Moving Through Grief With Authentic Grace

Endings and changes leave behind grief. Grief is a big word for many different thoughts, emotions, and experiences that can feel intense and out of control. The mind doesn't know what to do with grief, but I've found there's an art to it letting it be a doorway into deeper presence and empowerment. This is a LIVE talk recording.

Transcript

We'll just ground into our bodies and our breath and then I'll take you through a chat about grief and my own experience what I've learned and hopefully it will help guide you.

Okay so if you're comfortable here in your seat just gently close your eyes.

And as you sit a little taller through your spine just take a full breath in and sigh it out.

Good,

Take another breath in and sigh it out.

Connect your hand to your heart,

Hand to your belly.

And just tap into this natural flow of energy in your body through your breath,

Your heartbeat.

Just notice your awareness in this present moment that you're here,

You've landed,

Supported by the ground and present with everyone here in this space.

Take one more breath into your heart and release.

All right gently open up your eyes.

Okay so allow yourself to take from this chat what resonates with you.

I really hope that it supports you.

So moving through grief is definitely the experience that we have all been going through these past couple of years all in our different ways.

But I want to talk to it because I have definitely been through it and I've been through a lot of navigating through grief.

And when it comes to this I want us to start from this like really big perspective and this really big understanding that like grief is like such a simple word for so so so many different experiences.

So it's easy to just be like oh it's grief but really when you say that it's a mouthful,

It's a handful,

It's like so so so much is wrapped up and tied up within that word.

Okay so some things that are a part of this is intense emotions,

Thoughts,

And memories that seem to come up out of your control spontaneously and just you know all over the place.

Okay so there's this there's this uncertainty and this lack of control around very intense experiences such as emotions,

Thoughts,

Memories,

That sort of thing.

They can seem to come out of nowhere right?

So this experience is forcing you to release control.

So that's a piece of it.

Another big piece of it is that grief literally changes you.

It changes you.

It initiates change right?

Like the change has maybe sometimes been chosen by you that ending you know whatever happened in your life but maybe it wasn't.

Maybe it was swept up from under you.

Maybe someone suddenly passed away.

Maybe something suddenly just left your life and you were just in shock.

That initiates change.

So whether you were a part of it or not you know consciously choosing it or not,

Change is a huge huge part of this and not just like a change and like oh now I have like you know like different relationships or a different work or whatever it is but like it changes you.

Like it changes your own sense of self,

How you relate to yourself,

How you know yourself,

And how you know your life.

So it's really an ego death as well.

So the ego of what was a previous structure that was held in contact in connection right has fallen away and now you're left with this new experience.

That's change okay?

So that's another big part of it.

There's huge amounts of change that is wrapped up within grief okay?

And then another big piece of this is the practicing of vulnerability,

Feeling your own boundaries,

Listening to yourself,

Contemplation right?

Because as you navigate all of this you have to open up space for harder conversations,

For feeling and showing different parts of your being that maybe you weren't as comfortable showing before.

So that's another big piece of it.

So it's like a courageous step into expressing more of yourself than maybe you have previously expressed before and it's a push and a nudge into that okay?

So that's another big piece of it.

And another piece of it is being willing to receive the gifts that come from it.

Now we're not denying the pain,

We're not denying that,

But at the same time as we acknowledge that,

We're acknowledging that there is a deepening that is happening with grief.

There is a deepening that is happening with your experience of life,

With your experience of this present moment,

With the experience of yourself,

With other people.

And you have to be willing to let those insights and the lessons and the deepening actually happen for you okay?

Because everything in life has its place and death and endings and change are a fundamental part of our experience so they have a purpose.

Although they're challenging and super hard,

We have to be open also to this other piece of grief which is its purpose right?

Which is the depth that it's providing us in our life okay?

So let me try and speak a little bit deeper to all these pieces.

So for me,

I went through all sorts of loss the past couple of years right?

