Opening To Grief & Anger - Insight Timer Live

This Insight Timer live from April 2021 is a powerful exploration of two experiences we in the West try our best to avoid: grief and anger. In this intimate talk and guided practice, you'll learn how to reimagine your relationship with these potent teachers based on indigenous wisdom and contemporary somatic trauma healing.
Music by Christopher Lloyd Clarke

Transcript

So today is a special kind of live.

It is opening to grief and anger.

So first I want to bow to all of you and salute you and honor you for being interested at all in alive with this title and in doing work on yourself in this way because at least if you grew up in the western or western or westernized world,

The world that worships the rational mind,

The world that worships at the altar of efficiency and productivity at the expense of the feeling body.

Thank you for being here and I know that it has taken you out of your comfort zone to be here and to be acknowledging grief and anger.

So today,

I want to do a few things with all of you.

I want to share some teachings from one of the most powerful teachers I've ever encountered on my journey.

His name is Melodoma Some,

Melodoma Patrice Some,

And he is an elder of the Daugara people of West Africa.

The country today is known as Burkina Faso,

West Africa.

But the Daugara people extend beyond those borders,

Right?

Because those are colonized borders.

So anyway,

He has,

I will talk a little bit about Melodoma and his background.

He's not someone I've had the honor of like personally being mentored with.

So I don't want to give the impression that like I have a close relationship with Melodoma Some.

I'm just an incredibly enthusiastic student of his work,

And particularly of his two books,

And I'll show these again several times.

So don't worry about memorizing them.

So ritual and of water and the spirit.

It says ritual magic and initiation in the life of an African shaman.

So he has incredibly eye opening teachings from an indigenous African perspective on grief in particular.

And we need this in the Western and westernized world,

Right?

Because we're,

We live in an emotional dark age over here.

And we have for many,

Many centuries.

The emphasis on the rational mind and honestly on the masculine and patriarchy has robbed us of literacy of our feeling life.

And it has instilled shame in all of us for feeling things like grief,

Which is grief is a spectrum of emotion.

It's not just sorrow.

It includes anger.

It includes,

You know,

Some of you know,

Elizabeth Kubler Ross's five stages of grief,

Or arguably six stages of grief,

Right?

So denial,

Bargaining,

Anger,

I forget,

Sorry,

I forget if it's,

I think it's denial,

Anger,

Bargaining,

Depression,

Acceptance,

And then sometimes it's said also meaning is the final stage of grief.

So grief is a whole spectrum of emotion that we don't understand in the West.

And when we experience it,

It takes us aback,

And we feel like we should be able to get over it.

Right.

So let me just start with,

Sorry.

Let me just start with actually reading from my personal journal,

My reflections about reading Melodoma Somi's work on grief,

Because I think it'll contextualize a lot of what we're doing today.

So let me just read some quotes from his book ritual here and then just see how they land in your body.

For the Dogura,

Grief is seen as food for the psyche.

Just as the body needs food,

The psyche needs grief to maintain its own healthy balance.

He also says,

And I quote,

Grief is an energy that works at mellowing the mind,

Heart and body.

So,

For Melodoma Somi,

For the Dogura perspective,

Grief is not a food for the mind,

But a food for the body.

For Melodoma Somi,

For the Dogura perspective,

Grief is nothing more than unresolved energy moving through us,

So that we can be born anew.

Grief is unresolved energy moving through us so that we can be reborn,

So that we can change so that we can transform so that we can be initiated.

Yeah,

So again,

Pay attention to your body.

Like Lucy felt there's some resistance,

You said to the first quote,

And that's completely appropriate,

You know,

So just be with whatever your experiences.

Yeah.

So the main point of everything that I read just now is this opening to what if grief wasn't something to get over or to resist.

What if grief was an integral part of the human experience and in fact,

What if grief was a necessary part of transformation and growth.

What if we can't really grow without grieving.

And of course,

Not that we have to grieve all the time.

Right,

Like,

We,

Again in the West,

We're,

We're extremists,

Especially us Americans,

We are extremists.

We,

Like,

If we read something we think it is 100% or always that way or that's the suggestion and that's not at all what's what is being suggested here.

It's not suggested that we worship grief and grieve all the time and that's our new way of life.

No,

No,

No,

No.

It's suggested here that we open our minds and our hearts to the possibility of accepting grief as part of our,

And actually a necessary part of initiation.

And we don't,

The fact is,

Is we don't have initiation experiences in the West anymore.

And so,

Initiation is a process of midwifing yourself into a new way of being that usually involves an experience that is beyond your perceived abilities or capacity.

So for many of many,

You know birthing people,

Many women who give birth.

That process is initiatory.

We don't know how we are going to do it.

We just surrender to nature flowing through our bodies.

And we give birth right and that process is an initiation because it completely breaks down our perceptions of our abilities and our capacity.

Traumatic experiences can be this way for some people,

If they're approached as initiations,

Right.

Please do not seek out traumatic experiences to be initiated.

But if you happen to be a trauma survivor.

This is a simply a possibility of how to view your experience maybe part of the experience is initiatory in some way.

Not to say it should have happened to you,

Right.

