Grief support means more than human care
Sometimes when we're grieving, we hold onto a single idea of what we believe support should look like, feeling stung, lonely, bewildered, betrayed when the people we thought would be there fade to the edges of our lives.
But the truth is we are always in relationship to support...once we're willing to expand our perspective of what's available to us, to step beyond the bounds of our human kin.
Here are some ways to resource yourself when you could use a little extra care:
Lie on the ground, or sit in a chair with your feet firmly planted on the ground. Allow yourself to root into the Earth. If it helps, imagine actual roots traveling deep into the ground, touching the Earth's core. Breathe deeply. Notice what it's like to sink a little deeper into that connection, that support, to allow gravity to have its way and let yourself be held by the Earth.
Get close to water. This could be a body of water or a bowl of water if you aren't near a natural source. Ask the water to help you flow with your grief, to open you to your tears. See what wants to move in you — it could be a song, a prayer, a wail or you may find that even sitting in silence feels restorative.
Take a walk. Notice how and where you are carrying your grief as you walk. Let your attention softly turn to the trees, plants, rocks, mushrooms, animal beings...What wisdom might they offer you? What shifts in your body and your heart as you allow yourself to be companioned by the beauty, wonder and resilience of the natural world around you?
Call on your ancestors or the elders, teachers and deities that represent compassion and healing to you. Ask for their support. Speak your most vulnerable truth. Allow yourself to be messy and to receive whatever comes to help you hold your grief. This may be immediate — an image, a sound, a color, words, a sensation that runs through you — or you may notice instances of support that show up in the coming days, whether in your dreams, in human outreach or other reassuring signs.
It may help to consider the ways you are unintentionally keeping yourself from support. By turning to those who are emotionally unavailable. By keeping your grief locked away to present a more put-together persona. By focusing on others to avoid what aches in your own vulnerable core. Ask yourself: am I truly open to support?
Because the stories we tell ourselves in our grief aren't always true. If we're willing to expand our range of thinking and feeling, we might find we're more connected to safety, to love, to compassion than our guarded hearts would have us believe.