Reading about grief, inspiration

[spacecadet]

The Language of Emotions: What Your Feelings Are Trying to Tell You Author: Karla McLaren Publisher: Sounds True; 32851st edition (June 1, 2010) Paperback: 432 pages ISBN-10: 1591797691 ISBN-13: 978-1591797692

I've been reading Karla McLaren’s book "The Language of Emotions" this morning and want to share something from it. She has a wonderful perspective about emotional intelligence, but in contrast to more superficial discussions of it (some books about EQ are like recipes for how to manipulate people), she talks about it from a place of integrity. How emotions are felt in our body, how to identify/name them, mirror neurons that cause us to feel another's emotions and even their impulses. She has a chapter on each emotion, including ones we don't think of as feelings per se like resistance/stress and depression.

This morning I read about grief, which she describes as “dropping into the river of all souls.” She describes ways we try to avoid it. It is felt deeply in the body but if we use our intellect or our spiritual beliefs to stay detached from it then we remain stuck and unable to grieve. She says the river of grief needs our tears to keep it flowing, to carry out the dead – be it a person or relationship. She also says grief is a perfect response to "a stunning betrayal," or we may have lost a layer of our innocence.

I think I’ve been stuck at times, including recently, where my grief is suspended because of my spiritual beliefs. I do sincerely believe that in the end, we are all going to be fine. We have brilliant alchemical ways of dissecting difficult seasons to find meaning in them. But this is the 30,000 feet above the earth view, and it does not negate the reality of living in my body that feels what it will.

So I have been grieving, particularly this past week. I don't want to allow my ultimately optimistic outlook to be an obstacle to going down into the river to where I need to be. It feels like when we have one loss, it connects us to all the other losses we've felt. I've had a lot. I'm guessing most people here have as well.

Just wanted to share this in case it may be helpful.

Next I'll read her chapter on confusion, because I can relate.  

[livednlearned]

What a wonderful way to look at grief 

This was really useful for me, and makes sense.

Three years or so after I left my ex (and still connected through coparenting), I would find myself weeping while out walking the dog, or doing laundry. And I'm not a weeper.

I never wanted my uBPD brother to see me cry because that would give him what he wanted. I think I kinda forgot how to really cry.

What you shared from the book makes me realize that my body took over the grieving process, and thankfully so.

I thought I was having a nervous breakdown, and went to see an old-school psychiatrist and he said, Sounds more like a nervous breakthrough. Keep crying.

Let it go.

Lean in.

 

[Skip]

She has a wonderful perspective about emotional intelligence, but in contrast to more superficial discussions of it (some books about EQ are like recipes for how to manipulate people), she talks about it from a place of integrity. How emotions are felt in our body, how to identify/name them, mirror neurons that cause us to feel another's emotions and even their impulses. She has a chapter on each emotion, including ones we don't think of as feelings per se like resistance/stress and depression.

This is an interesting take on shame.


Date: Aug 2016Minutes: 16:04
Shame is Your Friend!

Can you share part of her message on one of the emotions she describes?

[spacecadet]

Livednlearned, glad you found this helpful. Love your story, and your psychiatrist's words "nervous breakthrough."

Skip, what a great clip from her, I hadn't seen that.

Happy to share more... .first, her basic point of view is that all emotions have value and need their place at the table. She cites some researchers' conclusion (forget who) that emotions are action-requiring neuron programs that are hardwired into us since long before we had language.

She describes depression as "a constellation of emotions" and "an ingenious movement of the psyche that takes you out of commission" for a period, be it chronic or situational. It is asking us to process the external events and internal conflicts that brought us to that point. Her point of view is always not to fight emotions but to ask what they are telling us or requiring of us and go from there. For example, she refers to anger as "the honorable sentry." (a chapter is devoted to this emotion, another to hate which I haven't yet read)

She acknowledges that depression can be disabling and taking anti-depressants can aid us, but not surprisingly she thinks meds are not enough, that there is always emotional work to be done to (hopefully) pull out of it. We can engage our depression "in an honorable way" to determine and address what in our lives has caused the disturbance. She examined her own chronic depression after suffering with it for many years.

The metaphor she uses for this state is when Londoners during WWII sent their children away to relatives in the country for safety. She realized that depression was not attacking her, but sending parts of the soul away to safety "while holding fast in the combat zone." The healing comes about as we face depression as a peer. Our sacred task is to sort out the internal conflicts, "clear away the rubble, restore the flow" inside, and make a home safe for our inner children to come home to.

Of course nothing is this tidy, its difficult and messy work. She provides ideas for how to allow emotions to tell us what we (they) need and where we've gone off course. She has several visualization exercises to help us feel grounded, get in touch with emotions at their more subtle or noisy levels when we feel disassociated, and to better manage them.

I was not aware of her Youtube videos... .I'm going to look for more later on and see if she describes these exercises, which I'm guessing some people might find difficult to actually do just from reading the description.