Finding Yourself While Letting Go of Another
By: Christy Ahna Zahava
Tags: Grief, Womens Health, Grief Support, Grief And Loss, Women Empowerment

The distancing, transition or dissolution of a deeply entwined relationship can feel like flesh ripping from the bone. Releasing an “other” to a life or experience with which we are no longer intimately involved can leave us reeling from the loss. Whether separating from a romantic partnership, watching our children leave the nest, redefining our relationship with an aging parent or losing a loved one to the finality of a physical death, these life-altering events prompt neurological and physiological responses that cause disorientation and distress, especially when we don’t understand the inner-workings of what’s really happening. Somewhere between life as we knew it and that which is yet to come, our bodies and brains have some recalibrating to complete.

Change is our nature — the nature of our world — yet we still resist this very fundamental piece to our human experience. We come to life, suspending our mother’s menstrual cycle, shifting her feminine form and engorging her breasts with milk. We transition to death, expiring our breath, arresting our pulse and dissolving our physical form. But somewhere in between the beginning of life and the transition into death we say, “No!” to the eminent dance of creative and destructive forces within and around us.

We may resist or withdraw or refuse to allow the change — hoping, begging, praying to wake and learn that all remains intact, safe, known — when life makes no promise to stay the same, ever. We may feel slighted, cheated out of that which we thought was ours when all the while it never belonged to us. It is here where we face the uncomfortable truth that life is entirely ungraspable and no outcome is ever fully under our control.

Continue to Love

As we part ways or transition out of close connection with another, we may engage responses in order to protect our hearts from the pain of their absence. We may withdraw or push back or shut down. These all stem from the primitive part of our brain only concerned with self-preservation.

These responses, based in the belief that the change in relationship is a threat to our survival, only contract our hearts and hinder our connection with our inherent wholeness. Continuing to love is a practice of self-responsibility and opens the channel of our most genuine expression. In doing so, we say, “My ability to love is not dependent on the love of another.”

If you are at a place in your relationship to letting go where you are ready to open up more space for giving and/or receiving love, there are exercises you can do to help your heart remember how it feels to relax and release it’s self-protective postures and internal patterns of tension:

Breathe long, slow breaths into your heart center (try placing one hand on your womb and the other on your chest while doing this).

Make a long, rolling “AH” sound for at least five minutes and feel the energy resonate with your heart.

Lie on your back with a yoga block behind your heart or an exercise ball supporting your back, arms outstretched to the side, allowing gravity to pull your hands to the floor and open your chest. Open your jaw and throat on the inhale, let the exhale fall out.

Create New Rituals, Roles and Routines

Our primal brain relies on ritual and routine to feel stable and safe. Night follows day, seasons predictably pass, our lungs rhythmically expand and contract and we are at ease with the notion that all is as it ought to be to support our survival.

With the transition or release of a relationship, the rituals and routines which defined our relating — the morning calls, the daily texts, the family dinners that once anchored us in predictable and repetitive relationship patterns — cease to exist. Our roles within those routines diminish. Our identity in relation to the other person dissolves.

When routines vanish and roles with which one has identified cease to exist, the body and brain must completely rewire their relationship to life’s new reality. This requires an enormous amount of energy, as our brains begin to unravel the neural circuitry no longer of use and establish and upgrade pathways relevant to what is now.

In addition to the neurological reconstruction that’s underway, the body’s hormonal responses to stimuli are also in a state of flux. The hormonal processes, which gave us those feelings of excitement, connection and even frustration or fear in response to specific relationship routines have also come to a sudden halt, disrupting the familiar emotional cycles which had sustained our sense of safety, or at least familiarity.

Here are some ways to soothe the body and brain while letting go and rewiring your relationship to a different reality:

Find a special breakfast that you like and make it every morning.

Chop fruit or vegetables, as the repetitive chopping will soothe the primitive/survival-oriented part of your brain.

Drink the same soothing herbal tea every night before bed.

