Mind Body Soul - The Grief Experience

My experience with grief was mind-body-soul.

My mind literally could. not. comprehend - living without that person in my life. I don’t think the human brain (or at least mine) has the capacity to fathom death all at once, which is I think why you hear people referring to it as a “process.” It’s like, the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. Yep, that’s my analogy for how I accepted death.

MENTALLY (MIND)

 It was my first real loss of someone close to me, my mom. And I really didn’t want to learn how to live without her, who does when you lose someone? So I was just not accepting of the finality of it, and I remember there were more than a few times when inside, I simply wanted her back. The habits of picking up the phone to call her to share the inside jokes were the worst reality checks for me.

I was in a state of shock for a long time; the reality of it just didn’t seem to sink in. I think this is what they call denial, and it’s interesting when I look back on this for myself because I’ve now realized that I was actually denying that I was in denial! The irony! Let me explain - I could say the words, I talked about her death, I was dealing with paperwork, with funeral arrangements, with all the things, but I didn’t know what they truly meant for me going forward.

So to me, it felt more like a lack of comprehension, not denial. Plus I didn’t like the idea of my experience being slotted into some kind of therapeutic process that involved 5 neat stages of some clinically-studied, world-reknowned grieving experiment with categories and expectations. F*#k that.  That’s how I felt.

PHYSICALLY (BODY)

 The physical processing of grief was all about the fight or flight mode that forced me to live in survivor mode for months, I felt like that song from Finding Nemo was on replay in my mind - just keep swimming, just keep swimming… no appetite, fatigue, heartache, and later, running as fast as I could to outrun grief. My 5 senses were suddenly keenly aware that I would not ever see, smell, feel, or hear her again. That was hell. Keenly missing her presence, I missed seeing her, hearing her laugh, her voice, all of her.

SPIRITUALLY (SOUL)

I never doubted that she was there on the other side, but that’s because I’d had numerous experiences with other loved ones over the years, coming through to  me in spirit form, and so yes, I’ve seen her, she’s shown herself to me, in daylight, in dreams and in all the other signs that all of our loved ones use to communicate to us that they are in fact safe, happy, and always with us.

But I still needed to grieve. And grieve I did.

Out of the 3, mind-body-spirit, the hardest one for me was spirit – my soul literally felt ripped apart. The effect of that missing love was such a shock to my system, to my soul. I did not expect the depth of the loss, mostly because I had months to ponder her terminal diagnosis. I felt abandoned, incomplete, and incapable without her guidance. At times, on the inside, I felt like as though I could have easily let loose a primal howl, or better yet, how good it would be to punch or break something just to exert that physical angst from my body. I didn’t do either of these things. Instead I did what I thought was the right, normal and sane thing to do - I kept it checked, under lock and key, deep inside.

And so it finally went numb for a bit, allowing me to function in my job, but then it ended up rearing its ugly head months after the loss. And it was only then, when I had very little distraction, and way too much time to sit with it, that I felt a distinct, physical uneasiness in my own body. I felt like something was trapped inside of me, deep in the pit of my stomach, gnarly and clawing to get out. In hindsight, I realize that it was my emotion, the grief, that I had refused to acknowledge but desperately needed to release. At the time it was really confusing because I remember thinking, ‘I’ve missed that window of heavy grief, I’m past that point, this is silly! Get your shit together! It’s been half a year - by now, I should be over this stage!’ - but all I knew for sure was that I suddenly felt like a small child, kicking and screaming for her mom. And unable to process emotions that felt just too big for me to face or understand.

I do recall having random moments of meltdowns, but only a few thank goodness, and it was like the feeling of built-up pressure inside of me. I’d have these unexpected outbursts, I can remember unleashing the tears and all my incomprehensible blubbering on whichever poor, unsuspecting scapegoat was in my path at that exact moment (My husband or siblings usually.) The buildup of the feelings of buried grief was, for me, like a slow boil that escalated into a steady stream of  scalding steam from a pressure valve.

I distinctly remember looking ahead, and wondering how on earth I was going to get through the rest of my life, the days, one at a time, like this. And then I finally cried. It was like a never-ending river of tears.

I was mourning my future without her joy, the loss of having someone in my life who just gets it with just a look, an eyeroll, a smirk, a sparkle in the eye, without having to explain anything. God I was going to miss her. But I was never going to forget her. And I decided somewhere in there that I was going to have to figure this out, and that I had it inside me to do so, I just didn’t need to figure it out right this second. I slept hard those days. And then slowly I started to feel lighter, better, a little more… healed.

And so fast forward to now, 2+ years later, I’m well and truly on the other side of this, thank goodness, and it was not easy looking back reflecting on those feelings and articulating how I felt for this article, but it was 100% necessary to share with you what I’ve learned in that grief process - that there’s no use in bottling anything up, so give yourself some grace if you’re going through something similar, if this resonated with you. If you take anything away from reading what I’ve shared, I hope it is that there are other people who have made it through the storm, and you will too.

Take your time, and time will take care of you. And even though it’s not easy, please do take some consolation in knowing that they are always connected to us, our love truly does bind us to those in our lives forever - they are still there, even if on the other side, and they will continue to watch over us with love and guidance as we continue on our life’s journey.

Believe me - as a medium, I’ve seen it, they are with us, the veil is thin, and I feel blessed every single day to know, to have been shown, what is real and true about our existence, and I feel humbled to be tasked with sharing how love is eternal and we are fully capable of getting through the ickiest parts of grief, which become a part of our own unique lessons of the journey that ultimately lead us back to ALL of our loved ones, when it is our time. And for now, our souls are here to continue living, loving, feeling, all the emotions of this beautiful experience, and to experience all the joy we possibly can.