I’m gonna lay it out there. I have been feeling seriously sad and unmotivated. My body is dragging, my mind is scattered. I’ve been moving from one horizontal position to another. Utterly engulfed in heartache from the tragic loss of our family dog, who was much more than just a dog to us. She was a joyful, loving presence, one we treasured even more deeply than we already knew.
No one can really warn you about grief. Everyone has their own unique dance with her. She spun me around until I couldn’t stand or eat for a few days and then she began doing the tidal wave on me, bringing me to my knees, unable to ignore the hole in my heart at the most inopportune moments.
Most of my life, I didn’t have time to grieve. I had to get on the next plane or bus ride to the next show, in order to put a smile on my face and perform for thousands of people. I’ve long locked grief inside the crevices of my soul case, yet never knowing it was grief I had locked away until I actually allowed myself to feel it this time around. In feeling it, I realized that I had just allowed for the dam inside to break open. The grief that is present now, feels both current and ancient. Of course, I’m still grieving the loss of our beloved Eveie, but there’s so much more than that, that has been rising. Which lead me to exploring just what “that” might be.
I began to think back to all the losses of my life, from the deaths of loved ones to divorce, my parents and my own. I realized that I have experienced a lot of loss in my 36 years. Loss that I never processed. Loss that I’m still carrying deep in my bones.
We live in a world where we’ve never been taught to take time and nurture our emotional landscape. To honor and respect our emotions as messengers of our truth. We are constantly fed this idea that we are supposed to be happy all of the time and if we aren’t, there is something wrong with us. And God forbid we take longer than a few weeks or months to get over the loss of someone or something dear to us. We must pick ourselves up and get on with life because we must achieve, we must get back to happy as soon as possible.
NO! This is not how it is nor how it has to be. We were created to feel the full spectrum of the human experience. When we rush through these moments of our lives, important moments, rights of passage, we miss the gifts, teachings and wisdom that are ours to carry with us out of the darkness.
During the loss of our dog, I found myself saying “I should be over this” after two weeks. Thankfully, I have cultivated enough self compassion and LovE for my own sensitive heart to quiet that voice, give myself the space to feel and re-examine my programming around the idea of how much time is acceptable and “right” to feel… all of it! I am the one, now teaching myself how to feel the totality of my emotional range. How to sit with discomfort and LovE myself through it instead of running away or numbing it out. I’m teaching myself how to honor my truth and beautiful souls, it’s not an easy feat.
Honoring my truth has looked like more rest, crying whenever needed, voicing my sadness and internal experience to those whom I trust, taking turns with my husband holding one another and allowing the other to sob, rescheduling commitments, telling people I love them, but I don’t feel like talking at the moment, writing only when I felt ready, instead of worrying that March may get away from me and I must get my newsletter out. Though, there’s one piece of my truth puzzle that I am still working on completely honoring and that is my anger.
It has surprised me how much anger exists along side of grief, at least in my experience and I know I’m not alone. Anger has been an emotion I have been fearful of my entire life. Growing up in a home where anger was unhealthily expressed, I shut down my own anger in order not to upset anyone, in fear of that anger being turned on me. My little mind filed anger away as a very dangerous, shameful emotion, not to be expressed. I grew up completely out of touch with my anger and in fear of anyone else’s. Only recently, have I been able to access my anger in a healthier way. Beginning with, actually acknowledging its existence and then, working on baby steps of taking action to express it in a productive manner, instead of turning it inward on myself. I’m not there yet, but I’m getting warmer. One vulnerable moment and 10 seconds of courage at a time.
So, are you honoring your truth?
What part of your emotional experience do you try and force down or numb out?
What beliefs are holding you back from expressing the full range of your emotions?
What’s one small step you can take in honoring your truth right now?
What’s one area of your life where you can practice courage in expressing an emotion you have yet to express?
I see you all.
I understand.
I LovE you.
Thank for you sharing this, when I was younger I dealt with a lot of trauma with my family, but I always kept my grief internally, because being the oldest sister I had to be strong for everyone else. With my mother suffering a severe stroke two years ago, I finally couldn’t uphold the “strong” exterior and allowed myself to full grieve and express my emotions whether sad or angry, I couldn’t hold back anymore. Thank you again for sharing, talking about grief helps us to heal. God bless you!
I am listening to a book. It’s The Mindful Path to Self Compassion. Loving Kindness and Metta meditation are what we all need to get thru these times and the book does a great job of explaining it all. I have been recycling a lot of grief since 2016. Most recently the loss of our dog too. It’s something that hits you hard and it’s a personal experience. But grief is a loving response to loss and as difficult as it is to weather, it is what will help you carry on. Be brave. And feel all you need to feel. My condolences LE 🙏
Such beautiful and powerful words! Bravo!
Thank you for sharing this Leann. I lost my 16 and1/2 year old cat February 11th and I’m still devastated. It’s so hard losing pets because they are family. You are such an amazing human being and I’m so glad you are so down to earth with your fans. 🙏🏻❤️
Thank you for sharing Le. As someone who can relate to the pushing away, running and hiding of grief I feel your pain as it finally surfaces and releases. For me the only salvation for situations like this is music reviving my soul and bringing me back alive! You’re in my prayers.
Ps. I still have the picture of us from a meet and greet like 15 years ago in Springfield. One of my all time fav’s and still makes me smile
Thank you for sharing. I lost my sweet mom and dad this year. I’ve experienced slow flooding of grief—continual, slow, impending doom like a basement getting flooded with springtime rains. I’ve also experienced grief bombs—where everything seems great, but suddenly I’m hit with deep sadness. My parents are always in my dreams, which wakes me with happy sadness. I’m so sorry for your loss. It’s so hard. I can’t imagine the pressure you have to carry on. You have great weight on your shoulders, but please remember that with grief, you’re allowed to put yourself first. You must take care of your heart. You depend on it. Big hugs to you.
My husband shared this with me to read tonight after reading it himself. He said it helped him understand the way I grieve. I carry my heart on my sleeve and because of that I feel much more deeply and empathetically. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between my own feelings and those around me who might be experiencing similar feelings. I use to hide my grief and go to a closet or another room so no one would know that I was crying. Sometimes I still do because it is a hard habit to break. I feel like I have locked away my anger for many years for the same reason, afraid to release it in fear of exploding. When I lost my father in law 2 years this coming Sunday, my grief was so deep that when I tried to hold it back it felt like a huge raging ball of fire about to explode from deep inside of me. I still have that feeling but I don’t think of it as a negative thing. It’s more like the more you love someone, the deeper the grief is when they pass from this life. Anyways, I just wanted to say I know how you feel and appreciate your honesty about a subject people think shouldn’t be discussed. Thanks for sharing your heart with us!
RIP. – REX 🐶 good 🐕 boi 🥺
Beautiful reflection of your truth. Angerr is a tough one because of the internal expanse that it can seem to fill. How healthy it is though to feel that completely, because only then can we work through it and shed light on those crevices.
I agree with the first commenter that talking about greif helps us to heal. Talking about sadness helps us to heal. Sadness is a huge part of life that we tend to look at with shame. Shame that we are not 100 percent in our gratitude, shame that we are not 100 percent happy or put together. Thank goodness sadness can be fleeting if we love ourselves enough to let the emotions flow. Thank you for your voice. It is therapy.