.
So take gentle pace.
And let's begin.
From Acute Grief to Healing Grace.
Don't get over your grief,
Because you will not get over your grief.
There is no getting over.
In grief recovery,
Or any recovery,
There is no getting over.
When we need to get over something,
It feels unwanted.
It feels as punishment.
And even though it feels that way,
For the nervous system,
It feels invasive to our body.
It feels invasive to your nervous system,
Because it's picking up the cues of,
I need to get over this.
So it's coupling grief with something what you need to get rid of,
With something which is unwanted,
And yet the quality of grief is very sticky.
It feels in your body.
And in that way,
Your grief becomes almost repulsive,
Unwanted,
As something what you need to get rid of.
And when we live with grief,
And our nervous system is saying,
Well,
That's the thing you need to get over that,
Because that's what your mind is telling you,
Or the society we live in.
We certainly,
We don't know,
In Western cultures,
How to grieve.
Your nervous system,
In order to protect you,
Is sensing that repulse of getting over.
And we cannot heal.
In somatic trauma recovery,
Where grief is taking main stage,
We want not to get over the grief,
We want to build capacities in our nervous system,
In our body,
In our organs,
In our heart,
To transition from grief to sorrow,
From sorrow to sadness,
From sadness to soft power,
To grace.
And this is how we start to feel better,
By building capacities to move from grief to sorrow to sadness to grace.
And to go through those cycles as many times as you need.
As many times as you need.
And as we go through those cycles as many times as we need,
Intensity of pain will decrease.
Okay?
And when you face all that has happened,
And all the losses you have encountered,
Your body,
Your soul,
Will want to grieve when it's ready.
And being numb,
Not feeling any grief,
Is part of that too.
Because your mind and your heart will fight it,
Will fight to accept.
Your mind and heart will numb,
Twist,
Tame,
Rip out and negotiate with the moment your body starts to feel the pulse,
The moment of grief.
And your mind,
Your heart,
Don't want to grieve because grief is life-changing.
Grief is life-changing.
And the body knows that loss is permanent,
And yet everything is not permanent.
The heart wants everything as it was,
But the person is gone.
The beloved pet is gone.
The home you lived in is gone.
Heart wants everything as it was.
And yet everything around you is changing.
Okay?
Some days even your feelings are not the same.
Life continues,
Challenges are coming.
People continue to live,
You continue to live.
And that is devastating and heartbreaking.
And that's the reason why grief is so devastating.
How to accept the loss and be with the continuous change of life,
And that that being is not with us.
And what needs to happen for us to heal is to be in that space of adjusting to this new reality,
To this life reality,
And that takes time.
So we need to accept that loss is permanent,
And yet things around you are not permanent.
They are not.
And that's grief.
That's heartbreaking,
And yet it is life.
But this is what I would like you to keep in your heart.
Your love will be permanent.
Your loyalty to that person,
Pet,
Your dream,
Your country would be permanent.
Your memories would be permanent.
Your devotion will be permanent if you choose to,
Right?
That will never change,
And yet life will continue,
And that's life.
And this is how we accept my loss is permanent,
And the life I live and the emotions and experiences are not permanent.
People around me are not permanent.
My dog,
My pet is not permanent.
The safety I feel is not permanent.
And when we witness that,
That loss is permanent and everything around is not,
And yet we continue to move on,
People around us continue to move on,
When life just happens again,
That's when we come to the place of acceptance,
And the grief transitions into sorrow,
And this is what we want to see in a grieving process,
In a grieving body,
Transition from grief to sorrow.
So we will finish this track here,
This is the track number one.
Sit with this.
Write things down.
Don't rush.
Let your body feel what it needs to feel.
Don't make it happen.
Allow your body to process,
To witness,
To observe,
On its own,
And take your time.
And when you're ready,
I will meet you in a track two.
