Hello, hello, hello my beautiful friends. I’m so happy to be with you today and talking to you about grief- which I know if everyone’s favorite topic. BUT, I love talking about it, giving it some air time because it’s not talked about. It’s not given air time. It’s so often overlooked, shushed, and all manner of minimized -and that’s just not what we do here. 

So we’re going to talk about what grief bursts are- some people call them grief grenades or grief bombs- whatever your preferred descriptor is, doesn’t matter. But first, I want to share some listener love, because we haven’t done that in a while. 

In fact, I want to share two new reviews that the podcast received. 

Ok, so the first one is from userMGBulle:

I have just finished episode 1 and love it! You are a rockstar Emily and your words are a perfect mirror to me, love you girl! Can’t wait to hear the rest of the podcast to keep my company through my process. 

Well, you are so very welcome! I hope you hung around for a few more episodes and that you’re getting the support, love, and grace that you deserve during your journey. 

And the second one comes from RRunge:

I started listening to this podcast to prepare for going through IVF w/ PGT and realized that almost all of the episodes were already applicable to my journey through pregnancy and infant loss. Learning to navigate all of the emotional processing and trauma is so important for many women out there, so thank you for making a podcast like this.

Again, a thousand times over, you’re welcome. I’m so sorry to hear about your losses. But you touched on something that I really pride myself on with this podcast, which is making these concepts applicable within the context of infertility and outside of it. Self-worth vs self-loathing is a UNIVERSAL struggle and so should the tools to combat it be, universal. 

So, that you both for taking the time to rate and review the podcast. When you rate/ review- on the platforms that have that function, you make it easier for people to find the podcast. 

If you’re on SM, on IG or FB, and an episode or something really lands for you, take a screens hot and share it. Tag me and I’ll share it too. Let’s get the word out to the 1 in 6 of us, globally, that you can do this differently. 

Now, let’s get back to grief bursts. I mentioned a few minutes ago that they can be called grief grenades or grief bombs- totally interchangeable. But the idea is that you are going along, your feeling fine, you’re not really thinking about IVf, or infertility, or your losses or anything. For that moment, you are just kind of living your life. Maybe you’ve had some distance from whatever the thing of things that you have been grieving, maybe you’re crying less, you’re feeling your mood a little bit lighter, and again, you would perceive that things are “fine”

And then BAM! Like a truck a grief burst happens. A song comes on, related to your grief or just something that invokes a lot of emotion, a commercial on TV, walking past a parent pushing a stroller, driving past a park that is full of kiddos running around, maybe driving past the hospital where you found out you were experiencing a loss, you look at the calendar and notice that there is an anniversary coming up- and let me tell you, you could have done any of these things 100 times and been fine. And then that 101st you’re just leveled. 

So the reason I wanted to talk about this is because of the holiday season. This comes up SO much because there is so many “family” oriented things during this time. There are so many occasions, traditions, reminders, expectations, hope- all of it, during this time. 

For me, this happened last year. It was last September of 2020 that we found out our transfer failed. That had been our last embryo and for me and hubs, we weren’t really sure about doing another round- right, financially, my age, our success probability, does we even want to put ourselves through that again? So a big thing that I had been grieving throughout the fall was this idea that my family might not look the way that I always thought it was going ot look like- which I think is a VERY real and hard thing that ALL of us think about. 

So, I had started to feel better. Got through Thanksgiving and all the family stuff, just fine. Was really starting to feel so good about where we were as a family, and how I would feel good about not going through IVF again. Not that we had made a decision, but that if that was the decision that we made, I would feel grief but I knew we would still be amazing. 

And then Christmas time rolls around and all of the Christmas things are a buzz and so exciting and shopping and festivities and everything. Really, I had put a lot of my thoughts about IVF and that stuff out of my mind. My hubby and I had decided we weren’t going to really seriously discuss it until well after the New Year. I’m saying all of this to really emphasize HOW much work I had done in processing my grief and pain. 

And then there I was, walking into Target on December 23rd. The boys were home with my husband and I was just going to pick up some last minute stuff and enjoy a latte and a stroll through Target. I’m walking through the various parts of Target, sipping my drink and loving the time. And then, I walk in front of the baby section, which happens to be adjacent to the maternity section. 

Now, I cannot emphasize enough- had I been to Target a couple of dozen times since that September, you better believe it. Had I passed by those particular sections? Absolutely. Had I struggled with thoughts after walking past those sections? Not since early after the transfer. 

But holy shit, if at that moment, I was overcome with emotion. I will tell you, it started in my stomach, it felt like this empty pit was just instantly created. If you have ever experienced a grief burst you know that you feel it INSTANTLY in your body. And then I felt that hot fire in your throat right before you start to cry, no not cry, uncontrollably weep. I started shaking. I had a cart with several items in it, not full, but some stuff. And I just walked out. I’m pretty sure I left the latte there too. I was not “fine”

I sat in my vehicle and cried for IDK 15-20 minutes. Composed myself enough to safely drive home, went and laid down in my bed and cried some more. 

The grief burst passed, I was still a little tearful but I could function. And then the rest of the day I kind of felt like I had a little bit of a hangover, which is very common. 