From relationships ending to people close to me dying to you know,

I'm sure you've been through similar experiences.

Some of it I felt like I was a part of the change and was you know,

Conscious about it.

Other things came out of nowhere,

They were sudden,

They were shocking,

They jolted my reality right?

It's a jolt in our reality when we experience grief okay?

Especially if it's not chosen because then what we're also grieving is the dream or the expectation of a imagined future with that thing,

That being,

That job,

Whatever it is we imagined it would be and now we're grieving that dream that has died.

So there's dream death also in grief okay?

So my experience with it and how I've practiced navigating this with how I've been living with spirituality and in my life and being really authentic with my humanity as best as I can.

So it's really really important that especially when the grief first happens and you feel a lot of emotion,

Maybe you don't feel it right away but when that emotion first hits you whether it's right away or shortly after you know when you've kind of let the shock wear off and you get that big flood of like emotions,

It is the most important thing of your life I'd say arguably to feel those emotions okay?

So what that means is if you feel one tear come in,

You let yourself go to a place where you can let a thousand tears go you know like if you feel and you hold yourself in that process right like you hold yourself deeply in that process and feeling it is so fundamental because it's not something that you're actually it's not something you're actually trying to do or you're like making happen but feeling your emotions and letting the grief and the that energy move through you what you're actually doing is you're just stepping out of the way to let your physical body work its intelligence okay?

