How do we meet our grief? How can we become curious about what it is telling us? How can we find meaning in our experiences of grief when it disconnects us from ourselves?
This Saturday at 11AM IST, join us in a grief circle where we’ll come together to hold and express our grief through art, and connect our process of creating with the felt sense. We have only a couple of spaces left if you’d like to sign up!
Since its inception, grief work has formed the backbone of Mindful and Body. There is no trauma-informed care without grief work, there is no healing, no integration and no acceptance without grieving what is or has historically been.
Grief can show up in our lives in myriad ways, though almost always only attributed to the loss of a loved one.
When the people I loved most in the world passed away, I felt a familiar feeling. I had expected their inevitable passing to be unbearable, but it was also strangely comforting that these feelings were not new to me: I had grieved for it my whole life.
I’ve found that as we talk about expanding people’s emotional language and that often means grief. When we only give license to those with big losses to grieve, it hurts all of us.
Grief is personal, subjective, but widespread. The more we allow each other permission to grieve, the more capacity we build for our own experiences as well as other people’s — especially when they might be in conflict with our own needs.
Two years ago we asked people to share what they have grieved and the list below is a non-exhaustive list of some of the things we’ve collated.
The loss of a loved one. The changes that parenthood brings. Systems failing us. Feeling behind while everybody else hits milestones. Your old physique or appearance. Feeling abandoned. The invitations that stopped coming. Retirement. A friendship ending. Not finding our own passion or purpose. Ecological effects we observe in our environment. Rejection by a family member. Living with chronic or mental illness. Keeping painful secrets. Witnessing a genocide. The loss of good health. Those around us ageing. Trauma. The time lost because of trauma. Children growing up and not needing us anymore. Not feeling understood. Helplessness at systemic shortcomings. Loss of familiarity in a person or environment. Late or misdiagnoses. Betrayal in a relationship. Losing important memories. Displacement. Change in normalcy. Feeling like you don’t fit in. Things you never received but others did. A celebrity’s passing. Being bullied. Change in libido. Moving away from your close ones. The ending of a dream held. The death of a person they didn’t get to mend a relationship with. Not having our needs met. The loss of potential (in a career or relationship). A violation of trust. Not feeling like yourself. Growing apart from once dear friends. Medical gaslighting. Owning up to mistakes. Confronting personal histories. Mental illness in the family. Having to hide parts of ourselves. “Missing the boat” on a timebound opportunity. Migration. Our expectations not being met. Not feeling safe. Estrangement from family. Living with limitations. And many more.
Not every situation within the above will lead to grief, every situation is also experienced subjectively, and the strength of one’s support system and resources will deeply impact how transitions happen, and healing and recovery are possible.