There’s a certain shape, a certain posture that is familiar to most – it’s the shape of a grieving body. Curled forward, pulled down by the weight of the pain that the loss brings.
My wonderful uncle died at the end of June, a great loss to his friends, he left a feeling of emptiness in the hearts of his family. Of course, this is what death is. The person whom you have loved for your whole life, now gone, leaving behind a sliding scale of sadness to devastation. And the body responds. We cry, sobbing for the myriad of emotions that engulf us, filled with a weakness and a lack of desire for life. We become unable to stand tall, to open up the heart, to expose our fragile soft underbelly in our primal need to protect ourselves from more pain.
The first time I noticed this I was in my teens. Although I did not notice my body when my father died in the spring, when my friends’ fiancé died in the autumn I was immediately aware of her posture. From the moment the news came to her she was unable to stand to her full and natural height. Her shoulders rounded and her head stooped. She had unknowingly assumed the posture of the grieving widow. Over the healing months that followed there was an emerging, an unfurling of herself. Not just in her body, but also in her emotional and mental wellbeing. As she came to recover from the shock and pain of the loss of her fiancé, an entire transformation was apparent.
When I heard the news of my uncles’ death I was on holiday at our family villa; a place so full of happy childhood memories that I could barely move without crying. I noticed immediately my inability to keep any internal length, I just wanted to curl up into a ball and sob. I listened to my body and stayed in this pulled down posture, my shoulders hunched forward and my brow furrowed. I drank wine, to give myself a break from the pain; I knew this to be an inadequate solution……
Several days later, I awoke to find that I was alone (everyone else had gone on an early trip to the fish market), so I decided to use this quiet space to re-connect with my body. As I lay in the shade on my yoga matt, in this beautiful tranquil place so full of loving memories, my tears flowed. The more that I brought myself back into the present moment, into my body, the more I cried. I gently moved my body, extending a leg or an arm, a gentle twist, a releasing breath and with each moment that passed I could feel the muscles in my body release, a slow but steady release into length. Eventually the reconnection to myself felt good, it left me feeling more present, stronger and more able to be in my own skin. The dark cloud that was following me around had less density. I felt lighter and more able to support myself.
A week or so later I would be in France at his funeral, feeling the familiar inability to be upright, but this time knowing that when I was ready, I would be able to give my body and mind the space and gentle direction to help it recover from this deeply sad time.
Our mind and body are amazing – marvellous in fact. They have the capacity to repair and recover from the most challenging life events. The responsibility is with us, to provide the space and time that’s needed to hear what our body is trying to tell us.