Hi there.
I'm Carly,
And if you'd like to find a position where your body can be supported for the next few minutes,
You might lie on your back or perhaps today the body would rather turn onto one side.
Knees drawn towards you.
Arms resting close.
Allowing yourself to take up whatever shape feels most natural.
If it feels comfortable,
Allow the eyes to close.
Or just lower your gaze.
And notice the surface beneath you the places where your body is already being met.
You don't need to do anything with your breathing you don't need to soften anything Just survive.
If you are here because you are grieving.
I want you to know that I know something of this place too.
I know that grief can live not only in our thoughts but deeply within the body and I'm not here to move it away from you I'm not asking you to let go of anything.
And I'm certainly not here to take away something that may feel inseparable from the person,
The relationship,
The life.
Or the love that you're grieving.
For these next few minutes,
We are simply going to be here.
Together.
Begin by noticing the shape your body has chosen without correcting it without asking it to be different.
Perhaps the shoulders have rounded a little.
Perhaps the arms want to come closer towards the chest or belly.
Perhaps the knees want to be drawn in.
Perhaps the head wants to bow.
Or perhaps none of this is true for you.
There is no shape grief is supposed to take.
Just notice yours.
There can be an instinct,
When we hurt,
To draw inward.
To contract.
Curl around ourselves.
To become smaller around something that feels unbearably tender.
And sometimes we are encouraged to resist it.
To open the chest,
To straighten.
To breathe deeply.
To release.
But perhaps just for now,
We don't need to do any of that.
There is an intelligence in this shape body drawing its edges closer.
Protecting something.
Bring your awareness towards the shoulders now.
Not asking them to draw.
Simply feeling them exactly where they are.
Notice the upper arms.
The L pose,
The forearms.
The hands.
And perhaps notice where the hands themselves have chosen to rest.
If they would like to come closer to the body allow that a hand over the heart a hand over the belly.
Both arms folded gently around yourself.
Or no movement at all.
There was nothing wrong with the body's wish to curl around what hurts.
Sometimes the body draws inward but not because it's forgotten how to open.
But because for a while This is how it knows to hold something tender.
Now noticing the space around the heart.
Not needing to imagine the heart opening.
Simply sensing this area as it is.
And maybe heaviness here.
Pressure.
Aching.
Hollowness tightness and nothing at all.
Or something for which there simply isn't a word.
You don't need to name it.
And maybe there's something curious here a paradox.
The same arms that draw inward with pain.
Can also hold.
The shoulders that curl protectively around the heart can also create shelter.
The knees drawing towards the body.
You can make a boundary around something vulnerable.
Contraction.
And comfort.
Both perhaps present within the same shape.
Notice the back of your body now the back of the head.
The shoulders.
The spine.
The pelvis the leg.
Wherever you can feel support beneath you.
Even while the front of the body curls inward,
The back of the body can be held.
You don't have to make that happen.
And perhaps the breath can simply move within this smaller space.
No enormous brand.
No need to fill the lungs.
Just the breath that is possible today.
Coming in.
Leaving again.
The body making burn for exactly that much.
And if grief is very close today,
You do not have to move away from it.
If it feels distant or numb,
You do not have to go looking for it.
And as something else is here altogether.
Anger,
Exhaustion,
Disbelief.
Even nothingness.
That too can remain exactly as it is.
For a moment,
Sense the whole body in its chosen shape perhaps curl.
Perhaps contracted.
Perhaps completely still,
And see whether it's possible to recognise that this body is not doing grief incorrectly.
It may simply be responding to something enormous.
Perhaps silently,
Somewhere within,
Allowing these words.
I am allowed to hold what is tender.
I am allowed to hold what is tender.
Nothing has to open.
And nothing has to leave.
There is no need to emerge from this practice feeling differently from when you arrived.
Perhaps it has been enough simply to discover that the instinct to coil around your pain can also contain the instinct to comfort.
That the body can grieve and hold itself at the same time.
Begin to notice the room around you.
And sounds close by sounds further away.
And take whatever time you need before moving.
Perhaps a small movement of the fingers and the toes.
Or none just yet.
And if your body has curled inward.
There is no need to uncurl it before you are ready.
You may remain exactly as you are held around your own pain for as long as you need and when it feels right.
Allowing the eyes to open and taking your time to return I hope this practice offered you a moment of rest and a moment to be with your grief and with your pain,
To nurture it as your body asks.
You're welcome here anytime.
With much love.
Kali