I want to be really careful about that but there's a way that we can view our life experience in the absence of culturally seen and witnessed initiations.

Our own personal experiences can be those for us,

If they do draw us wider if they ask us to be more expansive than what we possibly have thought.

So,

How do you know that you need to grieve.

Sometimes it's very obvious like when you lose someone you love.

And that's usually like the only time that our culture kind of condones the experience of grief for a certain period of time,

Right,

Like our culture usually gives us like a year or so or two maybe and then like,

I think the popular understanding is,

You know,

You really should be getting over this by now.

That's just not the case because nobody can prescribe your timeframe for grief for you.

So when do you know that you need to grieve.

Maybe if it's not obvious.

And the answer is if you feel stuck or disconnected.

You know that grief is needed.

You know that there is an initiatory threshold that's needed for you.

If you feel stuck.

If you feel dissociated disconnected.

If you feel that you're bracing against life.

If you feel that you're being held apart from life or separate from life.

Because grief brings us into the flow of life again.

When we go through transformative experiences or experiences of loss,

And we don't allow the grief to fully if we don't allow the wave to completely come through our bodies and come to its natural and on its own terms.

What happens is our heart closes,

And we build up scar tissue that braces us against life.

Yeah.

And Shannon says bracing against life is so relatable absolutely.

We love doing it in the West.

We brace against life as a way of life,

Because we want to control things,

Because we want to control outcomes and this we especially want to control ourselves.

We especially want to control our emotions which terrify us.

So,

Yes,

Bracing is a way of life in the West it is,

It is the except it is the rule rather than the exception.

And by the way,

If you hear when you when you hear.

There's a tapping sound that you may have noticed like it just happened.

Do you do all hear that.

That tapping sound is a bird that has been trying to come into that window in my house for 72 hours now.

And there's nothing we can do about it we've tried drawing the curtains we've tried you know putting things up in the window to deter it.

And we just have to let it.

Speaking of not controlling we just have to let it do its thing.

It's a little someone says,

It's like a little finch type of bird like little brown bird.

Oh,

And I thought you say happy Earth Day he's a spirit.

Oh thank you and someone says a lost loved one,

I will,

I will definitely tune into that thank you for that perspective.

I've been interpreting it,

Because I do personally in my own spiritual journey I see birds and animals as signs right so,

Or Adam yeah messengers exactly.

I,

I've been meditating on what's,

What do I need to pay attention to because it's kind of it's literally like a wrapping on the window right,

Top top top top.

And I haven't received a clear answer.

But I do know that.

And I'm trying not to over analyze it because that's definitely my default.

I do know that we're in a ridiculously intense transformative cauldron on the planet and in all of our personal lives right now including my own so,

And I know from experience that a lot of like synchronicity tends to happen in my life during these vortex times right times of intensity and growth so that's just kind of where I've,

Where I've left it.

But yeah,

I could also see the layer of it is yeah it's mating season maybe the bird just sees its own reflection and thinks it's a mate or something.

There are all these different layers that we can acknowledge about an experience right,

The magical layer.

The practical layer the earthly layer all these different layers so in any event that is what you hear on my window is the tapping that I can do nothing about and just need to release control.

So,

Yeah,

So another I want to bring in another aspect to why,

Why it's really vital for us to open to our difficult emotional experiences.

And I will say that it's,

I think it's in my experience.

In other words,

White folks.

Because I think we just we've had generations of shutting down,

We've had generations of bracing.

Like I'm married to my husband Carlos is Mexican American and so and like my mom's partner is Cuban American and so like a whole branch of my family is,

Is Latin and so I definitely have that contrast to look at like I know that they,

They are,

They experience things like grief and anger very differently right it seems to flow through them more spontaneously and there is less shame that they have about feeling these things.

But,

And of course this is not meant to be a general statement of people of any heritage or race at all because we are all unique.

But yes,

I've definitely noticed that.

For the majority of people with Northern European ancestry This can be particularly hard,

Because,

As we know from epigenetics.

We do inherit our ancestry and what are and the way our ancestors were in their bodies we tend to inherit in our brought in our bodies and it's just part of how DNA works.

So if they braced against the world if they braced against their own emotions,

Then we do to,

Not to mention how parenting is passed along from generation to generation,

Which is the primary way I think that that we inherit that because if feelings were not okay for you to express if it wasn't okay for you to be upset.

Growing up,

If you heard stop crying,

Or if you were ignored.

When you experienced an inconvenient emotion or if you had no.

I'm seeing lots of hearts right now so this is resonating.

Basically anyone who's attracted to my work experienced emotional neglect as a child that's just a blanket statement I've learned to make like,

Yeah,

So,

And basically,

If you're going to a live today that's called opening to grief and anger,

It means that you feel in some part of you close to it.

Right.

Which probably almost indubitably I just said indubitably almost indubitably means that you were raised in a way where you didn't feel free to grieve to feel sorrow to feel anger.

Right.

So just,

I'm just calling that as it is.

So in just in just a few minutes we're going to be doing a little practice together,

Where we will just experiment with what we might be bracing against feeling in our bodies but I do want to talk just a little bit about anger to before we do that practice because the reason that I paired grief and anger in this live today is number one because they're often part of the same swirl of experience so often anger is just part of grief,

Right.

