I have moments, where I have to express my grief. We might think, we may have been trained as women, not to be messy, not to deeply feel and cry.
But there is power in grief.
Feeling our emotions unbinds a stuck energy and this enables us to grow into a new version of ourselves.
When I am in a wave of grief, my greatest fear is that I will get stuck in it and not have the energy to re-emerge. But that is why we have practices. Our practices can help us make sense of, move through, and harvest the energy of our grief.
What helps me often, is being witnessed by my sisterhood. And after a morning of connection with my sisters, I feel my joy coming back online. My grief is a thing that visits me, sitting in my lap like a crying baby. My job is to be with it, to wait patiently for it to settle down. Grief is not convenient.
“You’re too much!” That’s a message women commonly receive when we are feeling big feelings. Well, I’m re-writing that script!
We really are all connected. That is in part why I feel the grief so deeply. I feel the grief of those who truly see no way out. I long for every human to have the freedom, the love, the resources, the community, the healed emotions, the nourishing marriage, the healthy body, and the connection to Source that I feel on the regular.
The gift of this grief is that I experience empathy for what others are feeling.
On one particular morning, in the time of COVID, I woke up, did my workout, and my Wim Hof breathing, and then the crying started. We are taught these emotions are too private to share. And yet, that morning, I made a video and shared it on IGTV, a video of me, while I was crying. My hope is that others who see that, or read this, will join me in being okay with our grief.
I need every single one of my practices (Exercise, Wim Hof, Mama Gena’s Trinity, Being in Nature, Connecting with My Sisters, Network Spinal entrainments, Journaling, Meditation, Prayer, Beauty-Making) just to do this life. Every little thing I do, helps. On the other side of my practices, I end up feeling very motivated. As a result, I’ve built a successful company, and I have a successful life.
Part of these successes is due to the fact that I am willing to go to these dark places, be with them. But I don’t like doing it. It’s hard. I want to resist. And instead, I’m allowing it.
My friends often tell me they think my life is easy, and that I’m just a naturally optimistic person.
Julia Roberts once said: “Every day, I wake up and choose to be happy.”
That’s my truth.
I do all the work, and sometimes even then, I don’t get to feel better right away. Sometimes I have to stop and just be with how hard it is to be a human.
Be with the weight of the burden of this life, settle in.
We women have been blessed to be able to feel these feelings. But, the dominant culture doesn’t want us to feel. Because, if we stay in neutral or low energy states, we are more susceptible to being sold products and a belief system that says we’re not enough.
Even in my messy moments, I actually do know that I am enough. I don’t like falling down into my tears because I want to be going out and generating prosperity so I can support my family and the people I love and give more to humanity.
So I believe, when I’m grieving, that I can’t do that.
But instead of avoiding my feelings, I actually slow down and really honor them.
My invitation to you is to join me in trying to be okay with the mess. Because that will catapult us into our next growth spurt, and our next…
May your day be blessed and may you honor every feeling that comes up for you during this pandemic, and any loss you may be having, and also the joyful feelings.
Let’s do this! Let’s not judge our feelings. Our feelings are our birthright, as humans.