This was a grief burst. By all accounts, everything was fine until it wasn’t.

I’m very confident that most, if not all, of you listening have experienced this- again, maybe not within the context of infertility, maybe the loss of another loved one, maybe a breakup or divorce, grief bursts can happen ANYTIME you’re navigating grief.

So, I’m going to offer you three practical strategies for dealing with these smacks across the face, these unpleasant surprises, these, these burst- in the hopes that you can navigate them with grace and compassion towards yourself. 

Ok, so first, I suggest to place your hand over your heart. I know it might seem campy or silly to do this, and you might feel that way at first, but this is one of the best ways to reconnect with yourself. Placing your hand over your heart and taking 3-5 deep, cleansing breaths, even if you’re crying, it’s ok. This doesn’t have to be a yoga perfect deep breath in and out. But you want to connect with your body. That is where your grief is stored. This isn’t a brain thing. This is a carnal, visceral, guttural, experience within your body. You cannot out-logic it, you cannot out-think it.

Placing your hand on your heart and taking deep breaths is one of the fastest ways to ground yourself and help you get back into your body. So if you can’t put your hand on your heart because your hands are full or for whatever reason it’s not practical, even just imagine that your hand is on your heart and take those three deep breaths. Get yourself back into your body and present and grounded.

And second, drop your resistance to what’s happening. I know it’s counterintuitive. I know it won’t feel natural. I know it will take practice. But in the moment, if you can say yes to what is happening to you, if you can drop the resistance, you will help yourself so much. Now, what do I mean by resistance? That is when you tell yourself that you shouldn’t be feeling what you’re feeling. You argue with what you’re feeling. You judge yourself for what you’re feeling. You try to distract yourself or tell yourself, “no, I cant do this right now.” THAT’s resistance. 

Now, remember when I said this was carnal, visceral, and guttural- yeah, I want you to think about if you’ve ever broken a bone or another painful injury. The pain was kind of inevitable, right? When we have an injury or something, we don’t stand there arguing with our subsequent pain, or like say “This is such an inconvenient time to be in pain with my foot or arm” No! 

We focus on the VERY pressing item at hand, the broken or injured part of our body. 

And as an offshoot, isn’t that such a great parallel to draw that we will address physical pain, nearly immediately (medication, drs, ER, whatever) but with psychological pain (which, when left unattended to can MANIFEST into physical pain) we’re like, naw, you can wait. Ugh such a telling narrative on our culture. Anyway, we have this injury and we’re not arguing with it. We are, in some ways, expect the pain to be there. We do our best to breathe through it, riding the waves, until the pain resides through an intervention or not. 

So just like pain is a part of an injury, grief bursts are a part of grief. 

So stop resisting them. And we don’t mean to do it, it’s just counter to what we’re used to. We’re not used to saying yes to something that feels painful. Everything in our primitive brain doesn’t want that. So of course, it’s not going to be something that comes naturally to us, we’re going to have to work at it. 

And if saying yes to what’s happening feels like too much of a stretch, then say to yourself, you don’t even have to say it out loud, “I allow this, or I can allow this, or this is happening and I can allow it. I can allow this wave to pass through me.” Whatever feels true to you. 

Because remember, feelings can’t hurt us. We don’t need to escape them. They’re just vibrations in our bodies. Feelings are a valuable part of our humanness. They’re supposed to be there. Even the ones we don’t always want and aren’t prepared for. And when we allow them, they get less intense and they get easier to experience. 

So first, hand over your heart, three long deep breaths. Get grounded, get back in your body. Second, drop your resistance to what’s happening, even though it feels really weird, say yes to what’s happening. Allow it, give it permission to be in your body. Drop the resistance. 

And third, love yourself through this part of your grief experience. If we aren’t loving ourselves through a grief grenade, then typically what we do is we take whatever the pain of that grenade is and we pile more pain on top of it. We take that pain and instead of processing it cleanly, we turn it into suffering. We turn clean pain into dirty pain- if you’re not sure what I’m referring to with dirty pain go back to episode 9 called clan pain vs dirty pain. 

there’s no need to be mad at yourself because this grief grenade happened. It does not mean you did anything wrong. You do not need to make it mean that you are stuck or stalled or not healing or any of those things. 

Love yourself through this most undesirable grief burst because this is just grief. This is just grief. And you’re doing great. And I want you to tell yourself that in that moment. Be kind to yourself. Use my voice if it helps. I have clients tell me all the time, they hear my voice. They hear my saying you’re doing this beautifully, and this is incredibly normal, nothing has gone wrong, and I adore you.  

I say that to myself when things are hard for me. I love you Emily, I love you, you’ve got this. Say it to yourself. The grief burst comes, you put your hand on your heart, three big breaths, you stop resisting what’s happening, and finally you love yourself as it happens. 

You are kind to yourself in the way that you speak to yourself. There’s no need to take this and turn it into something bigger than it needs to be. Grief grenades are just part of grief, just like pain is part of an injury. 

Ok, that is what I have for your today my beautiful friends. Have a great week and I will tlak to you again soon.