Your physical body is insanely intelligent it's completely connected with the universe with the universal intelligence the cycles of life and everything and it inherently knows you don't have to know this on a mental level it inherently already knows how to release all of its emotion all of that energy all that suckness all that fear all that shock all that sadness all that anger your body knows how to release it it's built for that it's not built to break under those circumstances our mind may doubt the power of the body thinking the mind may think oh it's all me I'm the strong one but no the body is incredibly strong incredibly powerful and not none of these experiences have to break you because they're a part of life so it's not like it's not like you're never going to get past it okay the mind may tell you you're never going to get past it you better hide you better run you're not going to make it out of this alive but I'd arguably say that the mind is connected to the ego structure and to the life and the dream that you had with that thing previously and it was attached to the expectation and where you thought that was going to go in the future so the mind isn't wrong in the sense that the ego and the dream will die right that's true part of your ego part of yourself that change is going to happen change causes an ego death and the mind is the ego it's the ego itself it's not a bad thing it's just a part of us and it is fully identified and fully attached to what was and what it wanted it to be okay so thanks for the hearts loves so that it's the mind is not wrong that a death is happening but if we identify too strongly with that mind and that connection to the structure then we can mistake it as I'm literally not going to make it out of this alive like my I'm going to actually die or I'm never going to be you know like okay again and so if I let myself even feel a little bit or even go down that hole who knows who knows what's going to happen and that fear comes up and everything I'm saying there comes from the mind because the mind knows yes there is going to be a death that is happening okay this is where we need to surrender into the intelligence of your body intelligence of your body is sitting there waiting desperately to feel waiting desperately to release because trust me your body does not want to hold on to anything stagnant it wants to keep it moving if you look at life around you everything is in constant motion the seasons are constantly spinning the sun is constantly rising and falling the plants are constantly growing everything in the universe is growing nothing stops nothing is in pause nothing is in stagnancy your physical body is the exact same process it's a part of it okay so when you realize that and you recognize that your mind doesn't have to do anything to process your grief unless it wants to journal here and there or talk but in terms of feeling the emotion your body does not your mind doesn't have to do anything in terms of doing that besides in understanding the importance and letting it happen that's it because it's already happening so you may notice that like you're going along in your life and then you get a big rush of sadness a big rush of anger a big rush of pain this seems like it comes out of nowhere well it's the only reason it seems like it's coming out of nowhere is because your mind is not planning to feel your mind will not plan when to feel it won't do that so it will plan your day-to-days and what will happen is the intelligence of your body when it wants to because it's smart release it will start doing that and it your body is hoping that you and your mind will give it space to release and to feel and to process that grief okay so like for example like for me when i had like really deep like shocking things happen that cause a lot of grief it was like everything i could do to make room in my schedule it happened you know and then the space that i had i would let myself sit and breathe into it even if it was just the smallest bit of tension smallest bit of tightness or the littlest bit of like crying coming you notice the mind wanting to block that and be like no just push it back in and keep going do like a machine but you're not a machine so you notice your mind doing that and then you're like okay this is important all you have to do is recognize the importance and the value of letting your intelligence of your physical body process your emotions that's all you have to do once you recognize that you will value it and when you value it you'll give it time and space when you give it time and space the body will already do it so you just let yourself feel by whatever means bawling shaking hyperventilating vomiting like anything that your body needs to do to purge because that wound it's like an open wound when it first happens like an open wound and it can be very very sensitive and it can want to you know release its pain and feel from time and you know again and again and you let that happen so when grief initially happens when the thing that triggers grief in your life initially happens very important to honor and value the intelligence of your body in releasing that emotional energy it's not a bad thing you can hold yourself through it okay and you hold yourself through it with compassion with compassion so one of the deepest things that grief is teaching all of us is compassion compassion for yourself okay and i'm going to give you a little side note on that i was listening to medical mediums recent podcast that he just released on soundcloud so you gotta i don't have a soundcloud account so i had to google it but you just google medical medium compassion podcast and it was just incredible just the little pieces he said this morning like basically you know put to the side any sort of need or expectation for confidence or self-love put that aside you know don't worry about loving yourself don't worry about being confident just allow yourself to access compassion practice compassion okay because he speaks about better than i will here how compassion is the deepest most rooted strong connection that will not fluctuate like self-love can turn into self-hatred and float back and forth confidence can turn into self-doubt and go back and forth constantly and that does not feel like a stable ground to stand on compassion is a stable ground to stand on it will always be there unrelenting okay so this is where we practice that and i'm gonna tell you about that medical medium compassion podcast because i'm gonna recommend that you go listen to that for a little bit deeper into into that compassion piece okay so then you've released okay so you've released as much as you can at the beginning that's coming up then you start to feel like you're empty you're like okay like i felt a whole