Rebecca: I want to give you permission to be in that tender space. She says sometimes fully allowing that tenderness doesn't feel accessible to us. Other ways to approach tenderness is finding the opposite.
Grief is a craving for touch. Ask your grief what it's wanting, what it needs. Go to a hot spring and let your whole body feel the sensation of touch and pressure. I would love to hear from anyone who has counteracted difficult aspects of grief.
Hello, friends. How are you today? It's Friday, and we're back for the Marigold grief gathering. I'm Rebecca and I'm co founder of Marigold. I'm a nurse and co chair of the neonatal bereavement team at my hospital. And I am also a holistic nurse coach. And I'm so happy to join you today. Sorry that we had technical difficulties with Roshni's life this morning, but I wanted to meet with you today and talk about the tenderness of grief and sort of how grief lifts that veil for us and allows us to see truths, realities, and often different perspectives that can create a lot of tenderness and sensitivity to look at.
And I want to, first of all, give you permission to be in that tender space. I know that a lot of times when grief hits you, it can kind of hit you hard, and it's hard to titrate that, the oncoming of a wave of grief. Right. And I wanted to offer you some options when you're feeling in that tender, soft, sensitive space, especially with Mother's Day coming up this weekend and Father's Day coming up soon, at least in America, we have a lot of reminders of these tender tenderness, our sensitivity.
It's kind of soft and subtle and kind of touchy. Maybe painful tenderness may also feel just like softness for you and without the pain. But sometimes tenderness can have. Give you a sort of reaction where you prickle, right? You bounce away from it. You don't want to be touched there. It's too tender, it's too triggering, right. So sometimes fully allowing that tenderness doesn't feel accessible to us. And so in my last live, I talked about creating parameters around kind of diving into grief. And you can use that method to give some space to this tenderness that comes up for you.
And, you know, give it five minutes. Give it five minutes of writing or thinking and allow yourself to feel it so that it can be digested through you. But another way that. That you can approach tenderness is finding the opposite. And tenderness has many spectrums, right? So we want to kind of feel into what is it for me, what is feeling, like painful or soft or kind of achy right now, that sensation. And you can invoke the opposite quality in a physical way. So I might be looking for some stability, some strengthening to help counteract that painful tenderness that's coming up for me.
And the first thing I think of is maybe using an herbal tea that's really strengthening, like a dandelion tea. And that kind of lights me up because that's a plant that's growing around me right now and reminds me that nature is supporting us, the season is supporting us, and you can always find plants around you. If you're feeling a little, like, tender and soft and it feels uncomfortable to be there, you could take, like, a brisk walk and kind of embody the opposite of that. You know, give yourself some strength and stamina in your body and just let yourself feel that as a support to the tenderness that is sitting in your heart.
And finally, I wanted to let you know about an example of this. I was just talking to someone yesterday who's dealing with a lot of grief. And the situation that caused the grief happened about six months ago, but they noticed that it's coming back in waves, which is totally normal. And it was really surprising to them how grief was kind of newly filling their experience, where they thought, like, I'm kind of okay now. I'm doing my daily things. And I had a ritual in place, and they noticed that it wasn't that way today.
And it came up for them in a really strong kind of tender and painful realization. And so I was sitting with her as she's explaining the sensation, and I asked her to just look within for a minute and talk to her grief as if it's a person or an entity, right? And ask it what it's wanting, what it needs. And she sat for a moment, and her grief is related to losing a person, her husband. And the thing that her grief was craving in that moment was his touch. And so we looked at a few ways that we could recreate that.
And, of course, the most painful part of it is that the grief stems from not being able to get that touch, right. So we allow space for the reality of that and the pain of that. But we talked about a few other ways that she could kind of mimic that and find comfort from his touch. And one of the things that came up for her was going to a local hot spring and just getting in that water and letting her whole body feel the sensation of touch and pressure. And I thought that was brilliant, you know, to come up with that.
The need for touch, the craving for touch, it may not come from the person or the place that we wish it would, but. And again, like, this is nature supporting us, but you could do this in your bathtub, you know, use those elements around you that are just in the next room or just outside and offer yourself that which you need. So I loved that idea of just, you know, really being enveloped by touch, by sensation, by pressure, as a way to ease that craving. And I just wanted to share that with you all today.
That oftentimes a way to counteract or soften our grief is right next to us, right in front of us. And it does take the courage and building of resilience to be able to look at your grief and ask it what it's needing, what it's wanting. But your active participation in answering that call or that craving is the building blocks to your resilience. It's the steps to your growth. And it doesn't always make grief easier, but it does give you the opportunity to be in conversation with it. And while we're alive and we're dealing with all of these great emotions and pressures and stresses and grief in our life, I think that one of the most effective ways to handle that without just pushing it away is to be in conversation with it and allow that listening and be gentle on ourselves.
So I would love to hear from any of you who come up with ways that you've kind of counteracted difficult aspects of grief, like tenderness and feeling. Like it's hard to touch that grief. It's hard to talk to it. If you could share with us, you know, if you watch this later in the comments, it would be helpful to everyone to know practical and physical things that you did to counteract that grief. And we'll see you next Friday. It's wonderful to be with you, and thanks so much.
