Yesterday was a sad day for me. I had to say goodbye to my beloved grandmother. Although we knew her time was near, it’s still some what of a shock to hear the passing of a family member. As a mother, my first thought was I need to be strong for my boys. I need to push some of these emotions down for a later time so they couldn’t see their mom sad or hurting. At 10, 8, and & 7 years old, they don’t quite fully understand death and I didn’t want them to worry about me. As sad as I was, I would go about my day. There was housework to do, kids to pick up, homework, and soccer practices.
But then I realized I needed time to mourn. To do absolutely nothing but feel the pain. I needed to digest my emotions. Part of what I do is teaching people about our “Emotional Metabolism “and how we need to start listening to our emotions and digesting them so that they don’t become stuck in our body. For some, digesting and assimilating their emotions is easier than others. We digest and assimilate almost everything we come in contact with. The air we breathe, the food we eat, our environmental surroundings, but we often don’t give ourselves permission to truly feel and digest all our emotions. Often life gets in the way and its easy to push our feelings aside or bury them deep down.
I gave myself permission to take a day. To mourn the loss of my Grandmother. To feel the pain. To cry and let it all out ,to let my body digest what it was feeling. And to not be afraid to let my children see that mommy was sad and heart broken. Death is part of life and we can’t avoid it. I want them to see that when you feel something you need to allow yourself to fully experience that emotion. To relax into the uncomfortableness of it all, so you can heal. I was never one to tell my children to “Stop crying”. I thought that was another way of saying , “Stop feeling”. It’s important for us to be present with our bodies to feel all of the emotions whether it be anger, depression, anxiety, sadness, jealousy or disappointment. When we do this we regulate our emotional metabolism which is just as important as the physical one, If not more. By regulating our emotional metabolism, we fully embody and become present and only then will we understand the message that can accompany our emotions. Had I gone on about my day and tried to hide those emotions they could’ve become stuck inside me to later create emotional chaos.
So I gave myself permission to relax into my sadness and let my body experience what it needed to. It wasn’t easy. I was quiet, and lots of tears were shed. Had I just told myself she’s in a better place and did my best to go on with my day I don’t think I’d be feeling as I do today. And the same goes for my boys. Seeing me experience my emotions brought up great conversation and a great learning opportunity for one of life’s lessons.
We’re human and we have a range of emotions that we are constantly metabolizing. We are biologically built to become present to the regulation and experience of our own feelings. For when we don’t they can take over causing many unwanted health symptoms.
LOts of LOve,
Lauren
LOLO Mind Body Soul 