Healing Grief Through Connections by Melanie Weichel I have only found profound love amidst the darkest depths of grief. We have all experienced the kind of grief where the rawness of the loss has left you feeling like you are standing naked out in an ice storm as the water freezes your entire being as the sleet cuts at your already tender red skin. Your body is wracked with convulsions from the shock of the loss. You have been shaken to the core. Your mind is as frozen as the slushy water that has bombarded you. Then experience the hollowness as you recognize that the only thing that can save us from this pain is ourselves. Your muscles literally are sore and tense as you try to get your brain to work right to recognize that it is time to take care of yourself. Time to ask for help from a friend, a family member, a therapist to assist you by honoring your truth as you tell your story. Slowly we begin to heal as we thaw our frozen hearts and seek the healing that only connection with others can bring. We honor our stories by sharing our experiences with others not for pity but for understanding and gratitude for the lessons that we have learned through such an intense period of loss. Connection is how we heal. Connection with others helps us rewrite our stories and our understanding of who we are. Connection is where our support that carries us forward lies. Connection with others can be terrifying after such a profound loss. We all have moments where we weigh the pros and cons of is it worth putting myself out there again? There is no right or wrong way to begin to establish or re-establish the connection with people who love you, and we all experience the hesitation of connecting with others for the fear of making yourself vulnerable to experience this depth of pain. Unfortunately, there is no easy step by step process to overcoming the fear of vulnerability but there are little caveats of wisdom that can be shared. Give yourself grace. Understand that there will be good days and bad days and that there are days that action, a song, or a memory will trigger a flood of emotions. Feel the emotions and allow your body to express the anger, fear, sorrow, or resentment. Allow for the emotions to flow through you as freely as a river. When you are ready to seek the connection
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with yourself forgive yourself and understand that this is a part of your process and it is Okay. When I am feeling this way I sit in a lotus pose, placing my right hand on my heart and my left on my solar plexus. I imagine holding my son when he was a small baby as my breast. I envision the feeling of the unconditional love that I experienced in that moment of holding him to my chest. I then love myself with the same depth that I love him as I gently rock my inner self soothing her with unconditional love. Once rooted in that love I slowly at my pace move to complete a task that I know I will feel accomplished after I have completed it. Do self-assessments no matter what type of loss you have experienced connect with yourself and be brutally honest. Where do you still have fear, judgment, or feelings of low self-worth? In what ways are you self-sabotaging? What are you putting out there? Are you bracing yourself anticipated grief of losing people, the relationship, the job without even giving it a decent chance? If there are repeated perceived failures do the situations have any common factors? If you have had repeated toxic relationships have that blunt friend or family member meet them early in the relationship and talk with them openly and honestly. Don’t make excuses for the person. As always listen to your intuition. Ask yourself all of the hard questions and answer yourself honestly. Follow through with the changes that you would like to see. Forgive yourself. If you are experiencing guilt and shame or other emotions that impact your well being don’t forget to forgive yourself and others. The experiences that lead to the loss provide us with strength, wisdom, courage, focus, and drive. In short, if it wasn’t for the love that you felt or the grief that you experienced, as a result, you would not be the stronger, wiser, more adaptable person that you are today. You would not have the awareness, strength, and connection with yourself today. It is hard to recognize while you are in the depth of grief but to someone you are an inspiration to them to keep going in their own struggle. I am slowly and mindfully always tearing down and rebuilding myself and my relationships. I am constantly
Feb / Mar 2020
