The Grief Practice - An Exploration & Explanation of Grief In The Body

Let’s talk story

The cascade of beautifully instinctive and protect

If I took you to the street in my heart that love

If I took you to the street in my heart that love lives on and showed you how the laughter is served strong here and the way the four hearts of my family fit in a queen-sized bed like peas in a pod I bet you'd call me happy.
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If I took you to the depths of my grief and showed you my scars of loneliness and the spot where I found him and let you hear the wail of loss that still echoes around these parts from time to time I bet you'd call me sad.
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If I took you through the dark alleys of my mind where fear has graffitied the walls and the unattempted dreams lie scattered on dark streets and failure echoes in the wind I bet you'd call me crazy.
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If I carried you in my arms and belly for years like I have my son and kept it together when it all fell apart and stayed by your side when the shit hit the fan I bet you'd call me strong.
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If you knew how many times I settled for less than I deserved and ran backstage and hid and held my tongue when I should have spoken up and took the easy road instead of beating a trail I bet you'd call me weak.
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And if I show you how I keep putting one foot in front of the other whether I'm walking through heaven or hell maybe you'll show me how you're out there doing the same... and when our footsteps bring us closer together we'll call it a small world and when they take us farther apart we'll call it life but in the end I hope we'll call it being human, this meeting in the middle or hanging on at the fringes or breaking down or breaking through. This tiny step from here to there, backward or forward, just trying to get home.
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Inward and onward we go xox-Monique
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#griefisapractice #healingisanart #grief

I learn the most about grief from the people who h

I have been hoping to be part of something like th

One feels like we might crumble at any moment. The

One feels like we might crumble at any moment. The other makes us feel like it’s okay to crumble, there are other humans who will help us, tend to us, hold us, not leave us.
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There are different containers that hold our experience of loss. One is what I call the communal container, made up of our family, friends, community and society.
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The other container for our loss is our embodied container, made up of our unique biology, physiology, and emotionality.
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They both influence each other and directly impact our experience of grief.
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What it comes down to is how it makes us *feel*.
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We can have all the support in the world, but if it doesn’t reach us, we may as well have none (as was my experience.)
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And one small support that reaches us can make all the difference.
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Holding it “together” can allow some physiological softening that would otherwise be tensing and bracing in the effort to “hold it together” all the time. This directly impacts our mental state, more than we often realize.
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Perhaps notice what happens in your experience the next time you truly feel accompanied, acknowledged, or allowed to fully be you in the presence of another.
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We human on xox-Monique
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#onwardcourageousheart #grief #griefinthebody #hopeinthebody #resourcing #somaticexperiencing #griefsupport #polyvagaltheory #socialengagementsystem

The freedom to grieve is something we reclaim act

The freedom to grieve is something we reclaim act by act, behind closed doors and in public conversation, tear by tear, curse word by curse word.
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We show the world how to grieve by how we grieve, tender or hollowed out, numb or incensed.
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When there are no words we dance, sing, write or draw the tangible-yet-elusive, incomparable pain-love.
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We gather to hold hands and hearts, the ones beating and the ones that beat no more, in temples with walls and those with open sky.
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The freedom to grieve is not always automatically ours. Sometimes we reclaim it years after and sometimes we own it from the start. Either way, it is one of our birthrights as humans, just like love.
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Paddleouts, like the one in the photo, are a Hawaiian tradition and the way many surfers are remembered, mourned, and honored.
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📸 @pj.dougherty
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#grief #griefinthebody #hopeinthebody

My sister holding my hand as the doctor delivered

My sister holding my hand as the doctor delivered the news my husband would not wake up.
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My dad taking care of all the paperwork at the hospital.
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My friend cleaning up the glass I dropped and shattered in the shower when I came home to change before going back to the hospital.
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My aunt going with me to my psychiatrist because I didn’t know if I would fall apart en route there or home.
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Another friend gifting me two novels a few days after he died, one of the pivotal ways I would survive the next few weeks; the same way I had survived my childhood.
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When I recall these memories now my face and shoulders soften just a little, I have access to feeling, tears, and gratitude; all different channels of my experience (body sensations, sense perceptions and thoughts.)
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In the speed and overwhelm of who we lost and how we lost them these supportive moments can be missed or forgotten.
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These moments are like little packets of healing we can give ourselves right now; because as we think about what helped us then, something happens right now in our physical bodily experience. A deeper breath or softening of some protective bracing, access to or flow of feeling, to name a few.
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There is always a physiological response to our thoughts, which is why re-telling the story can sometimes pull us right into the terror, overwhelm or hopelessness. (Thank goodness telling the story is not necessary to heal in body-oriented therapies.)
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Noticing what happens Now as we think of what helped us Then can be one way to support ourselves as we feel our way through to the next moment.
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What or who was or is there for you? A stranger, friend or pet?
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With love xox-Monique
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#onwardcourageousheart #grief #griefinthebody #hopeinthebody #somaticexperiencing #polyvagaltheory #resourcing

Grief does not need to be calmed down. . Its wails

Grief does not need to be calmed down.
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Its wails, weeps and wildness are part of its stripes, its ferocity and how it helps us survive.
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It is not us, but as part of us it wills us inward and onward and into a depth of our being we often didn’t know existed.
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When this big energy has a ground wire, a container (embodied and communal), it can change the way it settles and organizes after a surge.
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Containing doesn’t always mean calming. It does mean holding. The often unmanageable and unimaginable pain.
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Another’s steady presence, someone’s hand on our foot or shoulder, a voice or word that anchors us here even as we are there, where they were.
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Our grief is not too heavy or too dark. Whoever sold us that line never met their own humanity.
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Fiercely yours xox-Monique
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ps. trauma is not the same as grief. traumatic grief will have different surges and working with the trauma first can allow the grief to surface.
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#onwardcourageousheart #grief #griefinthebody #hopeinthebody #traumaticgrief #trauma

This allows our grief to move organically into an

This allows our grief to move organically into an expanded embodied container without the pressure of having to know it, name it, organize it or even feel it.
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There are many important and valid reasons why grief can be terrifying to feel at first or all at once.
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We can hold our grief (and others’) with our hands without having to know why or feel the enormity of it. Our bodies can rock or sway to an internal or external rhythm, hum or sing songs or sounds, scribble or draw whatever needs to be seen.
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Maybe you have found other ways to feel into your grief without actually having to feel it just yet?
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Curiously yours xox-Monique
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#onwardcourageousheart #grief #griefinthebody #yogaforgrief #somaticexperiencing #polyvagaltheory #griefsupport

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