Grief Meditation

I was feeling the grief today and decided to record this for you and for me because often the hardest part of grief is that we feel like we have to go through it alone. I'm walking you through some of the somatic practices I use that help me process my grief and ways I think about grief that have been supportive for me. Take what you like and leave the rest. This is good for grief around the death of a loved one, infertility (TTC or IVF), going no contact with a family member, etc. It is a very general grief meditation. I hope it resonates with you and feels supportive.

Transcript

Hey friend, Welcome to today's grief meditation. We're going to be talking about the sadness, The grief. The hard stuff that you're going through because I feel like For me, Grief hits us in the wildest ways. And it's sometimes unconventional. And I was feeling the grief myself today. And I was really craving having a meditation to walk through it with me. So I made this for me and for you. Because sometimes it's hard. Sometimes the hardest part really of grief is feeling like you're doing it alone. And so you're not alone today. I'm here with you right beside you. And I'm so proud of you for taking the time to feel this to be with me. Wow, You're doing such a good job of taking care of yourself, Even in the grief. And that's really impressive, Too. You're doing it exactly right. Because there's no one right way to do grief. There's no one right way to be at the bottom of the roller coaster as I call it. There's no one right way to be in the dark. However grief looks for you right now, It makes sense. And if you need or want to cry or wail or just let all the tears or snot or whatever drip down Like all of it is just fine. Let it all come. It's all welcome here. And we're gonna just get ourselves set up to be totally supported and held. So if you can find a wall near you, You're gonna put your legs up the wall. In whatever capacity feels good to you. Maybe you put them all the way up. Maybe you just like to hit your knees. I'm going to lay down with you too. Maybe just tent your knees so that your feet are on the ground, But your knees are up. Or you can put your feet up on the wall, Whichever feels more comfortable for you. And then I want you to lay your arms. Log beside you, So you're almost creating like a T for yourself. And let those arms hang heavy. And just notice how this opens up your chest. Grief, They say grief lives in the lungs. And so if you're having trouble breathing, Or if perhaps you have asthma and that's flaring up, That always happens for me. They say grief lives in the lungs. And so when we can open up our chests, It actually like helps us, But only do this if this is supportive for you. If this feels like too much, You can bring your, Your feet down, Put them on the ground. Or you can even like shift to one side if that feels better. So to open up that heart, Open up those lungs, Let the grief come out. Let it all flow, Let those tears come. If you want to make noises, Go for it. You're safe here. Another thing that can really help is they also say that the left side is like our past and so if you feel called to you can like rub your left arm or massage your left shoulder. I feel like sometimes my grief can live and my left shoulder get trapped in there sometimes. So maybe that might help for you. If you are feeling it in your lungs and it feels hard to breathe, If you put your hand like right where your ribs come together. Almost like underneath your diaphragm. You just add a little bit of pressure right there. It's one of the easiest ways to. Help calm those lungs down. Help them know that they're safe to take up space. Think about filling up your belly as you breathe. Let it all go. If it feels good, Let those arms go long again now. Think about pushing your air down into your belly as your legs are up that wall. We're just creating space here, Letting the grief breathe. Grief is just proof that there was love, Right? That there is love there. So whatever loss you're sad about today, It makes sense. It's just love, Right? It's really hard and painful sometimes. I be here with you. We're just going to breathe through it and let it be true. Maybe it's a hard kind of grief that there's a part of you that's happy and a part of you that's sad. That makes sense. Maybe you're just angry about how it all happened. That makes sense too. Maybe you're just missing. What you had or what you thought you'd have or what you were supposed to have. That grief makes sense. Just let it all fall out. Let the tears come. I'm not a hawk. Make whatever noises you need to. It's just me. Just be here with you. Who are allowed to be in the dark together. There's a story. Where this person is really experiencing some darkness and some grief. She finds this like deep dark library and as she goes down into the library the fog comes up. It gets hard to see and she's kind of scared of the library and she ends up kind of avoiding going down down down into these depths and darkness of the library but eventually she befriends the house and befriends the library and ends up like walking into the darkness and walking into the depths and the fog comes around her and she's not scared she's allowed to be there and I just sometimes when the grief starts to swallow me up, I think of that scene of like, We're just walking down. The different levels of the library. We're just getting down to the bottom. The fog is around us. It feels overwhelming and yet