Processing Grief In A Safe Space

This gentle guided meditation offers a supportive environment to explore and process grief. Listeners are invited to recall a meaningful memory, pairing it with calm and relaxation. The meditation includes brief education on the nature of grief, helping to normalize and validate the emotional experience. This space offers encouragement to reflect on self-care practices to support healing beyond the meditation. This is a safe, compassionate space for anyone navigating loss.

Transcript

Hello,

Welcome into the space.

I go by B,

I'm a trauma specialist,

And today I'm going to be holding space for you to process grief.

In our space today,

I'm going to guide you through a gentle mindfulness exercise.

We will be holding space in a safe environment for you to process your grief.

I invite you now,

As we begin our time together,

To identify one form of self-care you're going to practice after this.

We want to be mindful of keeping our time balanced,

Allowing ourselves time to grieve and process,

While also moving forward.

Your self-care can look like whatever feels right for you,

From cooking a good meal,

To calling a friend,

Or putting on a movie you enjoy.

I ask you to make a commitment to yourself to follow through on whatever activity you just chose when this is over.

As we move into our space together,

I invite you to look around.

Make sure you're in a safe and comfortable space.

I invite you to say out loud to yourself,

I am safe.

I am safe.

Feeling safe is essential for processing any emotion.

Once you've done this,

I invite you to go ahead and take a comfortable seat.

Closing your eyes or taking a nice heavy lid,

Arrive here in our practice.

Arriving with an inhale up through your nose,

And a long exhale out of your mouth.

Again,

Breathing up in through your nose,

Exhaling out from your mouth.

One of the best ways to regulate our nervous system is through our breath.

I invite you to come back to the breath,

Breathing in through your nose,

Holding for a moment,

Exhaling out through our mouth.

These are known as cleansing breaths,

And they're going to help us as we move through our conversation today.

Cleansing breaths provide us an opportunity to regulate our nervous system,

And by doing so,

Allow us a sensation of grounding.

If at any point during our time together,

You find that your mind is wandering,

You're having difficulty concentrating,

Or you're feeling overall unregulated,

I encourage you to come back to these cleansing breaths.

Once you've arrived in your safe place,

You're nice and comfortable,

You can return to your natural breath,

Or keep the cleansing breath,

Whichever calls to you.

In psychology,

We often talk about the stages of grief.

Stages of grief are denial,

Anger,

Bargaining,

Depression,

And acceptance.

These stages show up differently for everyone,

But they're known to be universal stages of grief.

Sometimes in community,

We refer to grief as the final stage of loving someone.

For without love,

We would never experience grief,

And as we grieve,

We experience so many emotions.

Here in this space,

We offer validity to ourselves for all of the emotions that arise for us within us as we experience grief.

Remembering to stick with your breath,

Breathing in,

Exhale,

Breathing out.

Take a moment now to call to your attention emotions that may have been coming up for you as you've grieved.

Perhaps they aren't emotions you would expect.

It doesn't make them any less valid.

Perhaps many emotions are coming to you at once.

That's okay.

We offer all of them validity.

And as you identify these emotions,

I encourage you to hold space for this emotion for just a moment before letting it go on your exhale.

Holding space for your anger and letting it go.

Holding space for your joy and letting it go.

Holding space for your sadness.

Holding space for your anxiety.

Holding space for yourself.

And as these emotions flood through us,

We look at each of them individually,

Hold them for a moment,

And allow them to go.

So many emotions will come up as we experience grief.

And while there's five distinct stages,

Denial,

Anger,

Bargaining,

Depression,

And acceptance,

The emotions that we feel are not bound to one of these stages.

We feel a variety of emotions in every stage as we work our way through grief into acceptance.

As humans,

We grieve for so many reasons.

We grieve for people we've lost,

For pets that we've lost.

We grieve for past versions of ourselves.

We grieve for futures we thought we would have.

Often when we think about grief,

We think about grief in the context of death.

However,

It's a human experience to experience grief while we live,

For futures,

For moments missed.

We grieve because we are alive.

We grieve because we love.

And regardless of where you believe that you are in the stages of grief,

You deserve to give yourself grace and validity as you work through this.

I invite you now,

If you've lost your breath,

To breathe in through your nose.

And a slow exhale out of your mouth.