So I'm sure many of you have lost someone or lost part of yourself a job or part of your identity and felt some anger about it right.

That's just a natural part of anger as a response to something we value being in jeopardy.

It is a natural mammalian self protective response.

Anger is,

And I teach,

I teach a lot about this in my online programs and elsewhere to like anger is absolutely part of our spiritual healthy experience,

Anger is a physiological response to injustice.

Anger is a response from our autonomic nervous system.

And this is really important for everyone to know.

Anger is the natural mammalian response to injustice.

It is a normal healthy part of your nervous system.

Feeling anger is not a choice.

How we respond out of it is a choice.

So,

Part of,

Part of opening to anger is experimenting with letting go of any cultural or family inheritance that you learned that anger was not okay to feel right anger is absolutely okay to feel.

Is it okay to act out of anger in a way that hurts other people?

No,

That's not okay.

Right.

But we tend to couple the two like we tend to like not be able to even conceptualize what healthy anger even looks like what does it even look like right,

Because we just the,

When we,

When we think about anger.

We usually imagine a violent reaction or yelling,

Or something out of control right Tom like like something you experienced in your childhood,

Or that we experienced our childhood of toxic anger.

But the reality is that big reactions like that violent reactions or abusive reactions out of anger are actually the discharge of previously repressed anger.

That is not a normal expression of anger.

So I will tell you what an example of the healthy expression of anger is setting a boundary.

Setting a boundary in a calm way with someone saying,

You know,

When you do this.

I observed that when you do this I feel I feel frustrated or I feel helpless.

Because I need.

I need more help or I need to have a clean kitchen to feel sane in the morning.

Would you be willing to wash the dishes at night or help me wash the dishes at night so that I can have more clarity in the morning to take care of our daughter.

That actually so that's that structure I use is called nonviolent communication.

And that's something that you can definitely look into if you want to see examples of boundary setting like like very very concrete like this is exactly what you can say to set a boundary.

But so nonviolent communication is that is that body of work by Marshall Rosenberg.

Yeah,

Josephine NVC Yeah,

Yeah.

NVC is a fantastic way to set boundaries but this is all to come back to the the idea that healthy anger healthy expression of anger that doesn't hurt anyone is boundary setting.

It is it takes Yeah,

It takes a lot of practice that's true it takes a lot of practice,

And it doesn't mean that it's not scary at the time,

Even if you practice it like I've been practicing NVC for years with my husband,

And it's always I always feel my heart rate increase,

Even though I know that he's totally on board and like he does it too right.

But it takes a lot of practice,

And it's about holding holding your systemic activation right holding the fear,

The heart rate increase the sweating at the same time as you lovingly guide yourself forward and say what you need to say.

Yeah,

It does take courage and it's so worth it.

Absolutely.

So,

Um,

I feel.

I feel like I'm kind of like jumping like from the tip of the iceberg to the tip of the iceberg on on these topics but that's kind of what lives are like anyway right.

But I do want to,

I do want to also make sure to note that another reason it's really,

Really vital for us to open to our own experiences of,

Of grief and anger is that is because of shadow projection.

So,

One principle of shadow work.

One principle of shadow work is that everything that is unresolved within us,

Everything that is still in shadow or,

In other words unconscious within us,

We project onto others in the form of judgments.

So,

This is one principle of shadow work right.

And so,

Oh,

Emma,

Yes,

I'm right about to go there.

So thank you for bringing that up.

Yes.

So,

Because of shadow projection and other words like we feel really triggered.

When we see someone else expressing an emotion that is still unresolved within us,

Right.

That's one principle of shadow projection.

So,

If we want to live in an inclusive world,

If we want to be able to really hear and listen to black,

Indigenous and other people of color,

And their experiences which include absolutely justified anger.

We need especially as folks inhabiting white bodies,

And with this you know,

Northern European heritage.

We need,

It's our responsibility to open to these experiences within ourselves so that we can listen with an open heart and learn from people whose experiences whose lived experiences are so different from us.

Yeah.

There's a lot of reasons why opening to grief and anger are really,

Really important at this time in history,

Both for for ourselves and our own personal lives for greater empathy and compassion for people who are different from us.

We,

We just need to increase our capacity to hold the charge of strong emotions that many of us have spent our lives bracing against and trying to stop at all costs.

So,

Let's start with a little experiment so I want to just,

We won't do like a huge practice today.

Because this is really personal and it could have the potential to be quite,

Quite activating for some people,

So I don't want to go deep into it.

But I do want to give you the opportunity to,

To be with your own internal process here in just a moment.

So,

I'll explain what the invitation will be and then I will give you a little disclaimer about it so the invitation is,

I'm going to be asking you to sit with yourself and get will get grounded together.

And I'll ask you just to hold the part of you that you experience as your center.

And just to simply ask your body,

Ask your wisdom,

Or if you work with like a higher self or I like to call it myself my ancient self.

If you work with a spiritual part of yourself you could address that but anyway ask yourself,

What am I trying not to feel.

And we're just going to sit with that as an open invitation.

So you can see how this might take you to an uncomfortable place.

