So welcome everyone.
This particular type of grief.
Arises when we have had a sudden loss or a traumatic loss.
Through many different avenues.
It typically tends to be a very abrupt.
Or shocking experience.
And we will be attending to what happens in our bodies as we navigate this type of loss.
The main challenge with a traumatic loss is that there is this kind of impact shock in our nervous system.
Of sudden news,
Of something that you didn't expect.
It's a diagnosis or an accident.
Whatever it is,
It's sudden.
And so.
That shock peace.
Kind of alters.
How our grief process goes.
So I actually looked up the definition of shock just to see what the dictionary says.
And the definition of shock.
A sudden mental or emotional disturbance.
A disturbance in the equilibrium.
Or permanence of something.
Something that causes such disturbance,
And a state of being disturbed.
And so there's this like sudden rupture or shattering that can occur when the loss happens suddenly.
And so when our nervous system takes in the suddenness of a loss,
We each have our own bio-individuated response to that depending on our our own individual nervous system,
Our history in our nervous system.
And the different events.
So I'll just share.
Some of what can happen.
And some of you might find that it's a fit for your own experience.
So some people,
Their nervous system,
Upon finding out about a traumatic loss,
Will go up into a high sympathetic nervous system state.
A fight-flight state.
And you will notice that because some of what you experience can be worry,
Anxiety,
Anger.
Difficulty sleeping or eating.
And because it's in this sympathetic state,
This nervous system state,
There's a deep desire to do something,
To try and fix it,
To try and understand it.
That agitation about.
Understanding what happened and trying to get the details,
Which are sometimes difficult to get.
Sometimes a gathering of information that can be kind of in an agitated,
You know,
I have to get this.
I have to do something.
I have to find out about this.
And that is all part of that.
Very strong,
Intense.
Up regulation in your nervous system.
This sympathetic fight-flight.
There's a lot of stress hormones floating around your system.
And it's very difficult to settle from that.
Some of you may also go into a dorsal vagal system freeze or collapse.
This is part of the parasympathetic nervous system,
But when something shocking happens to us,
We experience more of a feeling stunned.
Feeling like shocked and immobilized.
Like unable to.
Process unable to think clearly or speak or do things and there's like this stunned disbelief like this couldn't have happened or just not knowing how to process,
And there can also be difficulty with eating and sleeping,
And there can be a sense of kind of living in a fog or sometimes even feeling dissociated.
Just not grounded at all.
And that can also be very challenging.
And some people go back and forth between the high sympathetic agitation,
Got to find out,
And then the collapse.
And feeling the disbelief and the immobilization.
So these responses in our nervous system are protective.
Our nervous system is trying to understand what happened.
In the only way that it can.
Your system may move back and forth between you may feel yourself predominantly in one state.
And it can be very challenging.
In addition,
The brain.
Has to go through a very complex set of rewiring that actually takes quite a bit of time.
Our brains are used to this person.
You know,
Or this place that we might have lost or a job.
We're used to the rhythm and the regularity and the spatial connection and the sensory components of of this experience,
Of place,
Of connection,
Of time.
Qualities,
Right?
Sounds and Touch.
And so the brain all of a sudden has this huge vacuum.
What was there is no longer there.
It takes time for the brain to reorganize itself.
Around this loss.
And that process,
There's no timeline for it.
And so the comments of,
Well,
You've been grieving for a year,
Just get over it,
Are really not helpful.
Because everyone's nervous system and brain has to reorganize and that takes very different time for each of us.
When we get some shocking news of a loss,
We can also have a very physical shock response.
Right where we might faint or start sweating or our heart rate dysregulates and breathing and that does require some medical assistance.
And so that is not something to meditate yourself out of.
So make sure that you do get some physical.
You know,
Medical assistance if that is,
You know,
What's happened.
And so if If you have experienced a loss like this,
My heart goes out to each one of you.
It is so challenging and so surprising and stunning.
And It can be helpful to understand.
In understanding your own process with this to know about your nervous system.
Which is why I am sharing this.
It's also really,
Really important to have kind and supportive people around you.
It makes the process a bit smoother.
It's a very bumpy process,
But someone that might encourage you to eat or that could cook for you or do some errands or that kind of thing is really important and is very needed when a person is going through this.
