When You Stop Numbing and Let Your Grief Flow

My personal experience of grief, numbing, and letting go

As I have written before (here, here, and here), I am an expert when it comes to not feeling my feelings. I have numbed with food, sex, alcohol, games on my phone, and television. During my 20s and 30s, I also numbed with “busy.”

In 2017 or 2018 I took a Mindfulness for Healthcare Professionals course that spanned over 9 months. There were nurses, a minister, reiki practitioners, an acupuncturist (me), and others. We went deep into mindfulness, Buddhism, meditation, and exploring our inner “stuff.”

I learned a lot about myself through that course and all of the explorations and readings, but one experience really stood out. I don’t remember the exact exercise, but what came up was a memory of when I was about 12 and my dad got remarried.

I had been excited about the wedding, thinking I would be able to spend more time with my dad than I normally did, as I was part of the wedding. I didn’t see my dad much after the divorce, only every other weekend and one night a week for dinner. I missed him and was excited to have this special weekend.

My sister and I wore matching white dresses with puffy sleeves and blue sashes (it was 1984). We went into hysterics every time our new step-mother’s Texan sisters proclaimed “y’all look so perdy in those dresses!” Our young Bostonian ears thought their accent was hilarious.

My vision of the weekend, however, was soon dashed, as when the wedding reception ended, my sister and I were “tossed aside” to stay in a hotel with my grandmother for the weekend. My 12 year old heart’s fantasy of more time with my dad was crushed.

I didn’t realize how deeply this had affected me until that mindfulness session, 34 years later. The feeling of being “tossed aside” is one that I still grapple with. That, compounded with feeling unseen, unheard, and unimportant, were some of the drivers of my decades of being strangled by perfectionism.

During this session, I felt the grief for the first time in my life. I sobbed. Big, ugly cries emanated from beyond the confines of my body, from deep in my soul. It felt like I was crying forever, though was probably only a few minutes. Like a tidal wave, the grief rose, peaked, then crashed, leaving me limp on the floor, heaving and sighing.

I was surrounded by nine loving, empathetic women who held space for me, something I had never experienced before. As a caregiver, I was usually the space holder. Being held, and allowing the holding, was such a relief. I felt safe, allowing the grief to flow out of me, and sat in the stillness of the afterward.

Relief.

Lightness.

Peace.

Letting go of grief I had held for decades (unbeknownst to me) created a massive shift inside me. I didn’t realize it then, but in the months and years after, I could see myself better. I noticed when I reacted from this place of not mattering, which brought new insight to understanding my reactions.

I am now able to notice when this “tossed aside” feeling hits and recognize it for what it is: Little 12 year old Janine needs to be reminded that she matters.

We all have events in our lives that color the way we see the world. Understanding what the colors and sensations mean gives us choice. Noticing that familiar feeling in your body tells you that your adult self isn’t driving the car, it might be a younger version of you. You might need to take a few breaths and retake the steering wheel.

What if I hadn’t been numbing myself all these years? What if I felt the pain of that weekend back when it happened? I’ll never know; I wasn’t “allowed” to have feelings back then. The adults in my life didn’t have the capacity to hold space for my feelings. But I can feel them and hold space for myself now, and give Little Janine the love and reassurance that she needs. Because she matters.

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Mindfulness, meditation, yoga, and journaling are my favorite tools for this type of work. Getting to the bottom of your stories, and noticing that they are just stories, will release you from their intense grip.

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