And part of that is the intention,

Because the work is how to be with these uncomfortable places in a space of compassion with ourselves.

Before we go into that though,

I want to part of the grounding processes I'm going to invite you to find a space in your body that either feels safe to you,

Or neutral or less dangerous or less bad.

So we're going to anchor on that place first,

And then we're going to ask our bodies a question what am I trying not to feel.

With the knowing that you can toggle back into that safe or safe enough place in your body if anything feels too much.

As a trauma informed practitioner that's what that's how we need to work with our nervous system right we always need a place of safety to return to or a place of less danger or more neutrality if safety is inaccessible.

But also if you're someone who has a history of anxiety attacks or PTSD or if this just all sounds really too uncomfortable for you,

Please don't feel like you need to practice along today and know that I am recording this,

And if you like you can just listen to me and and assess if you feel like you want to do this at some point so just really want to open the door and and and encourage everyone to just take care of yourselves and that this might not be the time for you to do this right now.

And that's completely okay.

In our culture we think,

Because we worship at the altar of productivity and efficiency,

And more is better.

We tend to have this attitude about our healing to which is completely counterproductive right.

We tend to have the attitude of,

I try harder I'm going to get more value out of it.

What we know from the nervous system how the nervous system works is that completely runs counter to how we're built.

We need periods of rest,

Just as we need an inhale and an exhale.

So that's all to say,

Do not force anything here do not try hard here.

Simply approach this process with open curiosity.

And maybe it's maybe you,

You will want to come out or look around the room or open your eyes or just not do it at all.

All right.

And yes,

Christy the recording will be available on insight timer,

Probably in a few days or by the end of the week so yeah.

All right everyone so we're going to start just with a really simple grounding grounding meditation.

So if you feel comfortable with it you can close your eyes and just sit or lie down in a way that feels nourishing to you.

And take a few breaths here and just take a moment to arrive this time and place.

Noticing how your body is feeling right now at the prospect of going inward,

And perhaps experiencing something that you've been trying not to feel is how does that show up in your body.

So just taking some breaths here.

And so I invite you to open your curiosity to ask,

Is there anywhere in my body that feels like it could be a safe place right now.

In other words,

Is there a place in your body that you feel a pleasant sensation,

Like a warmth,

Or a light tingling.

Or a sense of openness or expansiveness whatever sensation you might call pleasant or neutral.

If you feel like sharing on the comments I love to hear some of the places in your body that are lighting up for you as safe or neutral or even less,

Less bad,

Less dangerous.

Maybe it's your heart center,

Someone says or it could be if something in the center of your body feels too much.

Maybe it's your hands,

The aliveness in your hands or I love that and that's your thumbnail.

That's great.

Maybe it's your right toe.

Jesse says the center of my palm I love that.

Excuse me.

Yeah,

The hands are a good place to ground in.

Someone has crystals in their hands I love that.

Good.

So wherever you're putting your awareness right now that feels safe,

Neutral or less bad.

Just experiment with holding your attention there for as long as it naturally stays and just breathing and allowing the sensation that's there to expand a little bit.

Almost like a drop of food coloring and water expands out.

And it doesn't need to be much at all just see how much it naturally wants to expand maybe just a millimeter,

Or maybe into more of your body doesn't really matter,

Just notice.

Yeah,

Breath as you notice this place in your body.

And notice how there's a possibility that this place could be a refuge that you return your awareness to if anything today or down the road feels like it's unsafe,

Or too much,

Too fast.

That you can simply toggle your awareness back to this place in your body or anywhere else that might feel safe,

Neutral,

Or less bad,

And really notice the sensation that's there as your anchor.

So,

Stay here for as long as feels nourishing for you also if maybe that's going to be the whole rest of the session for today.

If you feel called.

I invite you to place your hands anywhere that you identify as the center of you,

Or maybe it's that place that feels safe and your body.

Just place your hands anywhere that feels good.

Notice the sensation of your hands on your body.

And we're going to send this question into all of your cells.

Send this question to reach the deepest part of you.

We're going to just take whatever answer you get the first impression is the truth.

How am I trying not to feel hearing the word or perhaps phrase or sentence that you hear and breathing into your body how it feels to hear them.

If anyone feels moved to share what they heard I would love to hear it.

Otherwise,

Just stay with your experience.

What am I trying not to feel breathing into it.

For some of you it might be a word or phrase.

For some of you,

It might be an image.

For some of you it might be even a movement that your body is making.

So keep holding yourself if,

If your hands are contacting your body.

Just keep holding yourself and I invite you to just experiment with just a little bit of rocking.

Just very gentle,

Either forward and back like this or maybe a little bit back and forth.

Just a little bit of rocking here as you acknowledge what's unfelt.

Yeah.

Knowing that I'm not asking you to feel this all the way right now,

Unless it organically is coming out of your system.

You have profound faith that with acknowledgement that this emotion will be processed by you in exactly the right way on your own time.

This is not about releasing an emotion quote unquote or feeling it all the way to get rid of it right.

This is about acknowledgement and acceptance right now.

And just experimenting perhaps with this rocking in your body with eyes either closed or open,

Whatever feels right.

And breathing.

