My broken heart…
I continue to honor this phase of the medicine wheel in hibernation and contemplation, while confronting wounds and traumas of this past year that left me dissociated and heart-broken.
I conveniently chose to forget that what we don’t share we store.
I spent the past year tending to others and leading others in heart-centered and soul-aligned mentorship, forgetting that I was one of the ones waiting to be led with love.
In 2022 my family experienced a series of consecutive devastating losses that shook us all to our core. Consequently I became so focused on my children’s grief, my mother’s grief, while taking care of clients’ hearts, and living the day to day minutia, and neglecting the immense grief that was accumulating in my own being.
All emotions are energy; and the energy of Grief is a heaviness that infiltrates the body specifically the heart, the lungs, the colon. Almost every ancient yet enduring system of medicinal wisdom teaches us that unexpressed grief toxifies the system and causes dis-ease if not adequately tended to.
There is something real about the term “broken heart”. It happens when we believe that we have lost a part of ourselves that was attached to the person that has passed on. Anodea Judith teaches that the human can tolerate the loss of a love object but not the loss of vital pieces of ourselves.
When we wonder how we can ever go on without the person; When we believe that life will never be the same again; when life feels like it no longer has meaning without the person;
then we are really mourning the loss of a sacred essence of ourselves.
What results is that every inch of our being hurts; where there once was soft wholeness of a pulsing heart are now shattered fragments with razor sharp edges that pierce our souls with every breath that we struggle to take; wells of empty dark voids that seems impossible to fill; and pain so unbearable that we have no idea of how to source the strength to carry on.
And new losses can trigger old losses that left an imprint within our being if not adequately processed. The heavy burden of grief then increases exponentially.
And when pain becomes intolerable, and the weight too much to bare, our old reliable inner protection system goes to work to disconnect us from the pain. And so numbness and dissociation are inevitable.
Broken-heartedness is real.
And it can be healed.
Grief is considered the demon of the heart chakra as it counteracts the lightness, openness and expansion of the heart, and instead contributes to its heaviness and being closed off. Our hearts feel heavy, almost as though a boulder sits on our chest, and we can’t breathe. Our hearts harden and close.
I am no stranger to grief. None of us are. It’s a universal human emotion. We have all experienced loss in some way shape or form. We all can relate to this energy.
But admittedly, as many humans do, I spent the last 10 months attempting to deny its presence, and in the process disconnected from my own heart. I became cold, detached, and numb to the point of feeling dead inside. I became so dissociated from my own heart that I have experienced daily episodes of fainting precipitated by tachycardia events where my heart is racing and raging out of control. If it had voice, it would scream “notice me!”
You can’t tell from this picture, but under my shirt I have affixed to my chest a heart monitor that I must wear for the next two weeks. It’s a literal and metaphorical reminder that my job now is to tune in to the rhythms of my own heart; that its sorrowful lyrics must be sung, and it’s aching heaviness must be danced from my body.
When grief is finally acknowledged, our hearts start to open once again. As we shed tears, give voice to the intense sorrow, and embody the energy of grief completely, the heart lightens and we feel the love that has been waiting there. Tending to grief is what allows us to develop compassion for others. And it’s through compassion that we align with the highest frequency of love.
Just talking about grief won’t heal. Afterall, when a loved one transitions on, regardless of the circumstance of their passing, for most humans our minds, bodies, and spirits are shaken, throwing our nervous systems off kilter and our entire energy bodies into a state of contraction. And in that contracted state, our life force energy is cut-off, our joy siphoned, and access to our own hearts denied.
That’s because the greatest fear of the human is that of death. (More on that another time). And one of our greatest causes of suffering is attachment.
Simply talking it out doesn’t cut the energetic cords of attachment or give the electrical charge required for resuscitation.
Tending to grief and restoring health and wellness to the system requires movement—in particular increasing body awareness, emotional regulation and nervous system self-soothing, and opening practices that allow for energy to move freely, all to ultimately strengthen our connection with our selves.
It may seem counterintuitive, but the purpose of tending to grief is not to solidify our connection with the person who has passed, or strengthen our attachment to them, rather it’s to reclaim our connection with our selves, with our own hearts. We intentionally work with the emotion in order to fully attune to our inner landscapes in order to be fully present in our lives. We work to reclaim the sacred essence that we believe we lost. We work to resuscitate our hearts restoring life force.