And this shock response,
Over time,
It does lessen as Your brain and nervous system begins to accommodate to the loss,
But often the shock doesn't actually leave your system and it can show up in other areas.
So when I was doing my somatic experiencing training,
One of my colleagues was doing a demo with the teacher.
And all of a sudden one of her ears started feeling funny and kind of sick and foggy.
And so the teacher worked with her with this somatic approach.
To trauma and.
.
.
What she realized is that this ear was still holding the charge of hearing news through a phone call about two traumatic losses she'd had.
And so I give this example because it shows how the body receives this input.
You know,
She had gotten a phone call about a loss.
And her ear Still.
.
.
Got a little funny at different times.
And these losses were years and years ago.
And so some signs of lingering shock in your system can include disturbed sleep at the time of the event where the loss occurred.
There can be responses on the anniversaries of the event.
There can be this kind of long term increasing exhaustion from trying to override and just get on with your life and kind of push the shock and the loss and the grief aside.
There can be some lingering alterations in your own physiology of your breath.
Right,
Does it?
Do you have a little gasp if you try to take a deep breath or is digestion never been quite the same?
Or perhaps body pain.
This understanding that the losses can and the shock can remain in the system.
Is really helpful.
Because we can have a lot more compassion for ourselves.
You know of course this is still happening in my body this the shock may still be kind of reverberating in your nervous system.
And so if possible,
If you can,
You know,
If you're experiencing this to find some good trauma therapy that focuses on the body,
Some somatic-based therapy processes can be really,
Really helpful.
In helping this shock response to Complete and move out of your system.
So that's a lot of information and thank you for bearing with me with that.
In our practice today,
We're not going to be doing trauma therapy with your loss,
But we're going to be turning our attention in and just being curious.
About what we notice in our body that may be related to a traumatic loss.
So we're going to be naming and noticing and sensing into what might still be lingering from a loss.
And having a lot of compassion.
And kindness for this response.
Okay.
So as always with my practices,
Especially on tender topics like this,
Pace yourself.
If you just want to listen and not do the practice,
That is totally okay.
Um,
You know,
Do what is the most helpful for you and You know,
Notice if you're starting to get a little overwhelmed or ungrounded,
That's the cue.
For yourself to just take pause,
Look around,
Maybe just listen,
Maybe lean back.
So I have two poems for you today.
I'll read one now at the beginning.
And one at the end of our practice.
So come into a posture.
That is kind for your body.
Settle in.
Notice what's how your body is.
And honor your body nudgings,
Your intuition in this practice.
And Find an anchor.
That is outside of your body.
This can be a sensory anchor that is visual or auditory or maybe touch,
You know,
Something soft or a rock you can hold.
Something to anchor your attention outside of your body if you need a home base to come back to.
And So doing that can be,
It's part of our trauma-informed safety practice as we do this meditation.
And the first poem is entitled,
Sometimes Grief Looks Like This.
Rosemary Watola-Trommer The woman walks into the woods.
How beautiful,
She thinks.
Though on closer look all around her.
The woods sprawl in wild disarray.
Fallen logs decompose,
Wood rots,
Decays.
Bark peels.
Brambles scramble.
Berries darken and shrivel.
Moss drops off in great chunks.
Broken sticks hang from broken branches.
And all of it belongs.
She thinks how messy grief can be.
The barbed thorns of anger.
Vast thickets of I don't know.
Most times,
There's no trail at all.
Why did she think human nature would be any different from nature itself?
Oh,
This messy humaning.
She tells herself.
All belongs.
All belongs.
The more she believes it,
The more she feels the forest inside her.
Witnesses how the more it stretches,
The more it rots,
The more it grows.
And so as we enter into this practice of turning towards traumatic loss to remember that it can be kind of messy.
Right vast thickets of I don't know.
Thorns of anger and the fog.
Of feeling displaced.
So bringing tenderness to it all because all of this belongs.
In your process.
So invite one experience of loss to rise into your awareness.
Maybe not pick the most intense one,
But.
Just see what is.
.
.
Showing itself to be touched today.
And try not to go into the storyline deeply.
Because there can be.
A high charge there.
We're going to be focusing more on our body response.
But notice this event.
And name it.
Ah,
Here it is.
I see you.
I see this event.
I see what I lost in this experience.
Acknowledge to yourself how hard this was and maybe still is for you.
