Grief manifests in our lives and, in our bodies, in various ways. Most of us will resort to outward behaviors that are neither helpful and are (more often than not) even hurtful. These behaviors only lead to more secrecy, shame, and grief. And, where there is shame, there is usually a pattern to grieve alone and isolate.
Grief also shows up in physical ways as well:
heartburn
hair loss
ulcers
migraines
body aches
anxiety
In today's episode, learn and reflect on ways you may be grieving without realizing it.
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If you or anyone you know is struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, there are free resources available HERE.
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Victoria Volk:
This is Victoria of the unleashedheart.com, and you're listening to grieving voices, a podcast for hurting hearts who desire to be heard. Or anyone who wants to learn how to better support loved ones experiencing loss as a 30 plus year griever. In advanced grief recovery methods specialist, I know how badly the conversation around grief needs to change. Through this podcast, I aim to educate gravers and non Grievers alike, spread hope and inspire compassion toward those hurting. Lastly, by providing my heart with yours and this platform, Grievers had the opportunity to share their wisdom and stories of loss and resiliency. How about we talk about grief, like we talked about the weather? Let's get started. Welcome back, you're listening to Episode Six of grieving voices, the manifestation of grief. If you've listened to any of the previous episodes, I've been talking a lot about grief. And working through the definition tie I talked about why grief keeps us stuck. Where we discussed how our intuition is cut off how we can be stuck in the past. And either in the past or in the future and rarely, in the present moment. Talked about the myths of grief in Episode Four, which are Don't feel bad, replace the loss, grieve alone, grief just takes time be strong for others and the last one is keep busy. And last week, the episode was Academy Award Recovery where I talked about the word fine. And how we often respond with I'm fine when people ask how we're doing, which is really just means feelings inside not expressed. And we often say I'm fine because it's just easier, right? I also mentioned last week about STERBS the short term energy relieving behaviors and today is we're going to dig deeper into that. When we think about grief, we don't often think about how our bodies respond. And because grief is cumulative and it's cumulatively negative, we tend to store the emotional energy of grief within us. And over time, because grief is cumulative that emotional energy, that emotional charge that we have around a relationship that feels incomplete, can bring on physical symptoms. And it can cause us to resort to behaviors that are unhelpful and probably more likely hurtful to ourselves. When we think about STERBS the short term energy relieving behaviors, what we're really talking about are the things that we resort to, to feel better. Some examples of that are food, shopping, exercise, gaming, running away, alcohol, violence, sleep, cell phones, smoking, risk taking, cutting, anger, fantasy, vaping, tattoos, drugs whether they be street or prescription, sex, body art, porn, gambling, and even picking there's actually quite a few, right? We all tend to pick some of these if not many of them. And if we ask ourselves, am I doing this to feel better? Am I doing this to avoid how I am feeling, then it is likely that we are resorting to a sterb behavior. These sterbs have changed obviously over time because I grew up in the 80s and of course there wasn't vaping back then there wasn't cell phones. At least, maybe some people had big phones but you know that was very few people. Actually to church can be, people can become obsessive helpers. Isn't an always a bad thing. But you know, we often think though that too much of anything is probably not the best either, right? I've resorted to several of these, in my years that I've dealt with my grief. These are all examples of behaviors that we resort to because we don't understand grief, because we don't understand what it is that emotionally is happening with us. And over time, and I can attest to this being a graver for over 30 years, is we either implode or we explode. And these behaviors are ways that we explode, that we expend our emotional energy, the emotional energy that grief brings us into our lives. We can also implode with physical symptoms. We can experience migraines, bowel issues, high blood pressure, ulcers, even chronic disease, chronic illnesses. There's just so many ways that overtime grief impacts our bodies, our minds, and like I've mentioned before, shuts us off from like our physical bodies. Its like our body puts this armor up between our soul and our heart. And we just can't break that barrier. And so we don't know how to deal with what we are physically and emotionally experiencing. And so in a quest to feel better, we do what we can to feel better. And that is the crux of grief. And these behaviors, many of them obviously just bring on more grief, don't