It’s Week 2 of discussing emotions women often hold in their pelvic bowls. This week is another important one to consider: grief.
Grief shows up in the bowl in many forms. Sometimes there’s a sense of emptiness. Sometimes there’s a disconnection and difficulty visualizing the area where it’s being held. And sometimes, grief is stuck under layers of other emotions and takes a few visits to fully uncover. This usually feels like fullness.
Women may be holding grief from losses we would typically think of, like the death of a loved one, and there are many other forms of grief, as well.
First, I commonly see grief related to pregnancy and birth:
There’s the grief after a miscarriage when the spirit baby lost wasn’t grieved and honored at the time of the loss.
There’s grief after a planned abortion, a time when women are often very alone.
There’s the grief after a healthy baby is born, but the birth process did not go as the mother expected or her birthing process was interrupted.
Next, I commonly see grief related to our mothers:
Many of our mothers didn’t mother us in the way we needed.
Many mothers weren’t mothered themselves and thus had no idea how to mother.
Many of our mothers are narcissists.
You get the idea here and if this is you, you know who you are.
Another area of grief I work with women on is grief of “what could have been”:
Since we are usually not taught to be in our personal power as girls and women and that power is often taken away from us, we grieve what could have been if we could go back and things had been different.
When women begin to connect to themselves through the pelvic bowl, they often grieve time spent worrying and letting others opinions dictate them.
Women grieve traumas they experienced and all they took from them.
Grief can also be held from our families.
In Wild Feminine, my teacher Tami Kent says, “As the energy keeper in a family, a woman holds the energy of those around her; a woman’s bodily grief, potentially arising from many individuals-not just herself- becomes a burden. Without the ritual or collective acknowledgement and release of grief, women carry that energy”.
When we’re holding grief, we can feel a heaviness in our systems and in our bowls. Once the grief is moved, we can feel lighter and have greater access to our creativity and abundance.
When a loved one passes, we have grief rituals, aka funerals. These allow us to gather with family and friends, cry openly, and celebrate the loved one. We don’t generally have rituals to release other types of grief.
Of course, pelvic bowl healing work can help. If you don’t live near someone like me or you want to do something different to move your grief, consider creating a ritual for yourself. If you’re not sure if you’re holding grief, that’s where a session can really help.
Whatever you’re holding, it can be released, allowing you more access to you.
Please share with other women so we can all acknowledge our grief and know there are resources to honor and move it.