Episode 56: “To Grieve Our Losses Means to Surrender to Our Feelings”

Today we're going to be talking about sadness and grief and how to feel it what to do with it, grieving our losses. This means that we need to surrender to our feelings and actually feel them. It's a complicated topic I know. And it takes a lot of work and effort and emotional resilience to do this work. However, it is so important I'm going to start off by reading something from Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie, and it's all on sadness, "ultimately, to grieve our losses means to surrender to our feelings.

So many of us have lost so much have said so many goodbyes have been through so many changes, we may want to hold back the tides of change, not because the change isn't good. But because we have had so much change so much loss. Sometimes when we are in the midst of pain and grief, we become short sighted, like members of a tribe described in the movie out of Africa. If you put them in prison, one character said describing this tribe, they die. Why ask for another character, because they can't grasp the idea that there'll be let out one day, they think it's permanent.

So they die. Many of us have so much grief to get through. Sometimes we begin to believe grief or pain is a permanent condition, the pain will stop once felt and released, our feelings will bring us to a better place than where we started. Feeling our feelings instead of denying or minimizing them is how we heal from our past and move forward into a better future. Feeling our feelings is how we let go. It may hurt for a moment, but peace and acceptance are on the other side. So is a new beginning." So that's what we're going to be talking about today, we're going to be talking about feeling those things and and why it's so important to feel the grief.

And notice what the emotions are. We can't do this without feeling. And it's because those feelings trap us when they go unheard, unnotice, unseen, unintegrated, we can't actually move forward. It's like a holding back. There's a wall there. Those pains, those griefs, those losses, they create walls if we let them. We have so many just because we've grown up and we've had different experiences. But we don't want to keep creating more. We're trying to undo and unlearn so that we can be free of anything that's in our past. And we want to be a little more resilient for our present and our future. And the way we do that is by noticing and feeling.

This goes along with everything in our life. I have a recovery friend that I've never met in person, but we have met through online groups. But she and her husband are in recovery. He chose recovery from pornography addiction. And so they're together and they've spoken out about it. They are open about it. And it's amazing the resilience they've had and what they've done. Well, recently, she's had another loss where they've lost a child. And that kind of pain is incredible, right? I haven't personally lost a child. But I did lose my nephew when he was nine.

And so I don't have the mother's perspective. I do have the aunts perspective, as well as he was my son's best friend. And so there's there is some feeling an emotion that I have toward her and toward her experience because I've been through something on a smaller scale that let me feel some of that grief. I was in the grocery store. And I just couldn't even stay there because I was just overwhelmed and just starting to cry. And I know that this probably happens to her on a daily basis, if not multiple times a day.

I know as I've talked to my sister over the years about what she's gone through losing her son. She said it's just weird random moments that hit you over the years you think everything's fine. It's been a lot of time. And when I say fine, I don't mean like It's fine. It's never fine to lose somebody that you love. But I I'm saying as far as time goes on and you start living your life, and then something random will come up. She said one day it was that kids that were in the middle school were walking home from school and all of a sudden she sees that out her window, and she's like, he should be walking with them.

This is crazy. And it sent her into that pain and sadness. That is something that we can't take away. That is not even something that we can actually really let go of, because why would we, we don't want to those feelings as painful as they are. Feeling makes us feel like we're alive, like something is happening like we've experienced something. We do like that part. We don't like the grief, or the utter shattered pain that it caused. But just having a feeling around something that is been hard, gives us some sort of tangible idea of what we've gone through.

So when we're talking about grief, and sadness, and pain and feelings, this goes along with so many different areas of our life, we could be grieving the fact that we've just found out and realized our body has told us that we have all these childhood wounds, or beliefs that we've created because of somebody telling us something that isn't actually true. All of those things can be worked through and dealt with, and then they set us free. And it gives us a new perspective in our mind.

