Self-created grief vs true grief

When we are feeling grief there is a difference between habitual, self-created grief and then raw grief that moves through our bodies.
When I say self-created it means that something – whether internal or external – brings up grief, but then we cling to it and let it pull us down until we feel like oh, poor me in a puddle on the floor.
This is how I always felt grief. I felt the raw emotion – but then I clung to it and attached so many other stories to it.
“Poor me, this always happens to me, why is life doing this to me, I’m mad at life, I am so depressed and sad I am going to stay this way forever, I cannot do anything because I am too sad.”
It was like I would take what was truly there and then amplify it and abuse myself with it.
Coming into my body, learning how to feel emotion and sensation in my body taught me what it was like to truly feel.
What happens when we purely feel the emotion itself and don’t just spin in the cycle of it.
I find that now going through something very sad feels like I am riding the symphony of life.
Like as I am living there are many songs floating through the air, a new verse in each moment.
One moment I am laughing and then the next the song of grief catches my body and I open to it without attaching, cry all the way for a moment, say yes, I am willing to be here with this and feel it fully.
And then a song of gratitude floats through and my body expands and breathes
And a song of love and I feel how lucky I am to be so loved, to love so much
And a song that doesn’t require as much attention, of contentment and presence and I think other thoughts for a while
Until a new song comes in again.
I find that being present in grief is not an endless dark hole.
It is just an opportunity to open and trust life, to say yes I trust even in this, and no matter what happens I am willing to feel all of it.
I am willing to experience fully every song.
To breathe it into my body and say yes to this.
I surrender to what is happening and I let myself feel it all the way.
If you liked this piece, you might also enjoy:
– When I was younger I used to go into the ocean and ask the ocean to take me away
– Freedom comes from not being a victim
– We have been spoon fed an idea of what a good life looks like