Heart Centered Grief Work

Maybe we don't need to "get over it" - maybe this IS it. The spectrum of human emotions can be an expansive experience, and integrating grief, pain and shadow selves can help us feel whole again.

One of the most profound understandings of how painful emotions show up for us happened for me within Matt Licata & Jeff Foster's journaling course Befriending Yourself. A video of a conversation they had addressed someone asking how to "get over" a painful experience. The way they addressed the question changed everything for me.

Matt eloquently animalized each painful emotion stirring as if it were a kitten crying at the door of your heart. The way he explained the process of giving a small, helpless creature what it needs completely broke me open and I wept. Matt said that if we were to be able to view our uncomfortable or painful feelings this way, we could give the attention, love, compassion, care and tenderness it needed until it had been satiated, and would then leave of its own volition. We wouldn't have to attempt to "get over it," it would just pass on its own, organically.

I began to understand how to hold my own space, and sit with what haunted me, what cried at the door of my own heart. When I had given enough to myself, I found I effortlessly had the ability to then hold space for others as well. It is a process of allowing, most of the time during a phase wherein your being is reeling and grasping at control. It's a natural human response. To allow is the opposite of control; it is to surrender. Surrendering to painful or uncomfortable emotions in order to feel them and let them pass through you is, unfortunately, not common in practice in society. We are taught to avoid, deny, escape and push away things we've been taught are "bad." Embracing them, however, leads to freedom through emotional mastery.

“Love is really the only thing we can possess, keep with us, and take with us.” Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

As a child, I spent a lot of time at my grandparents’ houses. I had my stepdad’s parents and my mum’s parents as my family support system. It allowed me to be a kid. I bonded with my maternal grandfather the most (though I felt close to each of my grandparents).

My grandfather had immigrated from Scotland in the 60s and we had a large extended family of aunts and uncles and cousins. He was kind and attentive and interested in teaching me things about where I came from and to whom I belonged. Family. He was silly and had an amazing memory and impeccable delivery for jokes. He played hilarious pranks. He taught me how things worked, and I watched him fix things that seemed too complex to even exist. He was an electrician and also a tinkerer. He could fix anything. He was calm and wise and loved animals and nature. He sang songs in front of rooms of people at family gatherings and alone around his house, too. There was always music. He and my grandmother sang together.

I loved him so much it scared me. I knew what it would take for him to leave me and that scared me too. (My whole life, I could barely absorb beautiful moments for fear of the moments later that would end them altogether.) He got to know me as my own person before anyone else stopped talking “baby talk” to me (something I famously, vehemently protested at way too young of an age to feel insulted by an assumption of my intelligence). I was always proud when a natural trait of mine was acquired from my grandfather. It always seemed like he could solve any problem - easily. He lived in possibilities.

My mother and grandfather

My grandpa died in late 2022. It happened, as things tend to happen, in a landslide of overwhelming events. I knew it was going to be one of the hardest things I ever had to live through. I admittedly procrastinated about going to say goodbye. He had dementia and he hadn’t recognized anyone for longer than a couple of minutes for weeks; maybe months. My mom was the one who told me she thought he was waiting for someone. I felt it like a punch to my stomach. I packed up my stuff and went.  

When I got there, he was in a hospital bed they’d set up in the living room. He had shrunk, it seemed; he looked frail. My grandpa looked youthful until he suddenly looked his age at 80-something, so it was shocking. His cat had been sleeping on his bed and hissing at people who came over to him, mainly nurses. He was surrounded by my aunts and cousins, all worrying over him with faces that looked pale, devastated, and sleep deprived. He was asleep.

My mom took me over, by myself, some time later. She put his hand in mine. He stirred a little and opened his eyes. He heard her say “Courtney came to see you,” and he turned his face to me and asked me why I was there. I said, “I came to see you, grandpa,” and he told me he loved me. It simultaneously expanded my heart and crushed it like rose petals. Later on in the night of the following day, he passed away.

“I’ll be seeing you, in all the old familiar places, that this heart of mine embraces, all day through” Billie Holliday

I couldn’t cry, at first. I felt numb and confused. Senseless. People kept telling me that he lived a good life, he was an old man, he had a good family, that he died in the way everyone hopes to – peacefully, in his sleep, surrounded by cats and humans that loved him. It didn’t really help much. It doesn’t lessen the pain when someone tells you one of those cookie cutter things everyone thinks is supposed to be helpful.

Living through the profound loss of one of the greatest loves of my life taught me even more how to hold space for myself and for others. It taught me that it is possible to survive painful emotional losses. It taught me that my feelings are important, and valid - they're teachers and guides. It taught me that your friends - if they're true friends - support you. In losses as much as in wins, you need people around you who will sit silently while you cry, or celebrate with you genuinely. It taught me that we really don't "get over it" nor should we put pressure on ourselves to do so. Our pain becomes part of the tapestries of our lives, woven together with all of the other experiences and memories of joy and happiness. It creates depth of feeling.

My young grandmother and grandfather

“It is so curious: one can resist tears and ‘behave’ very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign from behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer... and then everything collapses.”  Collette

I understand both of those responses to grief. I understand that everyone has a different response. Grief is personal, and unique to each of us. Heartbreak doesn't make sense; the only thing that does make sense is that everyone agrees that it's senseless.

That's why I decided to offer grief and shadow work mentoring for difficult emotions. Because I understand that sometimes we all need help to manage heavy experiences, and I want to be able to support others to move through painful times with grace, self-compassion, self-acceptance, kindness and understanding.

“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.” Khalil Gibran

Like a pendulum swing, our depth of feeling is only as deep as our greatest sorrows, and without them we would not know to recognize true joy. Now it is me that lives in possibilities, because I was blessed with knowing my grandfather.

My grandfather

I miss you, Grandpa. Thank you for always being there for me. For believing in me relentlessly. For loving me for who I am unconditionally.