But if we take things as they are, as a belief, as I hear something, I take it in, and I say to myself, okay, that must be true, then I've created this belief that may or may not be. So as we're taking in things, we can acknowledge the fact that some of this isn't exactly true. Some of it is perspective, in opinion, or other people's fears, other people's way of coping. So they're saying this is what this is. And we either can take it or not. I was in the grocery store yesterday, and I saw this little girl, she was probably four. And she had her little sandals on.

And somehow I didn't see the first part, but it sounded as though either she hit the cart with her toe, or something else. And she just started crying, and she was bent over holding your toe. She's like, Oh, she's crying. She's like, it hurts, it hurts my toe, my toe, and her mom bent down, looks at her toe and then said, you're fine. Here, get over here and hold on to the cart. Oh, my heart sunk. And I know many of us have been in those situations before where we are at our last straw. And our child has been crazy, or, or whatever.

So I'm not going to judge this mom for what happened. But what I am going to talk through is that, what do you think that little four year old thought? What do you think she internalized a few things right? She might have thought, Oh, I'm not allowed to be in pain. Me being sad or hurt causes my mom anger. If I express how I feel, or what has happened to me, nobody's going to hear me see me understand, have empathy, nurture me painful, right? We can look back on our lives and see many of those instances where we did not feel seen or heard.

So when we look at old things, so someday, this little girl, hopefully he's going to be in therapy, because that's where we find out all this stuff, right. And she's going to see that that was an instance that possibly made an impact on her where she created a belief that I better not cause a problem. So when she's in therapy, or as we're doing our work that way, we can look at those instances. And we can say, Okay, if I want to get through this and grieve a painful experience, or a loss, or change a belief I have, I have to go back to where I created the belief.

So let's take this little girl with her hurt toe and say, okay, so when we look at that event, and if we're the little girl, we need to reframe that situation, reframing meaning, let's look at other possibilities that could have been happening rather than the belief that she may create, let's just say she does, that nobody cares about her feelings, that she can't express pain or she'll be in trouble. You know, whatever those are that she creates. And let's reframe them.

So the way you do that, as you think of other possibilities, you think about Okay, what is an another reason why my mom would have acted that way other than me, other than I'm the cause other than I'm the one who made her angry. My feelings and emotions made her upset. What else could that be? So we talked through and we come up with a few. So okay, so maybe I'm looking at my mom as this four year old maybe she was stressing because she was in a hurry because she was late. Maybe I do remember she was upset earlier that morning.

So maybe she was upset at somebody else. And that was just she just couldn't handle that at the moment. When you come up with the different possibilities, you ask yourself, which one feels the most true? Okay, this actually wasn't about me and my getting hurt. This was about her and her temperament, what she was going through what she had time for, in her mind because of other stuff she had. So this is hers, she reacted that way, not because of me, but because of herself.

What that does is it heals the wound for the little child, you're going to look back in those shoes. If you're that person, that little girl or little boy, and you're looking at the person who has kind of harmed you in some way, whether they knew it or not. And you created a belief, you look at them, like, okay, so let me see here, if I'm looking at it, that and seeing her like, oh, wow, she's so stressed, she has a lot on our plate, and I hit my toe, and she freaked out. But But she hasn't always done that she doesn't do that other times, therefore, this is hers, not mine, all of a sudden, it's as if that whole weight came off your shoulders.

And you can like, let go of that pain and that suffering that you've carried for so long. And you can start letting go of that belief. So now, instead of feeling like I cannot share my emotions, if I do, somebody will be mad at me, I will be a burden to someone, all of a sudden, you realize that wasn't true at all, even though that created something and you've kind of lived your life by it, even if you're 40 years old. Now. This is what gives you that peace and acceptance.

This is what gives you the new beginning. This is what starts that opening up where your body will say, Oh yeah, and we also felt this and this and this. It's super painful to feel all the feelings. However, denying them or minimizing them like they're no big deal is not going to help you. It's going to hurt you. those beliefs that we create, tell us that we have no value and no worth as a human being to be nurtured or to be able to come forward, raw and vulnerable.

