Hey, Soul Sistas

Good Grief I hear you say!

Grief has been a topic that’s came up a number of times over the past few weeks with clients.

What actually is grief?

How should a grieving person behave?

Is there a right or wrong way to grieve, is grieving only allowed or thought of with the loss of a person or pet!

We all get caught up in what other people think or how we “should” behave because of society and what society dare I say dictates how we should do things.

I had a conversation recently with someone who felt guilty as they didn’t feel they were grieving over their loved one the way they felt the aught to have.

What I had to remind them was that nobody had a right to tell them how to grieve as its an individual process, nobody has walked their life in your shoes so no judgement can be made by anyone else.

Maybe they didn’t share a happy life together or maybe the person passed had been suffering and their passing was kinder to them. The point is nobody knows what another is going through or went through.

Is the grief that’s felt by us the feelings of regret towards the person that’s passed with wishes we had hoped we had fulfilled and didn’t act on, is it out of our own selfishness that we grieve.

Grief sets off so many emotions none of which is right or wrong. It just is, and it’s allowing what YOU need to process, process.

Grief though just isn’t about the loss of a loved one. Grief can be the loss of health, the loss of who you maybe once were the loss of activities you maybe can no longer do.

I have long covid, and I saw recently on a group someone complaining that they had went to a holistic practitioner and was horrified that the practitioner had suggested that they had unresolved grief and that’s why they still had lung issues.

I processed what they said and could see the logic as in Chinese medicine the organs have emotions attached to them, the lungs and large intestines being the organs that hold grief. The practitioner maybe never explained enough about this and also I can see looking at myself that the grief is the loss of who you were! I was unfortunate to have quite a horrific time with covid and the long covid is a constant reminder of the things that I cannot do now what I could do before and it affects people in so many different ways. Many people lossed loved ones without being able to be with them. I was ill in ICU with nobody allowed to visit or be there for you, it was a lonely and isolated time and I won’t be the only one to have experienced that. Its lonely and distressing and when others can’t connect to you when you need them the most in your time of need they can’t comprehend what you went through as they didn’t see it. It changes you physically, mentally and emotionally.

Not just covid though with any illness or any life changing event.

We don’t always identify grief attached to ourselves and what has been taken away from us.

Long covid or not, I wrote at the start of the pandemic that we were all feeling and experiencing grief from all the things we loved taken away from us all at once. Visiting friends and family, holidays, basic things like shopping, going day trips everything ground to a halt, we all experienced en mass grief on a global scale, and being the human beings were are, we felt everyone’s grief and pain at the same time but we didn’t recognise it.

Be kind to yourself do what you need to do for you with no judgement.

Remember not to judge others as you do not know what another person is dealing with, no matter how much you think you know a person, or not.

Be respectful to each other. Come together rather than divide.

Lots of love Heather xXx