These last few weeks I’ve been thinking about emotions as I grieve, how we hold onto them, or allow them to pass through us. I’ve noticed when I’ve been holding myself “up” or “together”, and finding that it isn’t very useful.
What’s been more useful has been to let go of those holding patterns, along with what I think I should do, or how I should probably respond, and pause for a moment. Then to let go of the tension (where I can) and allow physical softness instead of muscular activity – allowing my skeleton to do its job, rather than the muscles thinking they could help instead.
I’ve had moments where I needed time, space to come back down to earth, or a hug of course, and times where I’ve felt OK, and able to hold the feelings of others.
Details of life have been more present than usual, which reminded me of the anatomist Gil Hedley talking about how we need a balance between the two hemispheres to respond well in any situation.
“Resilience is the ability to sit with and tolerate the greatest range of emotions”.
I read a lot in the last few weeks. It’s one of my favourite ways of learning/escaping/insert your own ideas here. But I think this psychologist is right (I didn’t write her name down sadly).
Sitting with an emotion is something one learns in therapy too. To allow yourself to feel in technicolour. To not push emotions away, or cling on to them tightly either. And that includes the “darker” emotions: sadness, fear, anger, as well as the “lighter” ones: Joy, pleasure, tenderness. I’ll add curiosity in there too, even though some might argue it’s more of a state rather than an emotion.
We need to allow the clouds of the different emotions to cross the sky of my state
I’ve been walking my talk these last weeks. Not always successfully, I’m definitely not perfect. But it’s allowed me to grieve in what feels like a more self-compassionate way: Turning down or getting out of commitments that don’t fit with what I need right now; being able to play at an important event I’d promised to do; taking time for myself; spending time with my Dad, siblings to share memories of my Mum.
In ancient Egyptian mythology we all have two deaths. When our physical self dies. And then when the last person who knew us, was affected by us passes. So whilst my Mum might not be here in person, she’s certainly will always be present in my thinking, and her ideas of how to live that I’ve taken on as my own.
There’s a picture of Harry, one of her grandsons on one of the many tables in my parent’s house. In it, he’s holding a finger and arm up in an exact replica of one of her gestures. So she’ll be around in another form for a while yet.
Transform how you move, feel and live 