One of the best ways to help readers understand the Healthy Grieving Process is to share the experiences of those who have gone through the process. Here is a first-person account by a woman who helped us demonstrate the process for workshop attendees:
At the suggestion of a friend, I attended a Healthy Grieving workshop, and I volunteered to be the person who went through the process in the front of the room. I originally thought I wanted to grieve being an unwanted child, but after I read some of the handouts, I decided to choose something more immediate and concrete. Aging had been on my mind a lot and I thought that would be a really good thing to grieve so that’s what I volunteered to do.
We started with the practitioner asking me what was my issue with aging and I thought about it for a minute and said “Becoming invisible, being invisible.” I was thinking about how when you are an older woman, you’re not really seen anymore. We’re such a youth-oriented society and once a woman becomes a crone, she’s no longer seen as attractive or desirable. A crone doesn’t have a lot of value in our society. Men don’t look at us — at me –. No one does. The attention is on youthful women.
The practitioner then asked me, “Why do you want to be invisible?” And I said, “No, you misunderstood. I don’t want to be. That’s the problem.” And he muscle tested me and it came up strong that yes, I do want to be invisible.
That really threw me for a loop. It really threw me off. It didn’t seem true to me. But then I had this moment where I thought, maybe he’s right. I could see that in a way it was true. I am safer if I’m invisible. I don’t have to engage. So we went from there.
Although I was in the front of a roomful of more than a dozen people, it was as if there were just the two of us. I responded to his questions and was in some sort of zone. I wasn’t even aware, really, of what I was saying. I was just answering his questions and letting him take me into a deep place of feeling.
Truthfully, I did not know what I said during the process. I know we went to some very painful places, but the only part I was aware of and remember was the last step of the Healthy Grieving process when I was invited to explore the possibilities of what my life could be like when I let my painful feelings go.
I understood clearly that my pain, my beliefs, the decisions I had made, and the feelings I had about myself, that they were all just a story — how I wasn’t loved, wasn’t supported, wasn’t safe, wasn’t welcome on the planet, about how I was not enough and was so alone, the ways I hate myself — the stories I know so well inside of me and the deep, deep sadness I carried – that they were just stories. I could clearly see how they had colored my perception of not being safe and of not being welcome and of not belonging in life.
I remember thinking I had been living in like a B movie and now it felt like I was in a top-rated film. I felt this whole other energy in me. I knew that the sad stories were not who I am; they were just a story, a tape, something that likes to feed on its own pain, but it’s not really true, it’s not really me, I can make a different choice, those stories are not the truth of who I am.
So we explored the possibilities of letting it go. What my life could be like. How I could experience life and myself. What I would do. I felt great. People told me I looked totally different. I remember saying, “This is how I have wanted to feel my whole life! “ I felt totally open. I felt alive, without boundaries. I felt connected to myself and to life, like I was a part of life. I was in that place where you are when you’re not in your head at all. It felt great.
This was on a Friday afternoon. Over the weekend, I’m not sure what happened, but I was having a really hard time. I felt sad. I felt lost, disoriented. A few days later, I read the notes someone had taken of what I had said during my session and I found them really disturbing. It was very hard to read the painful things I said, to read the feelings that came out of my mouth. Not just me having to know it, but realizing I said them in front of a room full of people, exposed myself in such a vulnerable way. That I had admitted to my most painful feelings, how much pain I am in, how lonely, how shut down and disengaged from life, how alone.
I’ve always felt like this. I carry this with me. While at some level I have known that, it’s another thing to admit it in a group of people. I felt embarrassed. How could I have done that? I felt different, and alone. It didn’t matter that people had said they’d experienced the same feelings.
I was in some sort of zone or bubble when the process was actually going on — not aware of what was coming out of my mouth. It was so hard for me to read and see and know the feelings I had expressed, that I actually threw away the notes. I didn’t even want to have them in my house. I had no idea that I had said those things.
I think what I was going through was a sort of delayed reaction to being so vulnerable and honest in front of people I didn’t even know. My most painful feelings exposed. Me, so exposed. I remember someone from GriefFree saying that I was going through a cathartic experience as a result of the grief work. All I know is that I had a really hard time for a few days. I felt raw and vulnerable. Maybe it was a little bit of a ricochet effect, like a contraction after that expansion.
After a few days, I felt like myself again. I actually felt really good. I remember noticing that people seemed to be responding to me in a new way. Wherever I went I was having these sort of open-hearted encounters. And I realized that even though I say that men don’t look at me now that I’m older — that I’ve become invisible — what I actually realize is that when my energy level is good – and I don’t care or need anything – then men do look at me. Everyone looks at me, because it’s an internal thing.
Two weeks after my Healthy Grieving session, I had a follow-up interview about the results of the process, which is an important part of the Healthy Grieving process. I was asked to describe how I was feeling, what was different, how things had changed. This time, I kept my notes from the conversation. Here is what I said:
I feel that I am a part of life. I feel connected. I feel alive. I feel positive. I feel joyful and spacious. I feel ageless and without boundaries. I am open, inquisitive, curious about life. I feel young, quiet and peaceful.
This is the true experience of who I am.