The Need to Grieve: an essential layer in the Life Spiral (and suggestions for how to allow it)
If this is your first time learning about the FPJ Life Spiral, I recommend starting out by reading our blog on its vocabulary here.
What is grieving?
One dictionary definition of to grieve is “to suffer sorrow”. Sorrow is defined as deep distress, sadness, or regret especially for the loss of someone or something loved. Grieving, is the state of being in this experience of pain and acceptance. I say acceptance because our grief, that felt sense of sadness, sorrow, despair, pain, typically rises up through our body and out of our tear ducts and vocal chords when we accept that we have in fact loss something.
This doesn’t even have to be a specific person lost to death, though many times it is and many times is a degree of grief that is the most unbearable pain we may experience in our lifetime. We can feel grief, loss for literally be anything physical, emotional or even symbolic.
Often in therapy, we must learn to grieve the childhood we didn’t get, but of course deserved. For many Trans and Non-Binary people born in the 90’s or earlier, grieve not having access to the language and models like us that likely would have allowed us to know ourselves much more clearly much earlier on in life and avoid some of the suffering we endured growing up.
For many athletes, dancers and performers who retire, suffer a certain injury or are forced to stop pursuing their art because of the economy, experience deep grief for the passion they once engaged with.
We collectively grieve anytime we realize things will never be the same. Many experienced this after 9/11 and throughout (and still in) The Pandemic. Palestinians experienced this from the 1948 Nakba, and since, and especially today with the unending genocidal bombardments from Israel. Many Jews experienced this after the Holocaust and after October 7th 2023. Africans stolen from their lands and brought to the so-called colonies to be sold into Chattel Slavery experienced this and their descendants live with this loss in their bones. Many chronically ill and disabled folks experience this daily as the world moves on and sacrifices their lives for able-bodied folks comfort. Communities devastated by gun violence. Communities devasted by HIV/AIDS. Indigenous communities experience this over and over and over again.
Grieving is everywhere.
Grieving comes in the form of core beliefs we finally recognize are not truth and not serving and even causing harm to self and others. Folks suffering from addiction, folks suffering from Eating Disorders, folks suffering from having a Neurodivergent brain that’s expected to be Neurotypical all grieve the beliefs and behaviors that helped them survive for so long, but must now say goodbye to. Folks coming to terms with their Whiteness, with their economic privilege, with their apartheid governments, with the truth of how they ended up occupying the land they are on, must all go through a grieving process to expand into a politic rooted in equity, sovereignty, collectivism and love.
Why Do We Grieve?
Socially (due to modern colonial Christian society), we deny, minimize or avoid our grief. Sometimes we only stay in our rage about our losses and never make it into the underbelly of the experience: the sorrow, the hurt, the pain. Our protective parts do what they think is right in battling away those uncomfortable and overwhelming feelings from ourselves.
The reason why it is so essential for our grief to be expressed authentically and fully as it comes, is
It allows us to move through into acceptance and integration from the loss without having to put words to everything, without having to make meaning of everything. We just cry it out.
It releases stress hormones building up in our bodies that are released literally through our tears (scientists have measured this)
It’s often the only thing that actually soothes us even though the experience may feel uncomfortable, unfamiliar and even overwhelming and painful. It’s like when we fall and scrap our bodies. It’s much better for the healing process to clean out the wound instead of ignoring it, which can later turn into infection.
It keeps us connected to our spirits. Our vulnerability. Our humanity. Our ancestors. Grieving is one of the best ways to tend your spirit.
Image Breakdown
Embodiment and Grieving have an inextricable link with one another. When we really grieve - like in keening, those full bodied wails or allow ourselves to feel that pain in the chest or gut that often results in tears, we are embodied. When we do things that help us to be embodied like somatic therapy, yoga, dancing, even running, we may notice that all of a sudden the grief is there - those sensations and the need to express them, cry comes forward. So often being embodied leads us home to our grief.
These two Core Layers of Experience (there are five in the spiral as detailed in this blog), sit in the spiral between the inner most and outer most layers of the 13 layered spiral and all of the Key Channels of Change because they really are the gateway to the core of it. If we are to expereince joy, authenticity, connection and resource, we must pass through the gates of grief and embodiment.
You’ll see in the image above, that each of the Five Anchors to the Channels of Change are listed around the Grieve/Embody center in hearts. This is a visual reminder of how embodying and grieving helps us towards re-membering our magic, enjoying the moment, recovering important parts of ourselves, becoming who we really are and tending our sensitive spirits.
You’ll see in the image above five hands coming out of the corners between each of these hearts. These are guiding gifts for how to meet our grief and truly embody Being. Instead of getting caught up in the Five Survival Responses (Fight, Flight, Freeze, Submit, Attach) we can take the gifts of each of the hands to bring us back into our hearts and into our ability to grieve and embody. These are known as the Five Expansive Responses: Courage, Curiosity, Consciousness, Compassion and Commitment.
Lastly, in the fully detailed FPJ Spiral Image, you’ll notice how the Grieve layer comes before / is underneath the three life stage spirals from The Tarot’s Fool Journey: The Birth Spiral, The Death Spiral, and The Rebirth Spiral. Grieving is a major companion, tool, rite of passage for moving through each of these phases.
Suggestions for Allowing Grief
Lie on your back with a pillow or yoga block underneath your upper back so your heart is opened up towards the sky. Heart openers in general are great poses for getting into the areas of the body that may be holding onto unexpressed grief
Watch a movie you loved from childhood but haven’t seen in awhile
When reading the news or hearing of something that moves you, see if you can give yourself permission in the moment to be sad about it. It’s okay and normal!
Tend an altar the symbolizes your grief or loss
Sit with the moon and stars at night and allow them to hold you
Write a poem
Have a trusted loved one hold you as you let the waters flow
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