Grief,
It can feel like a note in your abdomen,
Ever present like a dead weight.
Sometimes it can even feel like a constriction around your neck,
Tightening words left unsaid.
The pressure on your chest,
Pushing down,
Shortness of breath.
A lingering emotion,
Silently gnawing from the depths.
Grief is one of our most profound human experiences,
Yet it's the one we run from the most.
It causes pain,
Uncomfortability,
Sometimes it even can feel debilitating.
Yet it can also be one of our biggest teachers.
You see,
Grief,
When we welcome it,
Reminds us of a life lived,
A love felt,
An experience cherished.
To forbid grief,
A place in our heart,
Is to forbid ourselves from experiencing a sacred part of our humanness.
Today,
Let's take one another's hand,
Let's sit in stillness.
Even as it becomes uncomfortable,
And allow grief to crawl up from the depths within us,
And just be.
To begin,
Take a moment to make yourself comfortable.
Settle in to wherever you are.
If you're sitting,
Gently rest your hands in your lap,
Palms facing up.
If you're lying,
Gently place your hands,
One across your belly,
One across your heart center.
Allow yourself to feel like you're just sinking down,
Letting go.
Today our practice will be inviting in what is.
It may feel deeply uncomfortable.
It may bring up feelings of sadness.
It may even bring tears and big emotions to the floor.
Know that these are important parts of your human experience,
And worthy of being shared.
Don't try to stop yourself from crying,
To avert your attention from any emotion you're experiencing.
Simply allow what is to drift to the surface,
Without being pushed away,
Pushed back down,
Or bypassed in any way.
Now as we get comfortable,
Allow yourself to feel like you're sinking in,
Finding your grounding wherever you are.
Relax your jaw.
Feel your face,
Any tension,
Just melt away and relax.
Slowly,
Just start noticing your breath.
Breathe in deeply through your nose,
And gently out again through your nose.
Breathe in whatever way feels comfortable for you.
Grief doesn't always feel like a friend.
Sometimes he feels like a foe.
What kind of friend would cause us such pain?
What kind of friend would continuously make us remember some of our most painful moments over and over again?
Our instinct is to avoid experiencing grief.
It can feel overwhelming,
Overpowering,
All-consuming.
However,
Grief is a friend who's here to teach,
And who's here to show us what's most important to us in the depths of our soul and in our heart.
You see,
It's through grief that we're able to connect with who and what has been most important to us in life.
Now grief,
Our friend may visit us for many reasons in many ways.
Sometimes we experience grief through the loss of a loved one,
Perhaps a parent,
A partner,
A child,
A friend.
Sometimes the loss can be so sudden and swift.
We're left with nothing but a sense of injustice,
Confusion,
Anger,
And sadness.
Know that these experiences are normal.
We are only human beings doing our best to process our experiences in a complicated world.
Whatever you feel is valid.
Your grief is valid.
Your dear friend grief is only here to remind you of who and what is important to you.
We also experience grief in challenging moments of our lives,
Such as the loss of a job,
Moving to a new city or a new country.
Grief can very regularly be tied to our identity that we have for ourselves.
And when that identity no longer serves us or part of that identity for whatever circumstance is taken away,
The absence can cause us to experience grief.
Grief can come to us in the transition of our lives.
And it can signify to us the need to accept what is and let go as difficult and challenging.
And as much as we might not want to,
Sometimes allowing ourselves to simply experience grief and let go is the lesson.
Continue allowing yourself to breathe deeply now.
Feel the air as it travels down through your chest to your abdomen,
Feeling your heart center,
Feeling your abdomen.
Feel the power of the breath as a way to start releasing what may feel stuck.
Whatever sensations are coming up for you as I speak,
Allow them to just be and allow your breath to meet them where they are.
Breathing in through your nose,
Down,
Down,
Down,
Feel the breath travel through your heart,
Through your lungs,
Through your abdomen.
Notice the breath unlocking parts of your abdomen where the grief may be stuck.
Allow your body to accept this breath and for the breath to meet the grief where it is.
Witness the breath unlocking,
Unraveling,
Releasing this grief.
Allow the grief to be,
Allow the grief if it needs to,
To travel up through the abdomen,
Through the chest,
Through the heart center.
Often grief feels like it gets stuck in our throat center.
Notice if you're feeling tension or a sense of stuckness in the back of your throat.
As you continue to breathe,
Allow your breath to release the center as you breathe out.
Grief is a friend who visits so often to remind us about what's important to us.
When we don't welcome grief into our heart center,
It can get stuck in our body,
Causing us to subconsciously move through the world at a lower vibration than our fullest potential.
Meeting grief wherever it is,
With open arms and allowing it to move through us is how we shift from grief becoming unresolved to releasing the grief.
Now we may need to repeat this process over and over again every time that grief visits us.
Being in grief isn't always a linear experience.
Cultivating a sense of compassion and lovingness towards ourself and towards our experience of grief helps us to support ourselves as we move through it.
Be gentle with yourself.
Know that however you're handling grief,
You're doing the very best that you can do and that's okay.
As we draw this practice to a close,
I invite you to steadily start moving your body just gently.
And while we're doing this,
I'd like you to acknowledge yourself for the bravery and for the courage and for the love that you have shown yourself today by giving you this opportunity to move through grief.
Grief is not easy for any of us to process,
So thank you for being here with me today,
Taking a brave and courageous step in taking care of yourself and your highest self by inviting our friend's grief in and allowing him to just be,
To move through us as we need.
My name is Alexa Sarna and I'm very grateful to have shared this time and space and energy field with you today.
Thank you,
Namaste.