Another layer you could add to this if you feel called is to let your body now do what it wants to do here.

What I mean is,

If your posture could be pulled into a certain natural pose that this emotion wants to go to,

What would that be and don't think about this please don't think about like,

Oh,

If I feel sad,

How could I put my body to look like I'm sad.

This is about letting your body move you instead of moving your body.

So is there a pose that your body longs to take when you acknowledge for example,

This loneliness or this despair.

For instance,

Is it a curling forward or holding yourself and protecting your heart or even a bowing of the head.

Or maybe if it's anger which I saw some of you experiencing.

Maybe you want to make a pose like a big cat or a predator and just.

But again,

Don't think about it.

Just let your body,

Maybe it's also a movement.

Maybe it's shaking.

Maybe it's thrashing around or even hitting a pillow.

And know that there's no pressure to do any of this,

Just only if it feels natural.

You can stay with any layer of this process.

Maybe you're still staying with the word of the feeling that's been unfelt and continuing to breathe with whatever layer you're working with here.

And we're going to if you,

If you feel called there's another layer to this that you could add and that is to ask your whole being the question.

What is needed for me right now.

What is needed for me right now.

Maybe just continuing to rock with yourself as you hold your hand to your body and feel what is needed for me right now.

Just hearing what you hear.

In a moment we're going to begin to come out.

Just really let in whatever else you need to let in here.

Feeling in your body,

How it's landing for you to hear what you heard about what you need.

And by the way for those of you came in a little bit later the tapping sounds are a bird that's been trying to come in my window for over three days.

And Martha Yes,

This is being recorded and I'm going to post it on insight timer and a few days.

Okay.

Shifting your attention everyone again to that place of safety in your body,

Or the place of neutrality,

Or less bad now.

Just really coming home to that place.

Shifting your attention to that space within you and noticing the body sensation there is it warm.

Openness perhaps,

Breathing in that sensation and that part of you,

Inviting it to expand.

As you start to come back into grounding into this refuge in you,

Knowing that if you experience any feelings like nausea,

Or any other physical sensations,

That this is a normal part of the process,

And just take care of yourself in whatever way you need.

Yeah.

And so whenever you're ready everyone of course,

Stay with us as long as you need to stay with whatever layer of this process feels right for you.

If you would like you can come back now and if eyes are closed,

Go ahead and open them and I invite everyone to just look around your space now.

Just let your eyes wander around as you orient yourself again.

Take some breaths as you come to this time and place,

And invite your body to move you a little bit so sometimes when we come out of a meditation we have these reflexive habitual movements like I sometimes like I'll just roll my shoulders or do some neck stretches,

And I invite you to just try something a little bit different.

Try instead of moving your body now try allowing your body to move you,

Which is probably going to be a smaller movement.

So,

Like if I allow myself to do that right now I kind of am bending like my head is bending in a weird way or there's like some twitches just give your body permission to move you right now because you just,

You just were in a very powerful place,

And there might have been things that you discovered that have been unprocessed and unseen and so I want to allow your nervous system to integrate in whatever way it naturally would so yeah and Chris if you just want to keep rocking yourself 100% do that.

Go with whatever your body is wanting to do right now and just keep doing that as we continue to talk today.

I invite everyone to just,

You know,

Nobody can see each other's videos right so just do whatever you need to do.

If you've ever come to any of my lives that I call dance to heal that's really where I share a lot more of the somatic teachings and the nervous system repair stuff that we're just like touching the tip of the iceberg on here.

Like,

You know that we do some weird stuff.

Because we're letting our body move us and those aren't going to be like the socially condoned ways of movement right.

So,

Yeah,

For the rest of today and I'll be staying.

I usually stay for a glad you love those sessions Chris.

I usually stay after for about 10 or 15 minutes to help everyone integrate process to answer any questions or to offer any support that anybody might want after doing work like this so maybe you have some questions or I would actually love to hear anyone's experience if you feel like sharing.

Kimberly Yeah yeah I'm planning on doing one of the dance to heal sessions pretty soon just stay tuned.

We have the shadow work circle which I encourage everyone to check out here on insight timer.

You'll like I always post I either post like polls for what people want for the next live session or I'll,

I'll tell what I'm planning for live sessions on our work circle so make sure to join that.

Thank you for your donation Shannon I'll do my little donation dance.

Excuse me.

Yeah.

Thank you everybody for your donations they really do make an impact.

So thank you.

Glad that was helpful for you,

Adam.

So Lisa says I was powerful I was crying and telling my past on dad all the things he did that hurt my brother and me I feel calmer and more at peace now.

I love that Lisa.

Yeah.

And Johanna says quite a transformation just now from anxiety and sadness to compassion for myself.

Yeah,

I'm so glad to hear that Johanna.

Yeah,

So I mean,

Anxiety is a complicated phenomenon right,

And as someone who struggled with nightly anxiety attacks,

I,

I intimately get that it is a complex experience and it's unique to each one of us.

But I think for a lot of people anxiety can be a response to having a lot of grief or anger that your body is bracing against.

Like when we're avoiding feeling when it feels like too much to feel when our system doesn't have the capacity to feel safe enough,

And also feel the feelings that are repressed.

