In this episode, we are going to talk about how grief affects our health physically.
Episode Pointers:
Grief, trauma, anxiety, and everything that came in between can cause stress. It will then manifest into physical symptoms. Thus, Grief can show up physically in our bodies.
Emotions have a big role inside our bodies. So, processing your emotions are very important in dealing with grief.
When you are stressed, have anxiety, fear, and of those emotions that put stress on your body, your immune system is lowered. So, you have a bigger chance of getting sick. It’s very common to feel all of those things after your child dies, your body has never had to go through such an painfully emotional experience.
Emotions are truly a physical thing. Your body is connected with your emotions. Learn to sit with your emotions, feel, process, and experience them physically.
According to the Emotion Code by Dr. Bradley Nelson, emotions can get trapped in your body, and then that part of your body can become physically sick. Think of the Broken Heart Syndrome. Your heart hurts so bad, that your heart begins to actually get stressed and sick.
Other grieving moms feel these common symptoms: a pain in their chest, or their body, or horrific pain in their stomach, headache and more . And no matter how many medications they take, or they go to their doctor, and there’s nothing wrong with them. They can’t find a physical reason why they are wrong. It is when we need to take a look at the emotions inside of our bodies and answer these questions:
What emotion is there in that part of your body?
How can you begin to care for yourself?
How can you release that emotion that’s trapped there?
In the Emotion Code, it says that grief often settles into the lungs. And, a common thing that happens is that it’s hard to breathe when you are grieving. It’s like there is a big weight on your chest and you cannot get a full breath of air. I definitely had this, and when I would try to do a meditation or something like that where they had you breath in for 5 and out for 7, I was like what in the world? I can only breathe in for 3, it was really hard to get a full breath of air.
Here are some ways you can support your body to prevent it from experiencing physical responses:
Accept that it’s part of your grief journey. There’s nothing wrong with you.
Start to notice ways you can slow down, and care for the grief inside of your body. My mini-workshop, STOP TALKING, START FEELING is a great place to start to begin to learn how to process the emotions inside of you and let them flow instead of staying stuck. You can get that by going to www.stoptalkingstartfeeling.com
Try to get more sleep - refer to my episode ( Episode 85 ) about sleep last week to help with ideas on how to do that.
Drink water, eat healthier as you can, and do the best you can.
Get support and help from those around you, and lean onto others as much as you can, because you don’t need to do this all alone right now. Eventually the goal is to be able to stand on your own two feet again, but right now, allow the people around you to help you, and invest in help and support for yourself as well.
Make major changes in your life.
This is uncharted territory for you, and so give yourself grace as you navigate through it. And as you learn what works for you, and how you can begin to process the emotions.
I truly believe that physical symptoms, and emotional symptoms are all related. So caring for what’s going on inside of you, will certainly help with the physical symptoms you are feeling in your body.
Recommended book : The Emotion Code by Dr. Bradley Nelson
If you want more tools to help you, I have a workshop called Stop Talking Start Feeling, it’s a workshop that dives into emotions, what they are, and how you can begin to feel and process them and get them out of your body instead of stuffing them down. It also goes specifically into processing and releasing the emotions of guilt and sadness. You can get access to this workshop and all the extra things I have in there for only $27. Go to www.stoptalkingstartfeeling.com to check it out.
If you are a grieving mother and looking for others who know the pain of child loss, come join my free Grieving Moms Community Facebook group: www.meganhillukka.com/community
Some links may contain affiliate links in which I receive a small commission if you decide to purchase something, this helps support the grief work I'm doing.