If you find this difficult for any of your reasons,

Including finding yourself crying or teary-eyed,

Then I invite you to take whatever breath you can and focus on just simply extending your exhale slowly.

For tears are often a sign of processing.

Through crying,

We have a physical manifestation of the intense emotions we experience as we move through our process of grief.

I invite you now to call to your mind whatever you may be grieving,

Whether this be a person,

A place,

A future,

Whatever this may look like for you,

I invite you to call it into your mind and notice what comes up for you.

Notice which memory arised.

Notice any tension you feel in your body.

Or simply noticing,

Not judging.

Notice if your breath changed as you call this to the center of your attention.

And here,

Take a cleansing breath,

Inhaling up through your nose,

Exhaling out through your mouth with a long extension.

As you hold this in your attention,

I invite you to relax your body as much as you can,

Where you can.

Our jaws are often a place of tension being built.

See if you can relax your jaw.

Relax your forehead.

If your shoulders have risen up,

See if you can drop them down.

We're showing our body that we can be relaxed while we hold this memory in our awareness.

Remembering your breath.

And with this memory,

I invite you to identify any emotion that's come up for you.

And as we practice in the beginning of our time together,

With your exhale,

Allow that emotion to pass through you.

Inhaling through your nose,

Exhaling through your mouth.

You may do this multiple times as different emotions arise.

And that's okay.

There is no way to do this wrong.

Often when we grieve,

We can fear our memories.

Fear the emotions that will come up with them.

Fear what our minds will do if we think of them.

Fear the pain that may be associated with these memories.

And as we build trust in ourselves that we can hold this space,

Hold this space in a way that won't hurt us,

We can enjoy these memories and the joy that they bring us,

The peace that they bring us as we accept grief,

As we accept our losses.

We can hold our memories with peace.

Check in with your body.

See if you can release at all,

Shift at all,

Make yourself even the slightest bit more comfortable.

You can repeat to yourself,

I am safe.

I am safe.

My emotions are valid.

My grief is valid.

My grief is valid.

And on your next exhale,

I invite you to let go of whatever memory you brought to your attention.

And now on your next inhale,

I invite you to welcome in a memory that brings you joy.

It can be a memory associated with your grief.

It can be something that you imagine.

It can be a memory not related to the grief you're processing.

Any memory that brings you joy.

And if you find this to be difficult,

I invite you to call to your mind anything that makes you smile.

Breathing in and breathing out.

Breathing in and breathing out.

Allowing the sensation of this memory to wash over your body as you melt deeper into this memory.

Allow yourself to relax in your body.

Relax in your mind.

Noting that just because somebody is gone does not take away from the joy and the memories they helped us create.

As the glory of our memories,

They can act as a safe place to store love,

Joy,

Happiness.

And when you're ready,

When you feel as though you've allowed your memory to wash over you,

I invite you to once again,

On your exhale,

Allow it to go.

Coming into yourself now.

If it feels safe for you,

Take your hands and wrap them around you,

Offering yourself a hug.

You can pull your knees in close to you.

You can wrap your arms around your shoulders.

Offering yourself love and comfort.

Offering yourself gratitude for showing up for yourself in this space.

Offering yourself validity for being human.

And very slowly,

I invite you to begin to open your eyes nice and gently.

Coming back into the physical space around you.

Remembering you are in a safe space.

The same space that you said you were safe in when we started this.

Your space is safe.

You are safe.

Your grief is valid.

I encourage you now to think back to when we started our time together.

The commitment you made to yourself.

Thinking back to the commitment that you made to yourself.

If that does not feel accessible to you,

I encourage you to allow yourself time to be where you are and continue to process.

Remembering that once you feel your processing is no longer benefiting you,

Please go back to the self-care that we identified in the beginning of our time together.

Allowing ourselves to process grief without grief taking over our lives is so fundamental in being able to process the human experience.

Being able to process our grief and the emotions that come with it while still being able to live our daily lives.

Creating new memories,

New connections,

New experiences.

As we wrap up our time together,

Remember that your grief is valid.

And while we have our stages of grief,

They are umbrellas to the diverse emotions that will come up as you experience grieving.

Taking one final breath together,

Breathing in through your nose,

Feeling the air move through your body,

Exhaling out through your mouth,

Letting it all go.

Offering yourself thanks for carving out this time,

For prioritizing yourself,

And for loving so deeply that you get to continue to love someone after they are gone.

Thank you.