Eat meals at the same time every day.

Take a walk every evening after dinner.

Begin reading a book series in bed every night.

Play the same relaxing song, over and over again, to fall asleep at bedtime.

Find a weekly activity to anchor you in a new routine and establish new roles.

Move Emotional Energies

Grief is a cumulative emotion, meaning each unresolved loss accumulates in the body, manifesting as a chronic state of emotional heaviness, broken heartedness and sometimes numbness. Often, our pelvic bowl serves as an emotional reservoir, expressing physical manifestations of the emotional energies that have settled in there. This may show up as a decreased or increased desire for sexual activity, abdominal bloating, even pelvic pain. Emotions of grief that haven’t been metabolized can remain in the body for years, even decades before causing a breakdown or health crisis, stopping us in our tracks and requiring us to take notice.

Resistance to feeling the discomfort, refusal to face our grief and denial that it even exists may lead to chronic tension in the chest, jaw or throat; hollowness or heaviness in the belly; vaginal tightness; dehydration and dryness or even physical and emotional numbness and more. A movement practice helps dissolve long held pattens of tension, soften emotional responses, hydrate and lubricate the whole body system and reconnect us with our sensual and sexual selves.

When most of us think of movement, we think about repetitive dance moves and workout routines that engage the same muscles, express the same gestures and produce the same physical outcomes on purpose. We know we look good moving this way (we’v practiced it enough) and we know we build muscle pumping this way (we’ve seen the results), but rarely do we consider engaging our animal bodies outside of the narrow margin of movements with which we’ve become accustomed and comfortable. The result of which is the emotions we store in pockets of our system that aren’t moved, stretched or engaged remain… stuck.

Movement helps the stagnant slurry of grief begin to flow again. Paying close attention to the sensations and internal experience of the movement (rather than our external appearance) drops us into the raw emotions we’ve been avoiding and/or keeping at bay. It allows us to feel from our wild bodies, instead of ruminating and recounting from our thinking minds. Experiencing our selves outside of habitual patterns of movement and thought leads us to new awareness and insight, which opens up space for more pleasure, opportunity and choice.

How do we do this?

There are many ways, but a simple place to begin is on your hands and knees, like a wild animal would stand. Now listen… and breathe.

How does your body want to move next?

Does it want to stretch or does your torso want to make small circles?

Do your hips want to grind?

Does your head want to sway?

Or your jaw want to open?

What sounds want to come?

Does your back want to arch or curl or even alternate between the two?

Allow each movement to flow into the next along with your breath.

Allow each moment to emerge from the one before until you’ve dissolved the many movements into one fluid expression.

You can predetermine a period of time within which you want to research your own body’s response to this type of movement (set a timer, so you’re not distracted) or practice without the constraints of time.

When you finish, reserve five minutes (or more) to lie still on your back and simply feel the sensations moving within you.

Notice what you feel.

Notice the places you may not have felt before.

Place gentle attention on spaces that feel warm, tingly and more alive.

Allow all emotions to arise, express and flow from within you.

If you want greater trust in your body’s ability to move intense emotion, if you’d like to dedicate more time and space for self-expression, if you’re seeking the pleasure and joy that come from opening the spaces where emotions have been accumulating…

Join us.

Round Two of the Women’s Pelvic Embodiment Course starts in January. Here are the benefits of taking it:

1) Connecting to your body and voice, so you can articulate your wants and needs clearly and feel confident in your choices.

2) Feeling safe and supported in your feminine form, so you can experience pleasure as both a sensual and sexual being.

3) Tapping into your deep body wisdom, so you can remember your worth and wild power.

For more info, click here.

Much ❤,

Caz

Christy Ahna Zahava

Photographer: Christy Ahna Zahava

Model: Reverend Jenn Cormier. Find her Grief & Grace group on Facebook. She’s also Guest Facilitating “Gently Walking with Grief & Grace” in Week Three of The Women’s Pelvic Embodiment Course.