Connecting to Emotions (grief) in our Body - Lessons from Ireland Part II

Lessons from Ireland, Part II

After receiving the big healing and clearing on my hip (see my previous blog post, Part I, if you’re not sure what I’m talking about), I had an interesting time navigating the world with this new feeling in my body and energy field. Suddenly I was walking without pain, felt lighter and freer in a way that I hadn’t felt in a while, and also in a way that hadn’t known that I known how much heaviness I was carrying.

This tied into a yearning I had been tending to throughout my sabbatical year to have a deeper connection to my body. I have been cultivating a stronger sense of presence with an intention to learn to listen to my body honor her desires, be it for rest, for a specific type of food, for connection with people, for time alone and on and on. While a focus on being present with my body and an integrated sense of mind/body/spirit has been part of my practice for a long time, this was a deeper practice, one of full pause and trusting every damn thing that comes forth.

So, this was interesting timing for me to walk in the land of my ancestors with a whole new energy reverberating through me.

I brought some of my dad’s ashes to scatter in Ireland. He loved his “O’Dowd” Irish ancestry and had attended a Dowd global family reunion several years prior. I thought this would be a fitting way to honor his memory and lineage.

We went to visit Innisfallen Island, in Killarney National Park. This was the site of a 7th century monastery and university and a seat of learning for several centuries. As a college professor for many years and a lifelong student of higher learning, I felt that leaving some of his ashes here would be a perfect way to honor his legacy; then I planned to find several other spots throughout the country for the rest of them.

As I was walking around the island, I noticed a new sense of freedom of movement in my hips and I also noticed that I had a deeper sense of access to the grief of missing my dad. Walking in Ireland really hit home how much I missed him, a feeling I had probably been avoiding sitting with for a long time. When I thought about my dad, I tended to get very morose, holding a sadness that brought me down and made me feel heavy. Because of this, I often avoided the feelings, they simply felt too hard and heavy. (By avoiding feeling these feelings I was very likely unwittingly contributing to the tension and pain in my hips, an area we carry so much emotion.) Plus, c’mon, it was over four years ago that he died, shouldn’t I be over these feelings by now? It was time to move on and find the joy in connecting with his spirit and the memory of him, at least that’s what all the spiritual teachings I’ve read say is possible.  

But that wasn’t how I had been feeling; I simply missed the hell out of my dad; just sadness. I was feeling it in a whole new way.

So, as I walked the island to find a good spot to leave his ashes, I explored a new practice – letting my body lead me and tell me where to stop. I got out of my mind and tuned deeply into my body. I walked where she guided me to walk; I stopped where she guided me to pause; I noticed and took in the moments of beauty when I was hit by a moment of awe. I listened deeply and intently.

And through that somatic connection I was better able to connect with my dad’s spirit. When I felt called to pause along the walk I asked my dad – is this a good spot? And I heard his response through that deep body connection. I felt his yes, I heard the ‘no, not here’. I found a great place on the side of the ruins with a view of the lake, he loved water, and views. There was another spot at the entrance to an altar (he did NOT want to be on the altar area) below the image of a gargoyle type figure (he loved gargoyles). As I went to scatter a few ashes in the last place, saving some for a different place in Ireland, I heard him say, ‘Leave them all here, I feel stretched thin. I’m tired of traveling around so much,’ Well, OK then! That was different from what my mental plan had been, but I felt the truth of it and so I did that, the rest of his ashes stayed right there, as I trusted the messages I was receiving through this deep listening. I let go of what my mind thought was the right thing to do and followed the guidance I was hearing so clearly.

When this ritual was complete, I went down by the water to sit near by the enormous Yew tree on the island. (Did I mention the 700+ year old Yew tree?!? It was incredible! So sacred.) I squatted down and put my hands on the earth – I wanted to feel the deeply healing earth energy move up through my body; I felt it in my feet, and then felt it move up my legs, my hips, filling and swirling around in my hips and pelvis, and then slowly move into my heart. This deeply nourishing and healing earth energy soothing the grief in my body.

