A Chapter on Revisiting Grief
This has been one of the most exciting times of self work and the most I have ever felt guided in my personal purpose of self discovery. It started with day dreaming about my current crush while paddling a canoe and ended in Mexico at a retreat all about death.
We considered ourselves fully out of fucks to give at the end of what felt like a long contract of harping basic principles like picking up your garbage and wearing your life jacket. The week of contracting to a summer camp where it seemed that no one, from the kids right up to the camp director, listened to anyone else. It was the final morning with the final group of campers and staff, I had gratefully assumed my turn as sweep boat. As we paddled into a slight head wind that blocked out anything my paddling partner quietly said in the bow, I surveyed the scene in front of me with the 20-some canoes paddling close enough together and in the general right direction, and let my thoughts wander off into day dream land.
For the past year I had been working with my somatic therapist to build awareness of the role my body plays in my growth/healing journey. More attuned than I had ever been to the cues it gives me, I noticed that as I day dreamed about my current crush and asked the question “what would it actually take for me to have that kind of loving support everyday in my life?”. I noticed my body tense and the impulse to run away surface. I breathed into it and intentionally released the tension in my tummy, committed to staying here and felt my internal strength as I paddled forward into the headwind. I was having my own little therapeutic paddle as I thought of commitment and slowly released the tight spots that were so familiar in my body but new to my awareness.
I asked again what was holding me back from the consistent love I wanted to have in my life, and the real epiphany landed “dead Mom grief”.
Whoa. What?
Between me and my dream of hot crush man turning into committed, supportive partner in my everyday life was unprocessed grief around my mother. I hung out with the idea for a bit, asking if it was true or if I was just being dramatic, maybe causing some challenges in my life because overall things were going really well. As I opened myself up to the possibility of it being true, I thought of how I spoke about my Mom. I either avoided the topic and moved the conversation along with the facts and a deferring question back to them, or things got deeply emotional very quickly if the space evoked these feelings. This seemed to confirm that there was the opportunity for some self work that could lead closer to feeling secure in myself, in the way I shared about hard things like the death of my mother, and the way in general that I related to others.
It all made sense, not that I could see that right away, but it made sense that when we face a tremendous loss or hardship, the best feeling initially is to create some space from the overwhelming emotions surrounding this experience. We start to regain some level of normality and our life starts to flow with a wee bit more ease. If the opportunity to keep flowing is present it makes total sense that we would move away from the hard thing and if we never intentionally take it back down off the shelf and open it up, it subconsciously stays in our life.
Through this chapter between a windy canoe ride and a trip to Mexico, so many insights were gifted to me on a deeply personal level. I was afraid that everyone important to me would die before their time and with this subconsciously held belief of course I would avoid getting too close to anyone to not risk going on another life altering grief journey, even though closeness and intimacy is what I desired the most. It is all actually super rational and an amazing example of how we protect ourselves without even knowing we are doing so.
What I am realizing now, is as much as the release of this grief journey was an amazing gift I didn’t have any idea I needed, perhaps the greatest gift was in the process. With gratitude I have replayed that scene on the lake so many times, journey mapped what led to and from that moment several times in different contexts, and have unpacked the process that really was embracing a hero’s journey.
It started with a very clear vision of what I wanted. I had experienced a supportive partnership for a few days and could feel it. My question was specifically what would it take for me to have that outside of the known context and into a much larger scale of my whole life.
My body was key here, if i had not been present to the subtle nervous system dysregulation that was occurring and put my attention on regulating with my breath and my thought process, I would have just been unknowingly in my patterns, feeling overwhelmed and helpless while longing for something I didn’t have. I’m still learning a lot, but what I know of the nervous system and growth and change is that it happens in the regulated state. Being able to regulate and stay in the process, the meditative thought train, is why I believe I got an answer. I was unattached and open, calm and relaxed in my body.
The insight landed and it was an invitation into my depths, into the hero’s journey if you will, the unknown. It was such a gift that it was tied to something I wanted, and reminds me of the guidance that having a clear vision for our life offers us. It was as if my eyes had been opened to what was once in the darkness, I had never thought of myself as avoiding grief, but it became more and more clear - realizing I had never returned to my mother’s grave site until my grandmother passed away 11 years later and while I was living this chapter. I had never printed any photos of my mother until I was heading to a retreat in Mexico that included building an altar with the Day of the Dead practices.
This is a story of the adventure of healing, a life update, and a process to share that may be helpful for you all. Get clear on your vision and ask simply what is standing in your way. Stay, as best you can and use all regulating tools needed, to hear the answer. To really receive the answer and see it as guidance, as an invitation into the depths of you where you can shift things around to heal, grow, and create the life you want.
I keep coming back to this experience, the initiation in the canoe, the changes over the course of the chapter, the serendipitous events, and the feeling I had through it all. Having an experience like this is wonderfully helpful to orientate toward, because we can get so caught up in our patterns and desires that we ignore the cues, guidance and direction, we refuse the call for a long time before venturing into the depths of us. It has been a reminder to surrender attachments, to stay with the questions of “what’s next?”, “What do I need to do or not do?”, “What needs to die or be rebirthed?”. On this journey I felt the call but had no idea what action to take. I felt encouraged to open up more with friends, following up on a previously set intention to share more of myself with people I love and trust, and I went to my therapist. The more I talked about it with different people, the more doors opened up, like going to Mexico for a retreat all about death.
As much as the presence of death and grief will always be a part of life, and will resurface at times in stronger waves, it felt that I could let go of this as my specific mission. It was a wonderfully guided 3 months of depth work, and now I have found myself telling these stories over and over and feeling that they are healed and it is time to share these ones and open up to the next chapter of growth. More on all parts of this topic to come and I welcome your connections and shares about grief, death, self work and anything else on your mind!
