Normalizing Grief
Photo of Spirit at Wind Horse Sanctuary by Melina Vienna Saari
It is essential to feel, express & release grief to truly let it go & heal.
It’s been a dramatically powerful to experience both of my parents deaths within the last 6 months. At times, particularly after my fathers sudden death in the last 3 months, I questioned whether I could make it through the gauntlet of utter heartbreak I was experiencing.
The message behind grief is that a significant loss or death has occurred, usually due to circumstances beyond your control. With the emotion of sadness, it involves a choice to let go of something that does not serve you. With grief, there is no choice.
To move through the grief, it is necessary to mourn, ritualize, express & release the emotions. If you don’t, those emotions will become stuck in your body & ultimately will cause imbalances & possibly even future dis-ease.
My fathers sudden death turned my world upside down. We were incredibly close. He was my rock of stability in life. He was my heart. His death was unexpected & traumatic.
This past week, I have been unexpectedly triggered by seemingly innocent encounters.
A friend mentioned the word ‘winter’, which provoked disturbing images of my fathers last month of medical emergencies this past season. It took hours to cycle through this wave of grief.
At the conference I just attended Gregg Braden mentioned the DNA cycle. My Dad was a biology professor & the DNA topic was a hot one in our house. We even had family t-shirts printed with the DNA cycle on it. When Gregg spoke about , warm tears rolled down my cheeks as it reminded me of my Dad.
Yesterday, I went for a sunset walk in the rust colored magical hills of Sedona. I came upon a prickly pear cactus, which again, reminded me of my Dad. My Dad was enthusiastic about Native California plants & I learned about how delicious prickly pear fruit is & how it’s rich in vitamin C from him. More tears.
These memories keep flooding in.
Every time the sensation of grief arises, I remind myself that for me to stay healthy, I must allow the time for the emotion to flow through.
When my best friend Deb died 7 years ago, it was incredibly painful adjusting to life without her. When I was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer exactly one year after her death, it was a direct statement about how grief can create illness. That is why, with the dramatic loss of both of my parents, I am determined to express my grief in a healthy manner. As I’m journeying with stage 4 cancer, my future longevity literally depends on getting the trauma & pain out of my body. Let it go
Grief is healthy.
Grief is normal.
Where there is deep grief, there was deep love.
Feel the emotion.
Get the message.
Release it.
Go back to grazing.
Let the verdant ground of grief nourish your soul from the inside out.
Let it remind you of how deeply you loved.
Let it bring you back around to JOY once more!
You deserve to be happy & feeling the grief is the way to get there. It will take time, but you will get there.
This information about getting the message behind grief was created by the magnanimous Linda Kohanov & Karla McLaren, M.Ed. in the Emotional Message Chart. Please read about it more in Linda’s book: The Power of the Herd & McLaren’s book The Language of Emotions.
For a full list of books about grief & death, please check out my Wind Horse Sanctuary book list.