I think for a lot of folks anxiety results from that.

I know that after,

After giving birth.

I think that's quite like because of PTSD my nervous system got quite narrowed and,

And I couldn't handle much charge and so I think my,

My own personal anxiety attacks were in part,

A result of like my own nervous system becoming very narrow,

And there was a lot of grief just from the transformation and initiation of motherhood that was trying to move through my system.

And I,

I couldn't move it.

I had to do a lot of nervous system repair work in order to have the capacity to feel what I needed to feel in order to feel safe enough in my body to feel the feelings that I needed to feel so there's lots of layers.

It's different for everyone.

So if I see a few people saying you are crying the whole meditation.

Yeah,

So remember what Melodoma so may said again if you weren't here in the beginning.

Melodoma Patrice so may is a teacher I have learned a lot from he's an elder of the dog or a people of West Africa,

His teachings on grief are in part that we need grief to balance our system.

Grief is a natural part of letting go and of growing,

So we basically need grief in order to transform in order to be reborn into the new phase of our life and so grief is the expression of what has been grief is the movement of unprocessed energy through us.

That's all it is it's the movement of unprocessed energy through our body and for a lot for a lot of us we experienced that in crying.

Crying is that movement of that unprocessed energy.

It's just that most of us have primarily growing up in the West,

Most of us have a whole lot of conditioning to feel shame for crying right,

Which is one of the reasons why an indigenous perspective is so immensely valuable.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Susan I'm so I'm just scrolling here as I look.

So,

Lisa says I didn't get a clear answer on what I am pushing back but I was crying the whole meditation.

That's amazing and perfect.

So,

Our,

Our rational minds really want to know why.

Right.

But our bodies to heal we don't need to know why.

And we know this from contemporary trauma research and trauma healing is that you don't actually need to go back to traumatic memories to heal them,

We can heal the imprint in our bodies and in our nervous systems without reactivating and revisiting the trauma or knowing why.

Right.

So,

Anna says my anger had me feeling paralyzed but now,

But wanting to yell at myself to do something about it so on I want to make sure you're not abusing yourself.

So,

Just know that your anger is absolutely valid and important and is telling you a message about what you value.

And so,

We have a lot of conditioning that we shouldn't feel anger but anger is a natural process in your body remember,

It's always okay to feel anger,

But it's not always okay to react out of anger right.

And that's a really important distinction that we need to make it's always okay to feel anger.

We can control.

We can't control if we feel anger,

We can control how we respond out of the anger.

Okay,

Wait a second here Josephine has a very important post that I have to scroll to read.

Okay,

Josephine says I felt curious about shadow work for a while I think I need it my partner is dying.

I love and give and hold down our day to day lives,

I'm honored to walk this path with him I also never experienced such dramatic spectrum of emotions.

My nervous system is pretty shot.

Long story short,

I know I'm pushing down a lot just to get through the day therapy helps but I'm ready to explore other ways to process these emotions and so much change I haven't been able to cry recently and I miss it had a little spontaneous cry with his practice and it felt really good.

I'm glad to hear that.

I like that you know that it's not about releasing or resolving or getting over but about processing integrating honoring love the nervous system info as well.

Oh my gosh,

Thank you,

Josephine.

Yes.

So I'm holding you in my heart Josephine,

And I'm so honored that you're here today with us with everything you're going through.

And I know that I see so much love going out to you from others on this call and I absolutely want to know that,

That we can't always feel in the moment right sometimes we're just going through and getting through the day day to day.

And that's completely okay that you can't cry sometimes that's it's like we just need to.

We just need to get through it sometimes.

And we will feel and process and exactly the right time for us and and with something like you're facing it's going to take a long time.

So I'm just,

I'm really like I'm tearing up to just feeling with you,

And also I'm tearing up with beauty at your courage for showing up to this process with all that you're going through,

Because it takes courage for anyone to do this kind of acknowledgement work.

But especially if you're going through what you're going through.

And my stomach just rumbled in agreement with all that.

Oh,

So Josephine says thank you Catherine I feel that thank you all of you I immediately feel self conscious about telling a bit of my story I don't think it's more important than anyone else's we are all beings experiencing it's so true Yeah.

And it's normal to feel self conscious right it's normal to feel self conscious for like quote unquote taking up space right in a public forum,

And it takes huge courage.

And I'm so grateful for your share because,

You know,

I teach a lot,

You know,

In these lives and also in my courses,

And I can tell you that anytime anyone shares a personal story.

It impacts everyone,

And we all feel resonant with it in our own unique ways,

Even if we're not sharing you know a similar experience,

But it,

It gives us permission to feel our shared humanity,

And I honor you and bow to you for giving us all the opportunity to feel that with you.

Yeah.

Yeah,

Any other.

Any other sharings or questions anyone else has.

Yeah,

I know says humanity is the community that is needed to rebuild us in times of need.

Absolutely.

I mean,

I think that's a huge part of our collective evolution right now.

Oh,

Else as the bird that was tapping on the window is taking a pause since our meditation.

Yeah,

Good observation.

Priscilla asks what is a sufficient timeframe to get over the ending of a love relationship,

I cannot tell you that there is no sufficient timeframe.