we're still safe. We're allowed to be sad. We're allowed to be grieving. We're allowed to be going through the darkness. And we're still safe. There's still a floor underneath us. There's still handrails as we go down the library. Going down to the lower levels like it's still we're still safe We have a little light with us. We have each other. The darkness says it wouldn't hurt us. It just wants to help us get through it, Right? And it's really horrible and I think it sucks that as humans, The only way to get through our emotions is to move through them. There's no going over them. There's no going under them. I wish I could give you a secret key that you could just lock this grief away and never have to look at it again if it's really hurting you. But the truth is, The more we let ourselves feel our emotions, The more we let ourselves get it out. We take so much weight off of ourselves when we do that. And then what we, They say in parenting, I have a toddler right now, And they say like the more that toddlers are able to experience the negative emotions, Like the more that they like practice those, The more access they have to higher emotions as well, Right? The more anchor they can feel, The more access they have to joy. And I think that's true for all of us. And so maybe you're just growing your capacity for joy by feeling this grief. I'm really sorry you're going through whatever it is that's happening right now. Oh, It's so hard, Right? It's so hard to be human sometimes. And I know that this darkness is just helping you reach the next level of joy too. And if you're not ready to hear that, I feel like there have been so many moments in my grief journey where I would have wanted to cuss someone out for saying that to me. So if you're in that space, I feel that too. And you don't have to focus on that right now. It's allowed to just be hard. It's allowed to just be sad. The grief is just like allowed to be there. We don't have to try and fix it. But if it feels good to think about. The light on the other side of the darkness and coming out of the library and feeling good. I want that for you too. But if we just need to sit at the bottom of the library and just cry and wail, That's perfect too. One of the best things I've done for my body has been thinking about like, What do I really need right now in this moment? Do I need to go scream? Do I need to go hit pillows? Do I need to throw up? Do I need to. . . Do I need to cry? Do I need to wail? Do I need to. . . Do I need to go for a walk? Do I need to go for a run? And paying attention to all of those things. Right now my body really wants to move and it doesn't actually feel comfortable to have my legs up on the wall anymore. So I'm just moving my legs around and opening my hips. Do whatever feels good to you. Do they ever need to go scream at your car? Or whatever, Please feel free to do that too. Grief is just like a window into I don't know our soul I think and just like knowing that there's so much couldn't touch it with our grief. We don't have to run from it. We don't have to hide. It's just proof that there's love there. That can be really hard. So I'm here with you. And I want to invite you to stay as long as it feels good for you. And we'll just breathe together for a few more moments. If you want and if you feel ready to calm your body in order to move on with your day. They say that. Even just feeling an emotion for 90 seconds can help us move through those things. And so we are totally allowed to take as long as you want, But also knowing that 90 seconds is enough, I feel like is really helpful for me. Also, They say that cortisol, Which is the stress hormone, Leaves your body through your tears. And so I've had so many clients and friends have like thoughts about not wanting to cry and see it as a weakness or like just being raised to not cry or whatever. And I think one of the most powerful things to know is that we're literally letting our stress leave our body as we cry. And so I always celebrate crying. Always celebrate the tears because you're doing good. The work you're getting the stress out of your body. Right? That's such a beautiful thing. It's one of the easiest ways, I think, To get the stress out of our bodies. So you're doing it exactly right. Do I get exactly right? If you feel ready to calm and get back into your day, I want you to just put one hand around your opposite wrist. Just hold your own wrist. Notice if you could feel your heartbeat. With one of your fingers. Notice what your wrist feels like. Squeeze a little bit, Almost as if you're giving yourself a hug. We're going to breathe in. Head out, Letting it all go. And one more time, Breathe again. Head out. Why do we let that out breath be longer than the in breath? No matter how longer fast. Those breaths are when the out is longer than the in. It's one of the easiest ways to connect to our vagus nerve to tell our bodies that we're safe to help ourselves calm down. One last time, Breathe in and out. Give yourself a hug. Squeeze yourself if that feels good to you. And then before you get up, Take your legs off to one side. Just curl it up all for a minute. Know that it's safe to be here for as long as you need. Then whenever you're ready, You can get up and go throughout your day. Whenever you need to come back here, Or whenever you want to cry, But you don't want to be alone, Join me. I'll be here for you. I know how tough the grief can be, So just know I'm always here. Alright, I'll see you soon.