Consider how when someone passes, we create various rituals to memorialize the loved one. We try to help ourselves through the loss by creating pictures, collages, and video montages; memorial dedication services; we create memory boxes with special keepsakes; etc. And while these activities may make us feel temporarily comforted, they’re not actually healing our hearts. In fact, with these beautiful and well-intentioned practices we are tending to our attachment to the person rather than the connection within ourselves.
Attaching to the person —or attaching to anything for that matter—creates suffering.
The energetic invitation of grief is to come back to our own hearts to experience joy, sacred reciprocity with others, compassion for self and others, and trust in the beautifully unconditionally loving beings that we are. Its an invitation to restore our connection with the universe such that we have unrelenting trust in the natural cycles and seasons of life. And it’s an invitation for us to polish the mirror so we can see clearer what is waiting to be revealed from within—-an invitation to remember who we are, and why we came so we can honor the sacredness of our lives.
There is no rsvp date on this invitation. It’s a personal timeline.
To heal my grief I have been utilizing breathwork, shamanic healing, therapeutic dance, trauma informed yoga, energy medicine practices, vocal resonance, sound medicine, and more—practices that have saved my life time and time again and have been offerings from me to others. Practices that remind me of who I am, my place in this universe, and to trust the organic order of things. Life cycles and seasons, and when I am going with the flow of these seaons, in acceptance and aligned with love and trust, there is no fear or pain.
It was time yet again for me to call upon my team of guides to help me offer my own heart what I so readily offer to others’. I remain full with gratitude for my earth-plane guides -my earth-angels as I call them, who always have my back and remind me of my place in this world.
This weekend two of these earth angels held me and loved me and witnessed me as I tended deeply to my heart song allowing grief to emerge from the wellspring of my heart that is slowly but steadily beating in rhythm once again.
With their unified guidance I experienced a deeply healing immersion in a place that has become a sanctuary for me; a place that represents a community enveloped by a sacred mountain that has become a refuge for me, a place of deep solace and connection within myself and with all that is. A holy land that reminds me time and time again of who I am, why I am here in this form at this time, and refines the vision of which I can see so clearly when traversing it’s trails, streams, and falls.
A place that reminds me of how blessed I am to walk these sacred grounds, and that my very existence should be celebrated as a part of that holy land. My body temple is constructed from the same material as the mountain, we are one. How easy to forget, how critical to remember.
My unveiling continued as I shed yet another layer, released yet another wave of grief, and upleveled energetically. And this was a co-created experience between my heart, and the beautiful hearts and magical souls of Nikki Vincenty Haas and Lindsey Porakis. Sisters, thank you for your wisdom, guidance, friendship, laughter, compassion, and love. You are instrumental on my journey. Thank you for reminding me that I am always one of the ones waiting to be led with love.
I love you both and honor your place in my story.
Thank you guides from above for holding me and showing me the way when I couldn’t see one for myself. And in case I wasn’t aware of your presence, you sent a feather down right under my feet.
And thank you Liz Glover Wilson for your creation of Stone Wave Yoga community—for you have reminded me that the oasis of beauty, strength, and fluidity lives inside of me. I just have to be willing to go deeper time and time again to experience it. And when I do, it becomes my greatest offering to myself and the world.
And thank you ML, for your patience as I learn to accept help more fully. IFE.
Thank you to this earth, this place, this community, these people, for being a part of my reclamation of my heart.
I hope this post helps in some way. I will always openly share my truth as I believe so strongly in leading from a place of integrity and audacious authenticity. Our stories are our medicine. We heal in community. When we share our stories, we collectively obliterate shame. It’s all welcome here. You are welcome here.
Friends, if you are experiencing grief, be gentle with yourself as you move towards reclaiming connection with your own heart and the trust required to live each moment of the journey with unwavering presence and unconditional love.
May you always remember why you came here, for when you do, you will never again doubt the sacredness of your life and all of its divinely-timed unfoldings. And if you do forget, I hope you call upon a guide who will lead you back to remembering this beautiful truth.
And so it is…
Xoxo
Dr Kristy
Rewild for Wellness
