embodied grief workshops, exploding tires and the things we do not choose
My body is a truth teller.
The last few weeks (months) have been a new experience in my body. grief, expansion, holding space for others, lifting weights, new types of therapy and spending time in the sun and integrating the past self I thought I’d forgotten with the self that emerged through the struggle. I’ve spent hours tapping into a side of my body I didn’t know was possible. Everything I’m feeling, noticing and experiencing has a trickle down effect in my body.
This past weekend I taught an embodied grief workshop that both lit up my spirit and I felt everything in my body. Holding every participant’s unique body grief story, we broached the question of what it would look like not to let grief and trauma be the loudest voice in the room. What would it look like to allow other voices to contribute to the overall narrative? Where does grief live in our bodies, how does it express itself and how does it want to move?
It was one of the most powerful things I’ve ever been a part of. And, on my way home from the workshop, my back tire on my SUV quite literally exploded. my back seat full of yoga mats, in 30 degree June weather, as I was covered in sweat and dried tears and starving. Luckily I was still in town. Luckily my husband wasn’t working and was able to come when I called. Luckily we had a spare tire in the car, were able to change the flat and the vehicle is currently on the shop getting new tires on it as I type this, just in time for our annual Rocky Mountain holiday happening this weekend.
Still, as I sat in the driver’s seat of my car with an exploded back tire, the weight of everything I’d been holding washed over me. The exploded tire meant I wouldn’t make it home to celebrate the release of my friend’s book with her. Holding space for all of the people at the workshop meant missing a funeral. And while I felt peace about my choices, my body was also holding the weight of everything we chose, and didn’t choose.
I didn’t have a candle, a notebook or anything to create a ritual space but sitting in the drivers seat of my no longer functional car, I gave myself a moment of stillness to honour everything I was holding.
Even when grief isn’t running the show, it still has a voice and I’d be amiss to not acknowledge the losses that come mixed with the blessings.
It is, as I said to this group and every time I facilitate a group, about the both/and. Whatever happens, or doesn’t happen, whatever you experience or don’t experience, is exactly right.
If anything, I think I’ve learned that being in a body isn’t about biology or chemistry or understanding it perfectly and controlling my healing in the way I want but just being in relationship with myself.
In whatever choices, whatever outcomes, in the blessings I chose and the hard hits I didn’t, can I stay with myself? Through grief and pain and symptoms, through joy and opportunity and play.
My body tells the truth, tells the story, and it’s never linear or neat. But it’s always mine.