And truth with truth, truthful feelings, this hurt me, I hurt my toe on the shopping cart, I am allowed to cry, I'm allowed to be sad, I would love for someone to hug me and maybe rub my toe or put a bandaid on it, that would have felt completely different to that little girl. Now, maybe her mom does that other times, right, we're recreating the new event for her by talking through about the other possibilities so that she can heal that wound so that she can let go of that belief that she can't share or be real or be true to her emotions.

So that's why it's so important to feel those things. So to grieve any of our losses, if we go back to the beginning of that thing I read, to grieve our losses means to surrender to our feelings. This isn't always convenient. Sometimes we're in a place where we're like, my feelings are coming up. And I don't have time for this. Sometimes that's okay. Sometimes we can push them aside, sometimes we can move them over and deal with them later. And sometimes we need to take a moment, put our hands over her heart and say I deserve to feel these feelings.

Sometimes it's scary because our feelings usually come in a way of panic, anxiety, fear producing the unknown. What if I get through this, then what's going to happen? What am I going to do? I had to grieve the loss and feelings of having that control belief I had to control believe that all my effort would pay off in a way that my husband at that time. So my ex husband now would choose recovery and would choose me, because what would that mean to me? So at first, I'm like holding on to Okay, I'm doing everything I can because there's no way and and he is not going to lose out on this. And I'm not going to let him go down.

And in a way I was trying to do that for him. So that he wouldn't have a hard life. But I was also doing it for me. What if he didn't do it? What does that say about me? Where does that leave me? It left me in a really unfamiliar, unknown what's ahead. I can't see it. very unstable, unsettling feeling. And that's complicated. Because we don't know what to do. We're grasping. We're like looking around going, I don't know where to stop. I don't know what to do. It's like, we can't even see like there's this blizzard in front of us and we're supposed to walk in it and we're like, why would I do that? I don't know if I'm gonna hit something.

I don't know if something's gonna hurt me. I don't know what's gonna happen I might die. Those are real internal feelings that we feel based on our surroundings and the beliefs we've created, so I had a belief that I could control what happened that if I just did more just did enough, just did it exactly right. So perfectionism, if I did it right, then I'd be okay. I had to look at that and say, Okay, so what is the hidden thing? What is going on in me? That I feel like I need to control it, because ultimately, you can't really control anything or anyone, right? We know this, but we still try because the fear of what might happen is so great.

I had to look at it though and go, okay. I want to let go of this feeling because it's paralyzing me. And it's also making me feel crazy, because I'm so hyper vigilant on trying to save and change somebody. That doesn't work. It never does. And so I had to look at it and go, Okay, so let's break it down. What do I need to grieve? What do I need to feel in order to surrender? There were so many different things. In this case, it was like I had to, I had to feel the loss that it what would it feel like if he didn't do the work? Well, that means he didn't choose me, that means I'm not valuable enough. That means I'm not worth it.

That means I'm not loved. That means I'm not valuable. That all my effort didn't even matter, that I'm just not enough. I'm not enough. I'm not enough for him. He wouldn't he doesn't want to choose this. He doesn't allow me. Otherwise he would. So when I had to look at that, for what it was, I got to feel what that was, feel what those things meant. And then I needed to reframe them. What other possibilities? Could there be? That would be a reason that he would not do it? Okay. Let's think about that. Well, if we look at himself, he didn't want to do the work.

That way. He liked the way he was living. He wanted to be able to do things when he wanted and what he wanted anytime, okay, he didn't like accountability. He went through rehab and counseling every week in 12 step meetings, and he only wanted to do so much. He had a good rapport with the people in his groups, they all loved him, they all felt like he was doing the work. But when it came down to it, he was just giving enough so that he really was playing the part. And he looked really good at it. Like he would totally was on it.

And so they respected him, and they look to him for how to do these things. Yet on the other side, he was lying to himself. Okay, so he's lying to himself that he's doing all this work, and that it's going to work that it's going to save everything, but he's actually not doing it all. Okay, when he's choosing to lie, then that's him because he doesn't want to be accountable. Okay? Do you see where I'm going with this? When you look at it, and you start taking yourself out of it, that somehow this is going to be about you or you aren't valuable enough, you aren't worth enough, you can start giving back people their stuff.

