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

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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

4 Grief-Inspired Writing Prompts . The optional wr

True feeling (which is different than talking abou

True feeling (which is different than talking about how we feel) evades many of us for the simple reason that our bodies don’t feel supported or safe enough to feel vulnerable enough to feel.
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When there is a true felt sense of support in our bodies, through supported posture or the supportive presence of another, sometimes there is nothing left to fight or protect and the flood of tears or ache we have been holding in for too long finally begins to flow into that communal or embodied container.
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The term “felt sense” was coined by Eugene Gendlin to describe those nonverbal, intuitive, subcognitive body-feels that are at the root of so much of our pain and healing.
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For many of us who experienced developmental trauma by way of an emotionally absent caregiver, we may have been missing this felt sense of support our entire lives.
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When we find or allow this (often therapeutically first and then in other relationships later) the repair our ruptured hearts have needed finally appears.
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Yours in the repair xox-Monique
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#onwardcourageousheart #grief #griefinthebody #somaticexperiencing #feltsense #yogaforgrief #griefyoga #ruptureandrepair #feeltoheal #feltsense

Maybe you are falling today (open, apart, or for)

Maybe you are falling today (open, apart, or for)
Maybe you are coming today (along, home, or together)
Maybe you are losing today (them, it, or hope)
Maybe you are letting today (go, out, or be)
Maybe you are returning today (to your heart, to their memory, or to the world)
Maybe you are remembering today (how loved you are, how you made it through, or what is true for you)
Maybe you are reaching today (in, out, or for)
Maybe you are finding today (support, hope, or that next breath)
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May we be generously supported, loved, and accompanied as we lean into whatever comes next, one breath-step at a time.
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We human on xox-Monique
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#onwardcourageousheart #grief #griefinthebody #hope #hopeinthebody #griefsupport

You’re not doing anything wrong if you can’t s

You’re not doing anything wrong if you can’t sleep months or years after waking up to the news or finding them in the middle of the night.
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It’s very normal for our bodies to link up sleeping to these overwhelming experiences and resist or fear sleep.
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We don’t choose to do this and also cannot rationalize or think our way out of this instinctual connection our bodies have made to keep us safe going forward.
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This is often a component of what we call trauma, which is not the same as grief. A body-oriented therapist can often support us separating out our sleep from the horror of what happened.
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There is no shame in the ways we survive after they’re gone. Our bodies are always trying to help us get through.
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Sometimes to get through the night we have to make a pact with the sun, as I used to. If you get up tomorrow, so will I.
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Until tomorrow xox-Monique
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#onwardcourageousheart #grief #griefinthebody #sleep #trauma

Conversations on suicide are not about the questio

Conversations on suicide are not about the questions or the answers. They are about the connection, the listening, and the conviction that pain does not have to go unspoken, unheard, and unseen, whether between neighbors, families, couples, friends, siblings, parents, children or strangers.
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They are about becoming more human and less blind to the pain of others and our own. About re-membering our broken hearts and remembering our hearts are big enough to hold both tremendous pain and tremendous joy. At the same time.
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I leave these conversations closer to my heart, my hurt and my hope. I re-enter the world slowly, more honestly, and with stories etched into my heart and soul, clearer about who I am and who I am not.
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Sometimes there are no words, just reflections of the layers of an experience that reminds us why we are here and what it really means to love.
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To the mothers who made this year’s retreat for suicide loss possible, thank you.
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Slowly and steadily yours xox-Monique
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ps. more conversation and community around suicide coming in December, online. Details coming soon.
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#onwardcourageousheart #grief #griefinthebody #suicide #childloss #yogaretreat #traumainformedyoga

Soulfully, spiritually, emotionally, mentally, phy

Soulfully, spiritually, emotionally, mentally, physically, socially, and any other way you might think of.
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This collapse is the most rushed, overlooked, and needed part in loss.
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Instinctively this can feel unsafe. In ancient times our weakness would make us prey or left behind, which is why we often struggle with allowing ourselves to fall apart.
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It is why what we need most in grief is other humans who make us feel welcome and safe to be ourselves, not just with their words but also with their facial expression, posture and presence.
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It is why the best therapists, healers or friends are useless if they don’t have a relationship with their own grief before trying to help us with our grief.
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We feel, see and know their discomfort often before they even do.
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We close up, cover up or try to self-help ourself because we read these subcognitive cues that it is not okay to be ourselves in this relational space. Somehow we must “get better” before we can return to society.
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And when we sense relational safety sadness, hope, and humanity can rise to the surface of our hearts, voice, eyes and being in ways we never thought possible.
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Until now.
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Yours in the rise and the fall xox-Monique
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#onwardcourageousheart #grief #griefinthebody #healing #polyvagaltheory #relationalsafety

What I know about the end of life is that it’s m

What I know about the end of life is that it’s much like the beginning of life. Exposed, vulnerable, needing the care, presence and love of other humans for survival, comfort, and the numinous transition from here to there or there to here.
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How we living struggle with staying present for both, the beginning and the ending. Wanting to rush growth or slow decay.
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How we just can’t believe this is it, this being broken open, needing and being needed.
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How it’s as simple as holding their hand as they pass, struggle or cry because it just can’t be that touch is the real medicine.
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How presence is felt through liminality and unconsciousness and yes, they know you’re there even if they’re not mentally there.
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So stay. Sit with them. Hold their hand. Say I love you. Welcome your helplessness and humanness and the descent into a depth of being you didn’t know you were capable of.
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This is how we human on.
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Yours in the holding xox-Monique
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#onwardcourageousheart #grief #griefinthebody #death #birth #oldage

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