Successes in a grief process
Grief permeates the fabric of our lives of the countless ways where suffering has been allowed to fester when it could have been prevented. Thus, is the way of the world.
The following is a personal journey through the somatic underpinnings of grief:
My Grief Process began in November 2019
A preface
I was in a cycle of grief without knowing it. I know I have been immersed in a grief cycle for 65 years. This has been as a result of childhood ritual sexual abuse that began at age 4 and ended at 11. I was on a homeopathic formula at age 39 for skin problems when I had a flashback of incest at 4 years old. Previous to the flashback I had no idea that I had experienced childhood sexual trauma. In my teen years I was so immersed in grief, depression, rage cycles that I assumed that happiness was only an occasional happenstance.
In my 20s and 30s I explored many avenues and began to pursue happiness and truth under the guise of anger and then again grief. It’s easy to look at past memories through hindsight and see anger and its low-lying cousin, grief within so many experiences and relationships.
In the late 80s and throughout the 90s — into the millennium I had two therapists — the latter was the best therapist. With the help of Susan T., my therapist, I mapped and processed the abuse through waves of emotion until I reached a plateau.
The Current Grief Process — Updates
In late October of last year (2019) a friend and colleague suggested a homeopathic formula for grief. It was what I had been waiting for — knowing that I had been stuck but did not know how to unstick myself.
This new way of working with grief goes deep. I have been finding that the work involves releasing grief as it is attached to the cellular memories of my physical body. While at times its deeply emotional and I am not as attached to the grief somatic or emotional grief as I once was identified.
· Is it difficult work?
· Yes.
· Are there emotions of deep grief I’d like to deny?
· Yes.
· Is working through these emotions / somatizations* painful?
· Yes.
· Am I consumed by these emotions?
· No, at least not to the degree I had been 20 years ago.
· Are there epiphanies where happiness and joy burst forth?
· Yes, and some are outstanding and seemingly miraculous.
As a result of clearing the spirit of my mom who had been hiding in my body since I was 4 years old and clearing away segments of my sister and father; parts of my body feel happy. Other parts are the sources for body memories being released as a result of incest violations. I regard these body memories releasing as something good. Using a CBT therapeutic frame, I tell myself — they (the body memories) are releasing in the present where I feel safe. No need to worry. So, I don’t.
I have changed over to a mostly vegan diet, exercising more and since last summer I have lost nearly 60 pounds.
Parts of my body feel happy for the first time in my life. And these I feel presence in these parts too. It is such a relief and exciting too.
I’d say the process is working and there is much work that needs to be done.
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*somatizations or somatization is traditionally a psychiatric term relating to symptoms that cannot be traced to a source. I am using the term loosely to associate body memories with emotional counterparts.