Even though I created a belief surrounding that experience, and what his actions were, I got to let it go. But in order to let it go, you have to feel it. You have to surrender to it. You have to grieve the losses, I had to grieve that what I did couldn't change somebody. I had to reframe that to say but what I did change me all the work and effort I put in, made me a different person, a healthier, happier, more confident, more understanding, greater perspective, smarter person. It came with a lot of loss, a lot of grief, a lot of pain, sadness, all of those things.

But the work worked. Not in the way I thought, but totally worked for me because I was the one doing it. had he done that same kind of work, I would have worked for him and then it's possible, we would have made it together. That's not what he did. That's not what I could make him do. But my work changed me. How cool is that? Your work is changing you your boundaries. you're noticing your losses, and grieving the pains and sadness of your experiences and what has happened to you in your life will give you peace and freedom.

There is a surrender to the process. There is a letting go. So we're not gripping so hard when that storm is in front of us and we can't see anything because that blizzard is just going crazy. One inch in front of our face. When we let go and surrender. And we keep doing our work. It allows us to walk into that storm and not even be bothered. Yes, we have to get through the fear but we can walk through it because we know what it is.

We're doing it for our benefit, and it's changing us, these beliefs that we have around whether we're deserving of something whether we, we weren't given what we needed, all the different blame and resentment and entitlements and selfishness and all the things that we believe we should have had, the sooner we can grieve those losses, and surrender to those feelings, the sooner we'll get through those things and realize what the truth actually was, and be able to give back the inconsistency, the unhealthy patterns to all the people who put those things on us.

Now, I know they didn't intentionally do that most of the time. They don't usually know either their unhealthy behavior, sometimes they do. But this is not about them. This is not even about feeling sorry for them, or needing to say, well, they didn't know. So I should probably let them do that, because they don't know any better. You absolutely can. However, that doesn't help you at all. It hurts you, it hinders you. It keeps you in a place of always trying to navigate and say the right next thing and do the right next thing. We just want you to feel peace, we want you to be free.

It's important to do this work so that you can get those things and I promise you, you can achieve it. If you keep going. When you're learning things like this in a podcast, or you're reading books, or you're meeting with your therapist. You're given new insight, new ideas, new way of seeing things other than just spinning around in your own mind in your own brain trying to find a different answer. Do you see how crazy making that might be? If you don't want to reach out and get the help you need? That you're like, I will find it in this brain of mine. It has got to be there.

I'm going to find it and I'm going to see a different yet you hear something new and you're like what is like lightbulb goes off this whole thing of awareness where your eyes are just like, I did not see it that way. And how cool is this. That's what you get. When you get the help that you need. When you listen to things, read books, see a therapist. So if you're in the process of trying to unlearn and see what's in your way, see what's holding you back, maybe you have a job that you love, but you can't seem to get motivated to do it.

Maybe you feel like I just can't seem to get there. It's like on the brink of being successful, but I can't quite tweak it or turn it. That is because there's something in your way from a past belief that you've created. And as soon as you find that out, feel the feelings around it, reframe it, surrender to it, grieve the losses of what that means, or what relationship that was that you got that belief from. As soon as you do that, you will be on your next step in business, you can be as successful as you want to be in anything in your life.

Personally, work, relationships, anything, it's just a matter of owning what's in front of us being willing to let go of pride and ego and see, okay, I just hit a stumbling block. Let's look at it and see what it is. I'm going to take some time to sit with my feelings. I'm going to try and ask my body What is going on? What is hindering us what we're feeling. And as I sit with it, I'm going to have the hope that it's going to come up so that I can surrender, grieve the losses and move forward. That is what I love to do. I love helping people move forward in what is holding them back.

