Grief and Loss
Grief and Loss: Creating Safe Community for Processing
Grief can be the most difficult experience of a lifetime. Maybe you have experienced grief in the loss of a friend, a partner, a child, a home, feelings of safety, community, health, a pet, or something else. Nobody is ever really ready for the grief experience, and nobody is an expert on grief. That being said, there is no “right way” to experience bereavement. What we do know as human beings is that feeling seen and heard in your pain can be one of the most powerful tools for healing.
In the moments when you are willing to talk to another about your experience of loss, something happens where a connection is made and your system feels a sense of relief, maybe if it's just for a moment. The idea of “processing” or chatting about a loss likely brings up feelings of discomfort and apathy. What if we allowed ourselves to be in that pain, without any fear attached? What if we allowed eachother to feel deeply, move through, and reflect? Most of our society doesn’t support the grieving process and complexities that come with it. There are times when nothing seems to make it better, and in result we shy away and try to “suck it up and move on”. Then the grieving person may choose to numb their feelings with the assistance of substances, television, food, or other things that distract.
Shame is a common emotion that is felt in the grieving process, and society often places additional shame onto it when the person stays in the process for what’s deemed as “too long”. Yes, it is a good idea to clear the mind with play and pleasure once in a while, however placing shame and fear on the bereavement process only makes it harder. Consciously choosing to carve out time for grieving starts building resiliency.
Choosing to grieve in community
Perhaps it is clear when you desire to grieve in community and hear others stories, or maybe it is unclear whether or not group processing will help you. Community grieving allows the person to show up with the strength, vulnerability and openness required to begin the healing process. When a person moving through feelings of grief can talk about it out loud, and truly be seen in their experience without judgement, there is no trying to “fix” the situation, and the person gets to sit with the complexity of it all.
Peer support and community can offer understanding, common ground, strength building and radical trust.
a safe container
In the presence of trauma informed professionals with varying experiences of their own grief, a safe container is created to meet you wherever you are in your process. Fluidity and complexity can be unpacked in a group coming together with the same intention.
Loving, compassionate and caring. Taking space to process grief is important to your overall wellbeing. Being pressured to heal when you are not ready is also traumatizing. Recognizing and understanding that not everyone is ready to heal at a specific moment in time.
Just liek you can live with chronic pain, you can live with the pain of grief. Perhaps your container grows. When you experience grief, your hormones release oxytocin, which is a hormone that connects to stress a
Wherever you are in your process of grief, a safe container with trauma informed professionals understand how to create space for processing in a non-pressurized and invitational environment. Weather you are birthing your grief, just getting to know it, or have known it for a long time.
The stages of grief and fluidity
According to the Kübler-Ross model, the 5 stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. What is important to note is that most people don’t move through these stages in a chronological order. The nature of grief is fluid, and it comes and goes. Instead of expecting that you will accept it one day, it is a good idea to recognize that anger could follow acceptance.
“People tend to believe that grief shrinks over time. What really happens is that we grow around our grief.” - unknown
Giving yourself time and space
Being seen in your pain is a powerful thing. Processing in a group container creates a sense of connection that the nervous system perceives as safe. When we intentionally put ourselves into a container like this, our bodies attune to eachothers
Empathy, attunement and resilience
Resilience is learning to sit with uncomfortable feelings, when you can, and learning to gently catch ourselves in moments of emotional turmoil is the path of the warrior. Resilience is cultivated through attunement, resourcing, and boundaries.
Our very first experience of attunement was the frequency we experienced inside of our mother’s womb, and even as an egg inside of our grandmother. The level of attunement we have with another person is correlated to the level of safety our nervous system experiences. This speaks to our HPA-axis (hypothalymus-pituitary-adrenal) and its experience of scanning for safety and belonging. Attunement and safety with another individual can support the grieving process tenfold.
In conclusion
healing and processing in community is powerful, and may inspire you to hold space for others to do the same. Intense moments experienced together, and safety cultivated. Yoga practices that are designed to strengthen the heart, calm the system and cultivate resilience are all used as tools for healthy and conscious bereavement. Daily yoga practices, sadhana development and integration tools are provided as a path towards acceptance and resiliency. Recognizing the pain of others, and being witnessed in your own pain, and actually allowing yourself to be in your sadness for a while can be incredibly transformative.
“Before I could release the weight of my sadness and pain, I first had to honor its existence. - young pueblo ”
