Hello, hello, hello. This is Sabrina Mina and this is the feelings pod. I'm your
host, I'm a holistic health coach, I'm an educator, I'm a healer, and a deep
feeler. And on every episode I share the thoughts about emotions that are present
for me and I talk a bit about how we can navigate those emotions with
presence and mindfulness as best as we can. Today's episode is on grief and I've
spoken about grief before. If you're curious to check out that episode, feel
free to do so. Today's episode will look a little bit different because it's a new
moment in time and we are these magical ever-evolving creatures and there's
never a moment where you're exactly the same as you were before. Our amazing
bodies are constantly regenerating and healing themselves and I've heard every
seven years you're an entirely new person, an entirely new being, it's just new
cells that have like regenerated. I mean I don't know how true all that is but
it feels resonant to me and grieving is so many things but I think it's partially
coming to terms with who we once were and how we got here and honoring those past
versions of ourselves. I'm attending an event today, it's part of grief school
and it's run by some lovely teachers and I invited a friend to come with me and
she said to me, oh I didn't know you were grieving, I'm so sorry. And I thought
that was a funny comment because aren't we all grieving all the time? Something or
someone? I'd say we are but maybe not necessarily so consciously. I don't think
we live in a very grief-friendly society, it's a society that's pretty...
I don't know, it seems like death and grieving and the end of life, the end of
time are maybe topics that are too big and too scary to talk about and like
normal everyday dinner time conversation but I don't know about you but those are
the kind of conversations I like to have. I was reflecting in my morning pages
today and asking myself, well what am I grieving? And perhaps we tend to think of
grieving as like the thing that we do or the thing that we should do or the thing
that comes up when someone dies or when there's a loss of a relationship but
really grieving is the process of acknowledging any kind of loss really.
It's so important to grieve.
And grief doesn't have a timeline. Something that surprises me, well I'm not
sure that it surprises me but yeah we'll go with that. Let's say it surprises me.
It's how grief sneaks up on me on topics that I thought I was okay about, you know?
And things I thought I'd moved on from.
Most recently I've been navigating like the loss of my grandmother and she died
on May 21st, Allah at Hamha. And I don't really think I've talked about it a lot
in too much depth because I had an interesting relationship with my
grandmother. You know she was largely absent from my life because she lived in
Algeria and I live here in the United States. So I feel like I'm constantly
living in this space of missing loved ones because I don't live on my
ancestral homeland and New Jersey has always felt strange and foreign to me.
It's like what am I doing here and how did I get here? So I especially as my
grandmother got older like she wasn't very accessible even by phone. So she was
someone very much that I loved from a distance and it's so strange now that
she's not here anymore because my experience of her is largely the same.
It's unchanged. I think of her in a loving way. I know she's at a distance and
it's almost as if my love for her and connection with her has deepened and
feels a bit lighter because I think she carried a lot of grief. I think she carried
a lot of heaviness and pain and so I'm relieved for her.
So I send her prayers and I remember her fondly but I've done that. I've always done that.
The last time I saw her I pretty much knew I wouldn't see her again. I felt
like I had closure because I had this anxiety. I went to visit her over the
summer last summer and before I went I hadn't seen her in several years and I
was like I have to see her. I have to see her. I know she's gonna leave this earth.
She's getting older. Her health is not the best. And my cousin got married last
summer and it was just like the thing that prompted me to go. And I'm so grateful
to my cousin for getting married because it gave me that opportunity to see my
grandmother one last time to have that sense of closure that I could you know
give her one more hug and be soft and tender with her. Well...
I think I'm gonna talk about grief in a couple of parts because I've had enough
for today. So let's...
I just want to leave you with this invitation before we get into our
practice for the day and just say that if there's space to... if you can make
space to grieve a loss... any kind of loss... I invite you to create some kind of
ritual or even just space for a conversation.
For me there's something healing about saying things aloud that we carry in
our hearts and minds. Even if it's just recording.
So thank you for hearing me today. I invite you to find a comfortable seat
and as always you can pause the recording and if you're not able to
practice in this moment and come back to it at another time. Go ahead and close
your eyes. Find an upright position or you can lie down if that feels more
comfortable for you. Just start to connect with the breath. We'll focus on the
heart space today. Let the eyes soften. Let the shoulders melt down the back. Feel
held and supported by the ground beneath you or whatever surface you're on. Just
notice where your body has contact with the floor beneath you, the seat beneath
you, with your cushion, your bed, your chair.
Bring attention and awareness to what's alive in the body, what parts of your
body are speaking to you in this moment. What parts of the body have something to
say? We'll start out with a body scan at the top of the head and imagine just a
waterfall cascading over your entire body, starting at the top of the head,
cascading over the forehead and your eyes, your face and it just allows all the
expression in your face to soften. Let your jaw relax. Let your tongue soften.
Imagine your head as light as a feather floating towards the clouds and your
shoulders move in the opposite direction. Take a deep breath into the heart
space. Let it go, bringing your attention and awareness to your neck and shoulders,
your chest, your upper arms. Notice your elbows and your forearms. Notice your
hands. Notice the palms of your hands. If it feels good, you can rub the palms of
your hands together, create a little bit of warmth and then just place your hands
over your heart and breathe in here. Take a deep breath in and let it go. And imagine
that waterfall continues to cascade over your belly, over your hips, your sit bones,
over the tops of your thighs, over your knees, your shins and your calves, the tops
of your feet, the bottoms of your feet.
Notice your toes. Let's take a big deep breath in. Imagine drawing that breath in
from the very bottoms of your feet all the way up to the crown of the head and
let it go. Enjoy this moment of stillness following your inhale and your exhale
for as long as you wish, offering gratitude to your heart and your body.
Thank you so much for practicing with me today. Until next time.