Grief: inviting deep sorrow.

Today is a go at your own pace type of day. It may be hard, it may bring up some stuff. Take care of yourself. We are going to explore three forms of grief through three forms of practice. Like everything we do here at ATB, you are not obligated by this, you are merely invited. As much as this guide can be helpful, utilize it. As much as your intuition veers in its own unique direction, follow it. 

Three Types of Grief:

The Personal 

The Plural

The Phenomenal

Three Types of Practice:

The Words

The Wiggle

The Wail

The invitation today is to invite each form of grief to be interacted with through one of the three practices (more info on definitions below). 

If you find you want to use one practice for all three, cool! If you want to use three practices for one instance of grief, also great! This space, this modality; it is yours to make work for you. There is no wrong way, only the right way for you.

Explanation of each type of grief:

The Personal:

This grief is you specific. What are you holding that maybe only you know? A personal sorrow that maybe you have not felt you could talk about? You don’t have to share it outwardly. But try, as best you can, to allow yourself to encounter it through one of the below practices. 

The Plural:

You and another. Grief as it exists in relationship. Maybe you have sorrow toward a relational dynamic. Maybe your empathy has sorrow for someone else you know and what they are going through. This is a grief you are proximal to.

The Phenomenal:

Phenomenal just means “experience.” This is sorrow you have for what might be happening in the world right now. I won’t prescribe. There is, unfortunately, not shortage to chose from.

Explanation for each practice:

The Words:

This one is usually our go-to. Not a bad thing. But also just a piece of the pie. Find some words for one of these griefs. Perhaps a poem. Scatter plot of terms on paper. Journal entry. Whatever you flavor, this is a way for you to process grief through words. 

The Wiggle:

Bodies bodies bodies. As a word guy, I can attest to how hard it can be to actually drop into my body and see where I am holding the emotions I am carrying. But what a gift, right? To be able to match emotion to physicality? It is called feeling, after all. 

For this modality, try and sense where one of these sorrows is being housed in your body. Breathing steadily in through your nose and out through your mouth might help with this. When you find it, try and acknowledge that space. Place your hand on it, move around and wiggle, see how other movement interacts with that feeling. But also listen to your body. This is a do-no-harm pursuit. 

The Wail:

This one is tough. If you’re like me, it might garner up some baggage of people who would praise really loud or be super charismatic in church. Not that those things are bad, that can be beautiful when coming from a place of authenticity! But in my background, often they felt performative. 

This is not performance. This is, as best you can, trying to get a sense of the audible way in which a grief wants to be released. It could be crying, it could be finding a partner to pair up with and lock eyes, it could be a groan or a scream. At the end of the morning, we’re all going to participate in this one together. Don’t let that scare you! It is off course, optional. But if you are having a hard time with this modality in this free time of exploration, know that we’ll lift each other up with it later.