When I felt full of as much earth energy as I could take in that moment, I started to release the grief that had been welling up inside of me to the earth. I let it flow through my tears. I felt it pour out of my squatting hips right down to the earth, this powerful flow of energy moving down and out of me. And in that moment, I felt a different kind of sadness start to emerge, one in which I could also start to feel a bit of the flip side of grief, the joy and the love that are there as well. I felt a level of peace that I had not known before emanating from within me.

It's not to say that I don’t still simply feel deep sadness, in fact just these past few weeks I had a tough couple of days of simply missing my dad again, just pure grief. However, I could feel a shift towards what is possible, a different way of experiencing that grief that was richer and more diverse than what I had previously known. That, I trust, is how my journey is unfolding – baby steps along a path of what is possible in this moment, moving towards a different experience.

Just as embodiment is not a linear path, nor is grief. What I know to be true for myself now is that I feel profoundly grateful that I had this experience of embodied grief and a deeper somatic experience and expression for myself and my grief, and my love.

This practice of listening to our bodies can be so challenging, it’s not like there are spoken words, our most common form of interaction, coming from our bodies. Sure, there are some obvious signs that are pretty clear, like when we need to sleep, eat, pee etc.; the basic functions of life do offer some obvious signals (most of the time). 

However, when it comes to the more subtle messages from our body, how do we interpret those? Sometimes fatigue masks as an afternoon sugar craving. How often do we keep driving ourselves to work and ‘be productive’ when deep down inside our bodies long for deep rest? Or the times when we lash out at someone not realizing we have a deep sadness that yearns to be felt and expressed. Or, even more subtle and painful, when we slip into a depression (self-hatred?) due to unexpressed anger that we may not even be aware of or able to name. The daily busyness of many people’s lives can make it challenging to understand these messages until they are quite literally screaming at us.

Tapping into and then identifying these more nuanced messages that our body is trying to communicate to us is wrought with confusion, pain, collective trauma, and misunderstanding, both at a personal level and at a group level (family, community, collective).

Here are a few practices that I have found helpful to understand my body’s messages more clearly:

1.      Pause. Slooooow down.

The fast pace of most of our lives these days does not support messages that come through the more dense and subtle soma of our physical bodies. When we are bombarded with messages coming at us from myriad external sources throughout the day it can be very challenging to tap into the internal messages of our own bodies. In my experience it takes an actual pause, best accompanied by a deep intentional breath or two, in order to get to a pace and a place to actually hear a message from my body.

Stop right now, just where you are (if safe to do so), take a few breaths, and follow along.

2.      Turn your attention inward. The adage ‘where attention goes, energy flows’ is a truism.

3.      Have a conversation with your body. Try asking your body how it is feeling, or what it wants in this moment. Being willing to initiate and be present for a conversation is an important first step.

4.      Listen for a response. This is where many people can get stuck as most of us aren’t used to hearing subtler messages from our body and so may be prone to give up quickly, again, go slowly and allow the time. You may hear a word come to you as an answer. You might get a sense or a knowing of what the answer is. You might also feel something in your body that is telling you what most wants attention and attunement in the moment.

a.      It can be helpful to connect in multiple ways when listening to the body. Put a hand on your heart to see if you can understand your heart’s messages? Wrap your arms around your body in a gentle embrace to feel a physical connection to your body. Something that gives another way to be in relationship with your body.

5.      Once you have a sense of a response from your body, do what you can to respond to it. Whatever your body is asking for try to take one small step in that direction as a way to strengthen the relationship, to let your body know you will listen and that it can trust you.

I have found this practice to be deeply nourishing and healing. Sometimes simply slowing down is enough for me to start to get a sense of what is needed next. Other times I have to sit with myself and my body for a while to understand what is truly needed. Either way, the sense of somatic ease I feel as a result of this practice is profound.  My body lets go of tension I didn’t even realize it was holding; anxiety and mental stress begins to soften; and I develop a connection with my body and myself that feels like a sort of homecoming.

I’d love to hear about your experiences of ‘coming home’ to yourself and your body. Post in the comments or send me a message – kathleendowdyoga@gmail.com (I read all of your messages!)