Dancing With Grief

Grief. It can be painful, overwhelming, overpowering, uncontrollable, uncomfortable. It can feel like loss, emptiness. It can feel like darkness, a void, death. It can feel like you are consumed in darkness. It’s sometimes interlaced with anger and disappointment.

It can feel like intense emotional and physical pain in different parts of your body. It can feel never-ending, all-encompassing. It can feel like a hole in your heart. It can feel like your heart is broken open and maybe it will never feel ok again. It can feel like a fear of “what if this doesn’t go away?”

Grief can also feel cleansing, renewing, life-altering. It can help you see things in a new way. It can give you more clarity on a situation. It can help bring awareness to beliefs and emotions that were previously hidden.  It can highlight what’s important to you. It can help you stay present. It can help unearth unhealthy patterns and dynamics.

Sending love to anyone who is dancing with grief, feeling the ups and downs of it, knowing that it’s ok to experience it all. 

Learning To Feel It All

My life changed when instead of trying to be happy all of the time, I realized my goal was to be able to hold all of the emotions- grief, fear, sadness, and joy, love, happiness - more deeply, more safely, more expansively.

I used to think that the goal in life was to feel happy all of the time.

I thought it was only safe to think positive thoughts. I pushed away “negative” uncomfortable emotions because they felt too intense, overwhelming, and scary.

And then a chaotic mix of events taught me that what was keeping me from experiencing more happiness was actually avoiding feeling the more difficult emotions.

I was in a nervous system freeze state and my body was terrified of feeling. Expanding my nervous system’s window of tolerance (healthy range of feeling) allowed me start feeling all the emotions on deeper levels. Which felt scary at first, but also liberating.

As I continued to surrender to some intense, dark emotions, I would emerge as a new version of myself- one that was able to feel more safety and surrender in the dark so that I could feel even more love, joy, power, creativity, aliveness. One that realized the more we face and embrace our fears, the more we can experience the beauty of the world.

This is an ongoing process. A work in progress. 

AND I feel more resilient. Deeper connection. More OK with the inevitable ups and downs.

Life is so much richer and fuller. And I’m here for all of it.