We all need to ride the waves of what's moving through us,

And to ride them all the way to the end to their natural ends.

And yet,

It's,

It's,

It's absolutely devastating and painful to feel these feelings right when anything ends or with any kind of a loss and so I absolutely understand wanting to have a notion of a sufficient timeframe because it makes it containable and what's most terrifying is the unknown right.

Yeah.

And I know that like when I was like in my postpartum journey when I had chronic acute insomnia like I was,

I was desperate for something like that I was desperate to hear like a timeframe,

Or to have a doctor or a therapist tell me like,

You can expect to get over this in this amount of time right and honestly sometimes I kind of invented one for myself just to have something so I completely get that like,

You might just invent something for yourself.

I'll give myself,

I'll give myself a year,

And then reevaluate you know but just don't have the expectation that it's going to be quote unquote gone in a year,

Right,

Like,

One,

One thing.

One thing that I think is really important to keep in mind is that the things that we go through,

Whether it's loss or trauma.

We do not release them,

We,

There's a lot of kind of half baked trauma healing out there that kind of guides like quote unquote trauma release or and the fact is we don't release the trauma we don't.

We don't get rid of the experiences in our lives.

What we release is its hold on us.

And who we are becomes big enough to hold it all.

So if you imagine like the healing process it's just,

It's that you are getting bigger.

It's not that you're getting rid of your lived experience or what's happened to you,

But you can start to have choices.

It doesn't have a hold on you anymore.

So Chris says I've chronic grief from my past career and life,

How can I daily release and accept myself now to create a new fulfilling life.

Yeah.

So,

I would first of all say have support right so I hope that you have like either you have someone or people in your life you can share your heart with whether that's friendships or a therapist or someone like that because we can't go through this alone,

We just can't we're not wired that way.

And we often need companionship or support of some kind in order to really grieve all the way I've noticed like,

And this is another thing that Melodoma Sommet's teachings on grief have shown me is that in the Daghara practices and grief rituals,

It's always in community.

They always grieve together,

It's always the whole tribe,

The whole group is grieving together.

The women start to wail and they walk through the village and everyone knows someone's died because the women have begun wailing.

And pretty soon everybody is wailing and flailing around and feeling their grief together.

This is the water that we need to quench our modern wasteland.

Right.

This modern wasteland of loneliness is in need of community is in need of collective experience of grief and feeling but the best thing we can do in the culture that we live in now is often to feel our feelings with the witnessing of a therapist or friends or family.

So,

Chris I would just make that intention,

Somehow that to be in some kind of community or witnessing with what you feel,

Because if something is chronic.

It could mean that part of you is bracing against feeling it all the way.

And just like what Carl Jung says what we resist persists.

So oftentimes when we feel stuck,

It's because we're not feeling feelings all the way through we're not letting the wave,

Make its full arc through us.

And usually we do need to have support of another person and witnessing for that wave to move all the way through.

Okay Chris I'm glad to hear that you're in therapy and hopefully it's with therapists you feel connected to.

Yeah,

Let me just scroll a little bit I missed some stuff.

Christine says I try and shift my thinking about a recovery timeline as an ongoing roller coaster ride that slowly evens out but still can have big dips and highs Yeah,

I love that.

Or there's there's a quote that I love that a friend of mine gave and I don't know who said it but it's something like we open and we close and that's how the music happens.

We open and we close and that's how the music happens.

And I know the more I go through the more I've aged.

I'm 36 a lot of people think I'm like 26.

Anyway,

The more I've aged,

The more I've gone through,

The more I realized that the human experience is about this opening and closing,

It's not about attaining anything it's not about a certain idea of success that might externally look a certain way.

It's about being able to let life flow through us.

And the healing process is about opening our hearts,

So that life can flow freely through us.

And so that you can feel feelings naturally as they come up without bracing against them.

And when we do this,

The feelings arise and they might be quite intense but then they also change and shift and,

And move quicker and quicker through us.

So for example,

In my own place on this healing journey right now.

I'm not to say it's better or worse than where anyone else's but just where I personally am at.

I cry super easily at things,

But then I also shift like I find that the tears come and they're really intense and sometimes sometimes I cry on these lives or I cry when I'm teaching elsewhere.

And I don't feel any shame over it.

Because it's feeling moving through me and then it's over and I'm feeling something else.

So this is,

This is my own experience of how this journey of opening and closing has worked for me and what I noticed is that I have more nervous system capacity to be with my life.

So I'm a mom to a toddler right so this is really important.

Or like a real world example of this is that I saw,

So my dad without getting into a whole story about my past.

My dad has been an incredibly triggering figure in my life,

And I hadn't really seen him for an entire year you know and because of COVID and stuff and he got vaccinated so he came over to visit.

And in the past,

I would have freaked out cleaned my house made sure my daughter's hair was all straight and in pigtail you know like he he's on the spectrum,

So he and he expresses that in a very perfectionist kind of way so I would have made sure that like everything in my house is beyond reproach.

But you know what,

When he came the other day after I've done a year of this intensive nervous system healing work and personal work like I almost didn't even think about him visiting to be honest,

Like he just came home and cleaned my house.