What is keeping them from achieving all the goals and dreams that they want to achieve. Yes, I work with people who have been through betrayal trauma, but I also work with so many that are just trying to get to the next level or step in their life personally, or in their work or with relationships. What kind of help and work do you need? Ask yourself that? Do you need to meet with a counselor? To talk about things? Do you have a lot of trauma that you need to go through? Do you need someone that would more walk you through what's holding you back in your life?

Do you need energy work? Do you need a 12 step group? What do you need to get you through what is holding you back? What is preventing you from moving forward in your life? What is keeping you paralyzed? in fear of taking those steps? When you answer those questions for yourself, and you're like oh my goodness, it's this it's the fear of failure or it's I don't think I'm worth it to be successful. Whatever you find, then you'll know Okay, that's what I need to start with. I need to get help for that. I need to talk to somebody that can help me with that.

Whether it's really deep and you need a counselor, a therapist, or whether it is more life coaching skills, of sent with somebody who can walk you through that. Whatever it is, you owe it to yourself to do that work. It feels better than staying stuck when you think back to that little girl who stubbed her toe Oh, it doesn't let your heart just go, oh, that poor little thing, I just want to wrap my arms around her and give her a hug and tell her that she's okay and that I'm here. And then I'm sorry that it hurt. And let's pick her up and give her a little snuggle.

Right so that she feels Okay, and she feel seen. That's what you need to do for yourself. When you become an adult, you don't quite have that same parent figure that's gonna do that for you. So you are responsible for you, you get to be the one that says, Oh, I'm so sorry, you're hurting. I'm so sad that that grief is so big. I'm so so so sorry, that we've been through so much. But I love you, and I'm here for you. And I want the best for us. And I'm going to do what I need to do so that I can get through this.

The reason I brought up my friend, who isn't I don't really know her just through our recovery groups is because loss, sometimes we think that we're only going to have to go through one loss. Sometimes we think it's unfair. And I wish it was like that. So many people told me Oh, you'll never have to go through something hard again, because of that what you went through with your first husband? Well, that is not what's happened. Right. As you know, I went through a second divorce after a one year relationship. And there's been other hard things since and I'm sure there's going to be more.

So it's not about whether or not we have hard things it's about if we want to choose to feel them so we can surrender and keep living in peace, even through the grief. Or if we want to get mad and angry and bitter. I mean, we're going to be like that when something happens, but stay that way, and create more chaos and pain for our life. This particular friend, I'm watching her post beautiful messages about light and love and pain, sadness and anger, all of the emotions that we're supposed to feel, she gets to feel all the things she gets to be angry, she gets to be mad, she gets to be upset a God if she wants. I don't know if she is, but she gets to.

And then as she works through it, she goes back to a place of peace and light and love. And then around around around until she continues to work through it, which will be probably a lifetime thing that she that will come up for her. But as she keeps doing the process, she will keep adding freedom to her life. And she will keep being able to move forward in a way that keeps benefiting her rather than hindering her. I just love her for that I want to meet her in person one of these days, because I just think she is a beacon of truth. And I love reading her messages.

One of these days maybe when she is through this part of her grief, maybe we'll have her as a guest on the podcast. And she can talk to us about trials and trauma and pain and light and love. So as we end this, I want you this week to think about something in your life that is holding you back. And I want you to try that process of reframing it, I want you to look at the belief you have, maybe you don't even know what to believe. And maybe you'll need my help to even uncover that. So please reach out, please set up a session if you want me to help you find that.

And if you can find it, I want you to reframe it and think about other possibilities that could have met other than you're not enough or you weren't worth it, see if that can clear a little piece of the pain and set you free. I want you to also pay attention to your feelings this week. And notice when they come up and surrender to them. Allow yourself to feel and allow yourself to cry and be sad. And then notice if it puts you in a panic and you want to run away from it or if you're able to sit with it.

If you're not able to sit with it. That's an indicator that you need someone to walk with you through it. So make sure you pay attention to that so that you can get on the other side and feel free. I'm so glad to be with you every week. I'm glad you're here. I wish you all the best in your recoveries in your healing in adding light and love to your life and I'll see you next time.

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