What is body grief?

I was in an interview not too long ago about my personal and professional work in the world and how it relates to grief integration and resiliency, and the interviewer asked me how I would describe myself so they could include it in my bio. I said I was a body grief doula.

And as I’ve sat with the term, I realize it very strongly resonates, and has revealed a gap when it comes to comprehensive understanding of what body grief is.

Body grief, as I’ve come to define it, is directly related to the stories of grief we hold in our bodies, centred around the experience of having a body. Body grief is a multifaceted concept itself and my work largely consists of supporting others through chronic, life altering and terminal diagnosis's and bodily transitions.

Mostly, though, I tell stories. And I help you find new ways to tell your embodied stories. Through somatic movement, conversation, creative outlets, aesthetics, ritual curation, I’m always finding new ways to weave things together. I believe it is poetry, the creation of myth and metaphor, will serve as our guiding force It is the essence of, and the very thing, that will rescue us.

I had a meeting recently where I was advised to compartmentalize my professional work from my personal life, but I don’t think that’s possible. I think I do this work because it’s my life. Stephen Jenkinson said in his book Die Wise that a requirement to be a death worker should be an intimate relationship with death. In navigating grief, would you rather be guided by someone who has read books on grief or someone who has grieved? Which is to say I think the academic knowledge and the lived experience go hand in hand.

I was having a conversation with my husband about his upcoming work Christmas party and how I would answer the age old question of what I do for work that seems to be asked at every social function. The answer “Basically everything” didn’t seem to cover it. We playfully landed on emotional support human as a way to encapsulate my work, which doesn’t quite nail it but fits about as well as anything else.

I tell stories. And I help you find new ways to tell your stories. I talk a lot about living and dying and what it means to be human and how we move the energy we store in our bodies, and I teach people about holistic patient care and navigating diagnosis and mostly I offer people new ways to tell their own stories.

Because I believe stories are medicine. Because I believe death and grief are essential parts of life and hold the potential to be beautiful. It’s all in how we look at it.