Oh,
This was so difficult.
Perhaps acknowledging that this moment changed the trajectory of your life.
And as you are Noticing and recalling and naming this event.
Notice and be curious as to what kind of still lights up inside of you.
What kind of activation might still be there?
What,
Reverberation?
Might still be happening today.
Inside of you.
From this event,
No matter how long ago it was.
And you might notice this as.
.
.
You know,
A tingling or a buzzing in a certain place in your body.
It could be a restlessness or a tightness.
Or a numbness.
You might notice it in unusual places like your ears,
Your eyes.
Or your hands or your feet.
Your belly.
Notice this internal response.
And name it.
Talk to your body.
Ah,
Body.
I see where you're still holding some charge from this event.
This loss,
This grief.
I can feel a bit of it now.
I can name it.
Thank you for protecting me.
Thank you for absorbing the shock of this event.
So that I can keep on going.
So offering your body.
Deep gratitude.
For whatever response.
Your body had at the time and may still have.
And as you notice and name this,
Energy that's still There in your in your body.
If you can get curious about it and And notice,
Does this energy want to move?
Does it want your body to move?
Is it wanting to leave your body?
And if so,
Maybe see if you can imagine an opening.
Or a portal,
Or maybe.
Kind of shaking off.
Wiggling,
Exhaling.
If this energy wants to move.
Out and through.
Being very gentle with your response.
This is not a cathartic movement,
Not a very intense movement.
Small and slow is good.
And if the energy doesn't want to move at all,
That's okay too.
You're doing such powerful work by noticing it.
And naming it.
Perhaps sensing,
Ah,
Yes.
At the time,
I went into my sympathetic and maybe Few months later I dropped into my dorsal and I went into kind of some numbness.
Or maybe I'm still in the agitation.
Maybe there's lower energy.
Have such kind curiosity.
About your internal response to this loss.
If you wish,
You can pendulate your attention if you need to move away from that activated area.
Notice if there's another part of your body that is less activated,
Less charged.
That might be more regulated and get curious about that place.
That pendulation can be.
Help keep our nervous system in a flow state.
It can help inform.
The rest of our body that,
Oh,
Here is a pocket of regulation.
And there's a pocket of dysregulation,
And I can hold both.
And I can see both.
I can notice a name.
There's strength here.
Even while there is some buzzing over there.
If need be.
Go to your external anchor that you chose just to give another pause.
That is a type of pendulation also.
Shifting our attention from our internal experience to noticing something in our environment,
In our external world.
And then I'd like you to let that event.
Fade away.
And feel yourself in your posture.
Coming back to the here and now,
Present moment.
And acknowledge yourself for who you are.
The courage to look at this for the courage of surviving what you went through.
And perhaps with the time that has passed,
Maybe there's.
.
.
Increased compassion for your experience back then.
Knowledgement of how you've grown now and how you can Hold this experience.
In a different way.
A kinder way,
A more informed way of,
Oh,
That's what was happening in my body.
Oh,
That makes such sense.
There was nothing wrong with me.
I was having a very normal response to a very Awful.
Experience.
Of course I'm okay.
My body did what it needed to do.
To keep me safe enough.
And then also sending out compassion to everyone here listening.
Knowing that we all have experienced loss and many of us traumatic loss.
And we are still here.
And this is difficult.
And that grief.
Changes over time that it doesn't go completely away.
And it is all part of this.
Amazing,
Difficult,
Challenging human experience.
And everything that you're feeling belongs,
Just like.
The forest,
Everything in the forest belongs.
The new growth.
And the old decomposition.
And so I'll close.
With another poem from Rosemary Watola Trommer,
Who suffered the loss of her son.
And she has a lot of poems on grief.
This one is entitled The Mirror.
Overnight,
Every red leaf on the maple tree has fallen to the ground and formed an imperfect pool of red around the solemn trunk,
The dark bare limbs.
This is how it was the day you died.
In an instant,
The tree of me went from radiance to nakedness.
Impossible to hide.
Years later,
I see what I couldn't see then.
How beautiful to be that bear when all that is lost is still so close.
When the limbs of the body still remember the exact texture and weight.
Of what they once held.
How sacred that nakedness.
That opens us to the world.
I have grown so many new leaves.
That sacredness has never left.
Thank you so much for your practice with me today.
