Day 5: In Grief, Feeling More Raw When You Have More Capacity is a Thing
One of the most maddening and disappointing aspects of grief is when you do all the things—get the sleep, eat well, move your body, take time to be still and quiet, etc--sometimes your grief can feel more raw, more searing, more accessible.
Our system (meaning our mind/body/heart) is programmed to heal. We can see this with our eyes when we get a cut—the blood rushes to the spot, the wound aches to close, the body wants to protect the area.
When we have more capacity, our system seems to look for opportunities to heal—and sometimes this healing process feels counter-intuitive (such as when you’ve just finished a massive project and as soon as you rest, you seem to get a cold).
I believe that the increased rawness and accessibility of the pure pain of grief when capacity has increased is a form of healing (although it certainly doesn’t feel like it). Being with and learning to tolerate this pain is what allows the grief to evolve and change, which is the most simple way I define “healing” in grief.
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Welcome to my second, 100-day project. I hope to provide a daily offering on something grief-related. I am a grief therapist and educator working with people in Oregon, Washington, DC, Maryland, and Maine. This feed is in honor of each person who has trusted me with their stories and wisdom during their grief journey. I hope that others may benefit from simple and straightforward talk about a topic that can be difficult.
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