bunch okay i just feel like i'm kind of disconnected you know from the world a bit i'm just you know just i'm just kind of floating in this kind of space where i don't i don't feel clear on a lot of things i just don't know okay that's okay that's the process of your inner self you know integrating this experience that is going to change you so it is changing you and the reason you don't have clarity is because part of your ego structure is dying and that's okay you're in this sort of mystery uncertainty place before you're going to start a new dream will start but you don't know when that's going to start and there's no init there's no forcing there's no pressure you're just in that space okay so now the body you know sometimes when things really really tragic or intense happen which i can understand i've been through your body sometimes i believe deeply will not be able to fully release all of it right away right and this is why we talk about grief coming in waves because i believe that the body can only handle so much at once so once it's handled a little once you felt a little then you go back into your life and then you feel it come up again because the body feels grounded and safe and it got a little bit more strength and now it's ready to process a little bit more so you have to be hand in hand you have to be partners and best friends with your body through the grief process your mind and your body right your mind is keeping the day-to-day going as best as it can so you can stay alive but when the body comes up and brings that you know experience forward that it's ready to release more you have to bow to it and let that happen okay so that's really important letting yourself feel okay as a process goes on and it will slowly start to shift more and more and more out of the physical body and you can get support in this right you can work with you know whatever you have a safe space that feels good for you to release in or to be witnessed in with your emotions as humans we really want to be witnessed in our pain that we're seen and validated and still loved through our pain so maybe you have a friend or a family member or a therapist or someone that can witness you crying that can witness you in your pain that's incredibly important and a need so you don't feel alone in your emotions and alone and what you're going through if you don't have that that's okay you focus on doing it yourself and you talk to people as you can okay so you don't get isolated in this experience okay if you don't let yourself feel not to create a fear around this but this is what i've come to realize because grief is grief is just a big rush of intense emotions we we experience intense emotions all the time in our lives but grief is a big rush of it right so if we don't let ourselves feel what happens is those emotions and those thoughts and everything get plugged up in our system and they create in a tense body a rigid mind a lack of life force energy a dullness and negativity resentment um judgments all those things they start to build up from that like stale left over energy that's been wanting to move out of your body but you didn't let happen right so and i've done this for a lot of my life too until i started to feel so you can start anytime you want right but what will happen if you don't let that you just get more and more disconnected your life force energy gets blocked off because you are a part of the universe which is constantly changing constantly in motion constantly wanting to feel and rebirth and die and rebirth constantly within your lifetime and if you don't allow that process to happen you block yourself off from the life force energy which wants to move through you and then life gets really stagnant and dull and you can start to build up a lot of negativity and resentment and deep rooted like that deep rooted grief will lead to various forms of sickness okay so it's actually a part of our process to practice vulnerability and to practice feeling and that's what grief is teaching us is giving us a doorway into practicing feeling vulnerability deeper conversations more honest conversations with people you're around to like if you have something come up through that grief you know wave is coming up to heal and you're in a situation where like you can't feel in that moment then you're going to have to practice your honest conversations and your boundaries and be like i have to go home now i have to take care of myself or you know you have to like shift things around or get yourself really supported and nurtured so it's teaching you how to take care of yourself right and through that whole process you're practicing at the fundamental deep compassion deep compassion and you're letting go of any sort of expectation about how long this process is going to take right like oh is this going to be going on forever your mind doesn't know the answer to that question your body is moving through that and for all of us is going to be different okay then what starts to happen over time i found is you get the memories coming back right you get things coming back you get maybe bits of sadness or missing or something coming through but it doesn't need to completely you know break you apart and you can let yourself live with it and living with it is not like you're living with a negative thing it's not a negative thing because one of the deepest gifts that i've noticed that grief has taught me over the time and you'll make you'll be open and aware like i mentioned at the beginning you're open to being changed and to letting the gifts and the teachings of grief to to come in and to teach you right so if you start to get insight so you start to get you know clarity coming through through this time you're very open your heart's open you're very open to change let those things that really land guide you forward right so for me i noticed that i became extra present with the moment i became more present with the people i was with i was not as i was not tapping out as much or disconnecting as much on my phone or like being in my head i was constantly bringing my awareness back to who's in front of me right now you know what's going on right now what they're saying right now and the relationship that's happening right now you know what's going well right now and all the things that are going well got hyper focused into my awareness so i immediately became so much more present with life because going through that process rocks you and teaches you it the impermanence and the temporary nature of everything and it wakes you up to that which makes you more grateful more connected and more present with what's already in front of you it also has taught me do you know to not not take time and your life force energy for granted right like time is not something that