And I was able to just be present with him and actually let him be who he is.

And I was myself,

And,

And I was not activated by him right I didn't have an increased heart rate I wasn't sweating I wasn't feeling unsafe.

So,

Of course I was uncomfortable,

Like I wasn't exactly comfortable in my in my father's presence right.

But the healing is in the choices that I had,

And this is what I mean by the trauma doesn't release,

It just releases its hold on us.

All of the trauma from my past related to my dad is still part of who I am and will always be.

But the difference in my healing were the difference my healing work has made is that it doesn't control me anymore.

Right.

I have choices I can be myself and I can let my dad be himself,

Which is you know someone who's doing his best and who is on the spectrum and doesn't have capacity to be present for emotion in a way that that I need and so I've realized that my expectation that he is present in that way for me,

You know,

After two decades of healing work.

But I have to admit that the somatic work I've done in the past year the nervous system healing is what ultimately made the biggest difference for me.

So,

Yeah,

And if you're curious as to what that is and what that consists of.

I highly recommend the book Call of the Wild by Kimberly Ann Johnson that just literally came out.

It's called Call of the Wild by Kimberly Ann Johnson she's a somatic experiencing practitioner,

A nervous system and trauma healing expert.

She has a whole other list of certifications but she's,

She is my teacher of somatic work and trauma healing work so Call of the Wild by Kimberly Ann Johnson will be a fantastic resource for you if you want to dive deep into your own nervous system healing and free yourself.

Yeah,

Chris I'm glad that resonates with you the trauma doesn't release but we release its hold on us.

Yeah,

That's very important.

Alright everyone.

Well the birds back tapping on the window again so I feel it's time for me to go tap tap to go get my husband and baby and say bye to everyone.

So,

Let me just do a refresh because I know that you all often want the book recommendations again and by the way like we can also recommend talk about these books in the shadow work circle on insight timer here.

So make sure to join our little shadow work circle it's not little has 200 people but you know,

It's just a beautiful community and we can all talk more about this in the shadow work circle later if you want.

So,

Again,

I shared these books by Melodoma Sommet Ritual,

Which talks specifically about like grief ritual and Daghra tradition.

And then,

Of water and the spirit is his basically like his story of being,

Being Daghra growing up Daghra being abducted honestly by a French priest as they used to do all the time and brought to seminary school to be a,

You know,

To learn French and to be.

So he was taken away from his village abducted.

When he was when he was like a toddler,

When he was 19,

Was like this cliff notes version of his life.

When he was 19,

He found his way back to his village,

And he had to relearn the Daghra language and the traditions and get initiated.

And so he went on to get two PhDs from Western institutions,

Melodoma Sommet did.

And so his whole life is this amazing bridge between indigenous African tradition and the West,

So he just has this incredible perspective.

So,

I really recommend of water and the spirit and Melodoma Sommet's work.

And so,

Also for it specifically nervous system healing trauma work Call of the Wild by Kimberly Ann Johnson is just an incredible book and it literally came out last week,

But she's been my teacher for years of this somatic work so.

All right,

Everyone well I will see a lot of you in the shadow work circle and look for me in a few weeks back live here and wishing you a beautiful day and thank you so much to all of you,

And make sure to keep tuning into the sensations in your body today especially the ones that feel safe or pleasant,

Or just neutral or less bad because that's the foundation of nervous system resilience building is always being able to return to something like that.

Okay.

Tap,

Tap,

Tap,

Tap.

Bird says it's time to go.

Okay.

Well thank you so much.

Loved all of you and I'll see you again soon.

Okay.

Bye.

Reviews

Such an interesting area that I am so glad Catherine has delved into. I always connect so well with her practices. She shares insightful and candid thoughts and feelings.

I have just revisited this practice and I can resonate so much with feeling “stuck”’ - thank you Catherine for explaining that sometimes this means those lodged emotions, something needs to come forward to be processed. Grief and anger are so difficult for me… but I recognise their deep importance in my life. Catherine always helps me thaw out a little bit, bringing more awareness, but with that kindness that I’m usually habitually lacking. So much love for you Catherine 💜

I am grieving and this talk and meditation was so helpful. From my heart I thank you Catherine.
❤️🙏✨

Another rich and helpful offering, received with gratitude 💜🌿🌸

Thank you, Catherine! It helped me to get closer to my Shadow. Work in progress. 🙏💙

The bird tapping made me think it’s all us new souls tapping and connecting to you. You’re energy and gentle guidance is a precious gift. Thank you for making these safe spaces.

omg ..!!.. thank you ..!!..
much love ..!!..

Every session of Catherine's is so powerful and moving. Thank you for recording the live sessions.

A couple of the profound points I take away from this talk:
—Emotions are energy that want/need to move through us, while many of us deny/block them and pay a price for doing so.
—Trauma never leaves us, but we can learn to let those big emotions pass through us so we can stop the torment of the unresolved/stuck feelings.

As always, I love the book recommendations! Deep gratitude for your work here on IT, Catherine, it is making a difference 🙏🏻❤️🙏🏻

Thank you so much for making these recordins availale. I took notes while listening. There is so much to learn from each episode and I am sure I will be revisiting it many times.