Keeper of Grief, the Ancient Oak,

Grief isn’t something to be processed and discarded; instead, over time your soul will grow larger to make space for that pain.

In the early hours of the day when the sun is just a hint of light below the horizon, or while I’m driving down a country road far from any home I have ever known, or late at night when I wake to the noise of some animal crying out deep in a dark forest, that is when grief rises out of nowhere and overtakes me.

I have been running from my grief for months, maybe years, but it still finds me, often when I least expect it. Especially when I least expect it, when I let down my guard and stop casting the incantations of hope and joy that I use throughout my day to keep it away.

I have so much grief inside me. And these days, I often feel it all at once. It’s like peering into a time vortex and being exposed to all versions of myself, past and present, with their pain and suffering pouring out of the darkness to engulf me.

Grief comes in many forms

I have grief over those I have lost. Grief over those who have walked away. Grief over those who didn’t have the capacity to keep trying, to save something that, in spite of its challenges, could have been beautiful. Grief at the ways I haven’t been able show up for those in my life, and for all the times I sabotaged something good because I didn’t have the capacity to keep trying either, not until recently.

Also, grief at the loss of possibilities, at the loss of future versions of my life and future versions of me. The life and family I once had. And the life and family that might have been if I had made different choices along the way.

Grief at starting my life over, yet again, this time with the uncomfortable worry that I won’t have the energy to keep going this time, that healing will be replaced by giving up. This last one, especially, looms in the back of my mind—it’s a void that I fear to look into, because I’m afraid if I do, I will lose my balance and keep falling for the rest of my life.

Over the past two years, my grief has sprouted around me like rough moss, hardened lichen, and razor-edged grasses taking root after an exploding volcano decimated a forest, stripping it of everything it once had, even its very identify.

Making space for grief

When you lose so much at once, the shock continues to reverberate in your soul, long after you wake up one morning in a strange cottage by the water, in the middle of a blast zone, surrounded by the fractured pieces of your life.

At times, I wonder if my grief has grown over the past few months, accumulated like icy darkness pooling in the corners of my body, building and building until it floods my system entirely. Likely, I am more aware of the grief that has been there all along, and I am better able to hold it without running away or shutting down.

I have become like an ancient oak tree. My limbs spread wide to welcome the suffering that has filled my life for so long, not pushing it away, but embracing it and welcoming it into myself without hesitation. In the process, my soul has grown larger to encompass all of that grief.

There, in the dark corners of my own being, my grief takes refuge, a great gray owl welcomed and loved; not captive, but able to fly away in the middle of the night as my dreams take flight, then returning to the safety of my soul when the first rays of sun spill over whatever horizon greets me each morning.

Somatic work for building capacity

This shift in how I approach and hold grief didn’t happen overnight. For a long time, when grief inundated me, I would go offline, like an electrical circuit overloaded. Sometimes it actually felt like a switch inside me had flipped off, an emotional circuit breaker meant to keep me safe.

Other times, I would just go blank, dissociating partially or completely. This still happens, although less frequently than a year ago. Last night, as I was sitting in bed, thinking about all that I have lost, feeling it in every nerve and organ, my mind drifted away from my body, which had ceased to feel real. Even the room seemed strange, however somewhere between what I knew it to be and a room I had inhabited in a past version of my life.

I was stuck there for several minutes, frozen in bed with my ankles crossed, unable to pry them apart, an experience I often had as a child, trapped in my bed. Then I remembered my session with my therapist the other day, where something similar had come up. Instead of urging me to fight this frozen sensation, she had me stay with it, to let it be there, until the feeling was ready to move on.

Last night, after a few minutes of noticing the overwhelm and frozenness, I felt my nervous system starting to thaw. I was able to wiggle my toes, aware of the sensation of that small movement. Then my arm lifted and reached toward the window, where I could see ducks searching for bugs in the grass near the barn. Soon, the freeze melted away entirely. It was like waking up from sleep, except I had been awake the whole time.

Greater capacity for grief

After months of weekly somatic trauma therapy, I have been able to grow my capacity to hold my grief. With practice and self-compassion, I have become that ancient oak tree, tall and wide, keeper of grief, and guardian to the tender creatures of my soul.

It’s not only grief that I now have the capacity to hold, it is all feelings that arise—heartbreak, sadness, fear, anxiety, love, joy, awe, and so much more. I am a vast ecosystem of feelings, interconnected like a complex web of emotions and sensations, with each feeling playing a vital role in my life and relationships.