How to Deal With Grief Through Somatic Therapy
Grief is a human experience that none of us can avoid. Sooner or later we are faced with the harsh reality that life is impermanent and we will lose what is most near and dear to us. These painful experiences can feel so unbearable that we may shut down.
In psychotherapy, we don’t view grief as something to get over within a particular timeline. We approach how to deal with grief as an opportunity to live more fully - and that requires feeling all that is present - and the only way to feel our feelings is by connecting with the body.
Healing By Turning Towards Your Grief
Turning towards our grief may initially seem counterintuitive to healing. Our automatic response to pain is to turn away and many people do this by finding ways to ignore feelings. People turn towards distractions such as alcohol, taking on unnecessary responsibilities, numbing through food, social media, overworking, etc.
We don’t live in a culture that has recognizable ways to honor and heal from grief so it is not uncommon for people to bury their feelings to the point where it eventually catches up with them. It is not uncommon for people to seek out therapy to grieve for a loved one who has died years ago when they reach a point where the sorrow cannot be ignored any longer. Their pain begins to come out through the cracks and they finally acknowledge that it is time to do the work of healing.
Honouring The Memory Of A Loved One
When we grieve we sit and honor the memory of the person who we loved dearly. We give space and time to imagine the person in the times we shared, and we share the stories that need to be told about their lives. For healing to happen, these stories need to come from the heart, not the head and must come from a full but broken heart that allows us to pour out our grief in earnest.
In psychotherapy, we create that safe container that invites an opening for the broken heart to express itself. This sense of safety can only be felt through the body and with the presence of a compassionate witness who can hold this space with lightness and ease.
A Personal Story Of Grief
Years ago I experienced one of the most profound losses of my life when my younger sister died of cancer at the tender young age of 30. She was the joyful one of the family and her death left a big gap in our lives. I had a longstanding mindfulness practice which should have helped, but I didn’t know how to deal with grief. It was very easy to turn away from the pain through overworking and taking care of others. It was necessary to do my own grief work and that required finding a safe space to do so and encouragement to stay with the feelings in the body. I share this story to illustrate how none of us are exempt in needing the right therapeutic setting to hold our stories of grief.
What is Somatic Psychotherapy For Grief?
Somatic Psychotherapy is not necessarily a special approach to grieving. We still want to tell the stories of our loved one, the good, the bad and the ugly, but not override the feelings of sorrow and pain. What I have learned through experiences on both sides of the couch is that the presence of a compassionate witness makes it easier to stay present with the feelings of a broken heart.
Emotions live in the body and need to be felt in the body. Somatic Psychotherapy brings mindfulness awareness to the feelings as they are and invites us to move through them in a way that they can be metabolized.
A Heart-Centered Meditation For Grief
To learn to work with grief in the body, I offer a heart centered meditation that you can work with. We start with quieting the mind and calming the body. We next invite in a joyful memory of our loved one using the imagination to conjure a picture in the mind’s eye with all the senses and feel it fully in the body. By opening the memory door to a joyful moment, take a moment to feel deeply into your heart and notice what is there.
Often this practice opens up joy and sorrow at the same time. If this happens, place a hand on the heart. This will help you to communicate to yourself that you are okay and it is okay to be present for these feelings. No fear. Just loving presence. There is a Tibetan Buddhist practice where one contemplates one’s death on a daily basis. Paradoxically this practice of turning towards darkness and death can bring ease, lightness and joy to one’s life.
We Are Here To Help
If you are going through a significant loss and want to explore a somatic psychotherapy approach to how to deal with grief, our therapist Emma Ates, brings a Buddhist and contemplative approach to working through grief. See her bio for details.
