03/12/2024
IS BODYWORK FOR GRIEF? Yes. Absolutely! This is a photo of me several days into the horrendous wild fires and smoke of September 2020. My throat hurt, my heart ached, it was difficult to wrap my head around what was happening and my body was contracted and holding tension in many places. I kept working, but I too needed to pause, acknowledge, witness and feel my grief. I did some seated arcing as a way to self-massage and process my feelings utilizing movement until I felt I had a little more space to breathe and a little more capacity to be with and show up for my clients.
In February 2024 three different clients sought my help to relieve tension and ease the strains they were experiencing associated with grief and the loss of loved ones.
GRIEF ON THE PHYSICAL LEVEL
If you have ever lived with grief or seen someone close to you go through this, you might know the toll it can take on your whole system—body, mind and heart. Grief can really weigh you down. There’s a heaviness and a general tendency to carry yourself in a bit of a flexed spinal position. This position of rounded upper back and shoulders slightly rolled forward helps protect your heart which of course is affected deeply. It is tender and vulnerable and needs to be shielded from both feeling the full intensity of your own vital energy and the onslaught of everyday life in our western culture with its fast pace and high energy.
At the same time this body position limits full breathing and your neck and upper back can feel tense, painful and stiff. Since the vibrational energy of grief is low, you may not feel like moving or exercising as much and your strength and flexibility can wane, leading to muscle imbalances.
THE STRAINS OF GRIEF DON'T END AT THE PHYSICAL LEVEL
Grief can feel like an unwanted house guest that stays overly long, placing strains on every aspect of your body-being and your life. Every emotion sends a unique chemical formula into your bloodstream and because grief tends to take up residence for an extended period of time, we are vulnerable to becoming physiologically out of balance contributing to problems with sleep, depression, digestion, eating too little or too much, reaching for heavier or sweeter foods, all of which can move your system further out of balance and cause or contribute to other health issues.
Mentally, previously clear thinking can become fuzzy, unfocused. It can be difficult to concentrate or you might spacey.
HOW BODYWORK CAN SUPPORT YOU THROUGHOUT YOUR GRIEVING PROCESS
Human beings were never meant to grieve alone and it is also useful to help the body adapt throughout this process. In the absence of a present empathic other, we tend to hold and contract around difficult experiences. One of the goals of bodywork for a grieving client is to help them find the ease in their body THAT IS available and workable for now. Another is to facilitate being intentional and responding dynamically to grief as it tends to come in waves. When we work with grief rather than against it or get stuck in it, we can allow it to work it’s alchemical magic and carry us to previously unimaginable ways of being in our body and in the world.
Whatever the catalyst for grief, it has the capacity to change us on every level, but we are not meant to grieve alone. Aston Patterning is designed to help integrate all dimensions of our body-being and help us adapt to change, letting go of patterns that no longer serve and discovering new ones that allow us to tap into and express more of who we are.
So often a death, a diagnosis, a big, sudden life change challenges the perceptions we hold of ourselves and the way we see the world which is also held in the body. When we gently work with the body in a container of care that supports the process for change that wants to happen, we can safely explore new options and possibilities in small ways with no agenda or requirement to take them up. In this way we support our body-being to be exactly where it is, and to discover the way; to sort things out and choose new options in the timing that feels right.
If you or someone you know would benefit from this work while grieving or going through a life change, I am happy to support them in their process.
Connect with me here:
www.tamraholder.com/contact