Grief in Your Body

One time I went to yoga and did a pigeon pose (it's hard to describe, so just google it). It stretches your hips. Once I started the stretch, I started crying. But not because it hurt. Because it reminded me of grief. It's happened to me a few other times. Now that I do yoga once a weekish, it doesn't happen as often. I told my sis who teaches yoga and she said that feelings can live in your body. She probably described it better than that. Stretching your hips in particular can pull up feelings that you've stuffed away and don't want to deal with.

I think it's pretty cool. If you need a good cry, try the pigeon pose you just google searched.

I have a weird soapbox: you have to acknowledge your pain/uncomfortable feelings/grief, because if you don't, it waits for you (and usually comes out sideways), and also it's the only way you can find healing. I'm sure it's my soapbox because I'm terrible at it. I acknowledge my grief for like a minute and then move on.

I have grief for lots of things:
Moving away from home.
Leaving congregations and people that I love.
Needing to make new friends and start life over how many times.
Friendships and relationships that have changed.
Loss of house/home.
When life doesn't look the way I expected it to.
Death of friends, and family members, but especially my best friend when I was in high school.

Sometimes I don't even notice that I'm wearing the grief until someone mentions it and it's like someone put their finger in giant cut, expect like it's not a cut, it's my soul [said with as much dramatic affect as possible to make it sound sarcastic, even though it isn't really that sarcastic].

Here's an example that's present for me this week. Matt died just about 18 years ago. He got in his accident in March, and died early April. Every year, I start to get agitated/anxious/snappy/sad and I don't know why. Sometimes it's just a couple random days during the month, and sometimes it's a few weeks. Sometimes it takes me a while to realize it's grief. That my body remembers and reacts before my brain does. I think that's really cool actually. Like my body won't let me get away without spending some time with the grief.

Also, when I do give it some time, I'm always grateful. It's cathartic and healing, and honors what was lost with gratitude and the sadness it deserves.

I used the 10% of seriousness from the other weeks that I was 100% not serious.