Flow and Grief
We often think of flow as movement without resistance. And when we are thinking about creative flow, or ease, it’s a similar thing. Nothing gets in the way. A river gliding effortlessly towards the sea. But every river is shaped by what it meets. Rocks don't stop it being a river. They alter its course. They create still pools, faster currents, unexpected turns. And in time, the river finds its way around them.
Loss can feel like one of those rocks. Sometimes a pebble. Sometimes a boulder that changes the landscape completely.
Grief has many faces. We recognise it most readily after someone dies, but we also grieve the ending of relationships, careers, health, fertility, independence, the family home becoming quieter, or the version of ourselves we thought we would become. Whatever the cause, loss interrupts the story we believed we were living.
Our brain as a PREDICTION machine
Lisa Feldman Barrett (Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain) describes the brain as a prediction machine. When we imagine what might be coming next, our brain prepares our body and mind for that change. This can be as simple as anticipating a good outcome to an interview - we feel calmer and more prepared. It works in a negative way too. When we imagine, for example, feeling afraid of going to the dentist, our body is prepared for that with extra adrenaline and cortisol.
When loss comes, especially if it’s unexpected, the internal map that we were following suddenly is full of holes. Instead of flowing easily through our lives, the future we had imagined no longer exists. We aren't only grieving what has happened. We're also trying to make sense of a future that now feels unfamiliar.
No wonder we can feel as though we've lost our footing.
Loss can feel lonely
This loss of certainty leaves us tired and sometimes breathless, stuck in a whirlpool of emotions. The landscape has changed. Where we were sure, now we hardly know ourselves. It’s easy to become isolated, because this new feeling of instability seems too much to share with anyone else. Perhaps it even feels that you’ve been left behind - everyone else has moved on and you are stuck in this feeling of grief and loss.
And yet, when we do finally find the right people or places in which to share what we are experiencing, a sense of flow can begin to return. We are stronger together, richer as a tribe than as isolated individuals. It may just take one conversation, or a moment of understanding, to begin to shift you away from the whirlpool and towards something easier.
You can read more about connection and grief in this guest blog post from Liz Orgill
Flow looks different when we’re navigating loss
And you know what? That’s OK. The feeling of safety that you had before this loss is temporarily absent, and it’s fine to test what feels doable.
After grief, flow may look like:
getting out of bed
eating breakfast
saying yes to a walk
laughing unexpectedly
noticing birdsong
crying without apologising
accepting help
saying "today is hard."
Loss changes us.
It asks questions of us that we never expected to answer. It slows us down when the rest of the world seems to carry on without us.
There may come a time when life begins to move again, although perhaps not in the direction you expected and not at the pace you once knew. That isn't a sign that you've left someone behind or forgotten what mattered, it's a sign that your nervous system is beginning to trust the world again, to be ready to get back into the flow and see what’s new.
If you're in that place today, perhaps the question isn't, "How do I get back to who I was?" Perhaps it's, "How can I navigate this new map in a way that feels right for me now?"
A Retreat for Moving Forward with Loss and Grief
Every Autumn, I run a retreat with my good friend and Womens’ Empowerment Coach Emma Skilton. Together we create and hold a safe space for women to come and find their next steps in their journey of loss and grief.
If you think this retreat may be right for you, please take a look at the information in the link below and schedule a call with me to ask any questions before booking.