you can hold on to it's continuously moving and your life force energy is incredibly sacred so how you use your energy where you put your energy and your your attention and how you use your time is incredibly important and it taught me even deeper to acknowledge that and respect that and honor it in a level that i had wasn't you know as deep before these things happened you know so it's like makes you contemplate even more you know thanks for the hearts loves it makes you contemplate even more where are my values does my day do my days reflect my values right because how you live your day is how you live your life so how are you living your day does your day reflect your values right like is each day reflecting what brings you joy right like you you start to really cut out those things that you feel like are not a good use of your energy or time because it's been brought to your attention through this process how you know temporary life is because you just went through a loss or a big change and that thing is not here anymore so you got to wake up to what is and make sure that your attention is here for what is right and so what that does is it is an invitation into depth into the present moment now you have to be willing to take that right like that's an invitation and you may get other insights and learnings that come through to you almost guaranteed you will because grief will teach you change will teach you and you can take those lessons to deepen and enrich in your life okay but if you don't allow those things to happen if you're not open to the change you're not open to you know what could be and to letting the things that have passed pass then you will become resentful and you will cling and if you don't feel what's in your body you'll get stagnant and rigid and the gifts won't have an opportunity to unfold right so you have to co-create with your grief what's going to come forward after it right and i'm not just i'm not saying grief is an opportunity i'm just saying that it has its gifts and its potential as everything does in in our life right as painful and as hard and as terrible as it is shocking horrifying at times right but nothing that is shocking horrifying and terrible doesn't come with its other silver lining that you can take from it because life works in those polarities okay so understanding that there's never any true failure true failure does not exist there's always the other side of the coin okay and it's all just happening together in this collaborative way okay so let me just see if there's anything else in my notes that i want to speak to here so what will happen you know when you allow yourself to you know let grief teach you and it opens your eyes to life in the moment is it it will quite possibly and it has for me to give you deeper peace and contentment with the simplicity of life right deeper peace and contentment with just things you know being simple and wholesome and that starts to feel like enough right because you're like wow this is this is incredible you know this is here and i can feel it and your heart is more open grief is cracking your heart open you're more open to receiving joy and peace and connection within your life and you will find likely that you are more content with you know life just going well as it is and you may notice that a certain neediness or things to change to feel better or to be more satisfied starts to shift away and you start to feel that satisfaction that fulfillment more and more in you know the simple conversations and holding you're in holding a gaze with you know a loved one's eyes or a friend's eyes for a couple minutes and like the smile you share when you're cooking a meal together and like the moment that you're sipping your tea and staring at the stars and thinking wow what a magical wonderful world you know like those moments get so deep and so rich if you allow them to with grief okay and you hold all the process in in compassion because really the deepest things that we're dealing with here is change uncertainty and lack of control right and fear of death right like that's all coming up so grief is a handful it is a mouthful it is a lot that is happening at once and i really really just yeah send my heart out to you because i know that we're all in this process in one way or another as we're allowing this this change and this shift to start to happen you know in our personal lives in our collective world um there is a lot of this in between kind of you know uncertainty where we don't know what's going to happen and we feel like some things may be out of control okay but that's okay because that's the mind again fearing the death of what was which is on its way out it's not everything that you are there is a deeper stronger part of you that is your spirit your body your heart that is fully prepared and fully meant to handle the endings and the beginnings of your life and it's not you know unusual and it's normal and you are strong enough you're made for this so just know that and allow grief to teach you and to deepen you in all the ways that it's trying to right let it let it sink you deeper into contentment and wisdom and joy and connection of the present moment and allow it to teach you how to feel how to be vulnerable how to access more levels of your being how to set boundaries how to value your time and your energy okay and how to at the deepest root event tap in to that sacred miraculous nature of life and waking up to that through what's already here and what is still here right that is the root of what sparks all else in magic and joy within your life going forwards is tapping into that wow factor that awe factor of the moment and grief can open you up to that so take it slow as it's like an open wound okay and it's sensitive and it needs you and above all it needs your compassion you are practicing how to be compassionate with yourself okay and that will over time shift into compassion for other people in the world okay okay i love you take care take good care

Reviews

What a wise and truthful talk and reflection on Grief. After loosing my fur baby in 2019, my Dad in 2020 and my Mum very recently in March 2024 this rings so true to my experience. I have allowed myself to feel all the deep feelings and even though it is as painful as hell I also feel more appreciative and grateful for the small things than ever and reconnected more deeply with spirit, non-duality and God. I am also seeing myself,others and things more clearly. Thank you Laura for your heartfelt and thoughtful reflection on grief. ❤

Thank you Laura, my father transitioned last month and my heart feels like it is going to explode. This talk gives me hope that I will make it through. 🙏🏽❤️

Wow so much wisdom in that I will likely need to listen again. Immense gratitude! 💕🙏