they? If we resort to alcohol, we become addicted to alcohol or shopping or food. There are ramifications and consequences of those sterb behaviors. If we resort to food, which is what I've mentioned in a previous episode about the myths of grief, you know in early childhood, we're often exposed to this one, when we feel bad, someone wants to give us food, here just eat this, you'll feel better, eat this you'll forget about it. And as adults drink this glass of wine, you'll forget all about it, or just have a couple of beers with me and melt away the day. You know, we resort to these behaviors because we'd rather emotionally not deal with what we are feeling. And when it comes to shopping the same thing, we sit on our laptops or we are ordering from our phones. And before you know it, you've spent $300 on a bunch of crap you don't need and it doesn't make you feel any better. And actually afterwards, you probably feel shame and you probably feel anxiety and worry about maybe the financial part of spending the money that you don't maybe have, or buying things just that you don't need. And we can look at all of these behaviors and see the consequence and the ramifications of them. Whether it be the cell phones, if we're always like many of us are today and a lot of teens they're in their cell phone constantly head down in the phone. And, that's where a lot of kids are being bullied is right through their technology in their hands that creates more grief in their lives when they're exposed to that emotional pain that others are inflicting. And if they're not open to communicating what is going on they're gonna resort to these other behaviors, whether it be vaping or sex or gaming or exercise or food, alcohol even and tobacco or maybe even running away. Or how about even suicide. This is why I'm so passionate about educating on grief because if we don't understand the basis of why we do the things we do, and the root get to the root of what is really going on in our lives, we will have these problems the rest of our lives and if we are unable to recognize and our children what it is that they may be dealing with, simply by looking at these behaviors or other new things that will be coming up, because what will disturbs of tomorrow be, now it's vaping. And what will be next, that kids will resort to. So this is an important topic for everybody. One that I cannot not talk about, hence the podcast. So I want you to think about in what ways that you have been imploding or exploding. And in talking more about the imploding part about how grief manifests in our bodies. I can share that through the years, probably around 2014, that's when I started had body aches, I just felt achy all over. I had stomach issues, I felt like any time I ate just a little bit, I felt bloated, which really just kind of exasperated the lack of nutrition because I didn't feel like I could eat because when I did eat, I felt bloated, and it was this vicious cycle. And I ended up losing more weight than I should have in a short amount of time and my hair was falling out. It was thinning. I had headaches, I wasn't sleeping well. These are all things that emotionally we're manifesting in physical form. And this is the point I want to make in that look at where you may be imploding and exploding. And consider that it may not be a pill that you need. It may be that you just need direct grief recovery work. And it changed my life. This work has changed my life. I can recognize now when I am feeling myself resort to certain behaviors. I can recognize now when I am physically experiencing the physical manifestation of what I am emotionally feeling. It's not always a symptom, like what we're experiencing physically isn't always a symptom of something with a medical label. I want you to consider that very well. Just maybe grief. And that's not a term that you will ever, ever likely hear your medical doctor say out loud. Are you suffering from grief? No, they may tell you, well you have anxiety, you have an anxiety disorder, you have high blood pressure, which you probably maybe do. I'm not saying that, high blood pressure is not a symptom of a cardiac issue that I'm not saying. But what is the cause of the cardiac issue that is then causing the high blood pressure, could it then be the stress on your heart, which is due to possibly grief. And that's where I'm saying let's get to the root of what is causing the physical manifestation going on in our bodies. Let's get to the root of what is causing the outward expression of what we're experiencing. And that is the show for today. I hope that you enjoyed it and you glean something from it useful. If you like this episode, I would love for you to share it with others. leave a review if you would, that would be fantastic. I greatly appreciate it. And I hope you check back next time where I will be talking about the power of choice. So I will see you next time. Have a great day. From my heart to yours, thank you for listening. If you liked this episode, please share it because Sharing is caring. And until next time, give and share compassion by being hurt with yours. And if you're hurting know that what you're feeling is normal and natural. Much love my friend.