Stepping Into Grief: How to Process Pain in Order To Grow

In this episode of the Living Out Love Podcast, we explore the behavior we choose to avoid feeling uncomfortable emotions like grief. We'll explore how easy it is to numb or ignore feelings of grief by craving things like media, TV, the internet, and food instead of facing challenging emotions head-on. Discover what happens when you check in with yourself about why you are engaging in certain behaviors so that you can make conscious choices instead of running away from your pain. This episode will help empower us all by exploring the importance of acknowledging our grief so that we can live life fully!

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Grieving is an important step that needs time and space for expression.
• Therapists, supportive relationships, and journaling can help process emotions until they've been completely felt.
• Grief should not be skipped over as it will affect your vibration and attract future experiences into your life.
• Take inventory of habits and what you consume to determine if you are using it as pain avoidance.

00:00

Hello love's Welcome to the Living Out Love Podcast. I'm Amy Hageman, thank you for being here. If you're watching online, you will see that I'm not wearing makeup, I have not done my hair you are getting the real real today. And that is great. Okay, so I am coming in today with only a little bit of prep in terms of outline. And obviously in terms of appearance, because I have just had something that is...I've been mulling over and mulling over and mulling over and it's just time to get it out of my system.

00:38

So first, I want to have a quick reminder about emotions. Those of you that have been here with me, I know you're probably sick of me talking about it. But for those of you that are new, quick reminder, emotions are energy, it's energy. And two things can happen with the energy, we can give that our energy and outlet by feeling them by expressing them. So we can move through the energy of the motion in order to heal. Or we can repress it and avoid it. And that energy will just be stored in our body. Okay, so just quick reminder, that's, that's emotion.

01:15

Now, I have been thinking a lot about healing. And why healing can be so difficult for so many. I have been having readings with two different themes around healing that have happened. One theme is people have said, I thought I forgave them. I forgave them years ago. And their guides have said, You never grieved it. You can't forgive something until you have grieved it first. So that's one theme, I'm going to come back to it just put a pin in it. Another theme is I've had people come to me who are trying to release a bad habit and take on a new habit. And they're struggling and they can't figure out why am I having such a hard time changing this habit. And the guides will come in and say because you don't want to look at the things that caused the habit in the first place. Because if you look at the past, you would have to grieve. So today we're talking about how skipping the step of feeling our grief is stunting our growth.

02:44

And I am not saying that every time we grow, there is inherently grief. I'm not saying that at all, I am saying that when we are growing through healing, when we are healing something, whether it's a behavior, whether it's a belief pattern, whatever. Grief is inherently going to be involved much more often than we would like to believe.

03:06

Okay, so I want to go back to this idea of forgiveness. And why. Why is grief so important to forgiveness? And this ties into what I said earlier about when we feel our emotions, that gives us an outlet, we can move through the energy of the emotion in order to heal, or we can store it in the body. So let's say you had a childhood trauma, let's say you had emotionally abusive sibling or something. And you decide, I'm going to forgive them. They didn't know what they were doing. They did the best they had with what they could, I'm not going to hold on to that that won't serve me. So I forgive them. I release them from my story, I forgive them. That's lovely. And I commend you, that's amazing. But also, if you don't first go back and sit in the grief, and the pain of what it was like to have the emotionally abusive sibling, then that forgiveness isn't really real.

04:16

Because the energy of the emotion of grief is still in your body. Forgiveness is like saying, I'm going to take this energy that I've been carrying around with me and I'm going to release it unto the world. I'm not going to store it in my body anymore. But you cannot release something that you haven't first felt. You have to feel it before you can release it. If you're not welcoming the feelings of the grief, then there's nothing to forgive. If you're just like, oh, I forgive them for this thing. They didn't mean to do it but you haven't tapped into your pain first, than the pain is still in your body. And it's likely driving your thoughts and your feelings about the world. Now you may be having all these thoughts about your sibling that say, I forgave them, I want them to be well. And you mean it. I'm not saying you don't mean it. You mean those thoughts. I want them to be well, I'm not carrying that stuff anymore.

05:25

But guess what, if you haven't felt the grief and the pain, if you haven't allowed your body to go back in time, and remember that experience, then you never really forgave it in the first place.

05:42

It's in your body. And it is manifesting in your life. Today. It could be 20 years ago, friends, it could be coming out as anxiety, it can be coming out as codependence it could be coming out as self destructive behavior, it doesn't matter how it's coming out. But that pain that you were not willing to feel before you forgave it, it's manifesting in your life now.

06:06

That is how emotions work, their energy in our body. And if we don't look at them, if we don't give them the mic, if we don't feel them, and express them and heal them, they will take over. Feeling your feelings is doing your personal work. It IS the work.

06:27

We cannot forgive without feeling the pain. It doesn't.. in our bodies, it doesn't work, we can do that in our thoughts. But we can't biologically physiologically do that. It doesn't work. Okay. The other times that this has been coming up - Is people coming to me wanting to build habits, maybe it's relationship patterns, maybe who knows what it is any any sort of habit. Why? Why can't I figure out this? Why do I keep attracting the same man? Why do I you know, like, they want to know the why behind this thing that they're struggling with?

06:27

And yes, we also have to do thoughts. And we also have to forgive. And we also have to learn how to communicate and grow in other ways. But we can't really truly do any of that if we haven't felt our feelings first. Okay, so that was the first example I was thinking of where I was talking about forgiveness, and you can't really forgive if you haven't done your grief work. And again, what that means is you have to, in your mind and in your body, go back in time. And remember and experience, whatever it is that you're forgiving, you have to allow it to be there, you have to feel the pain first. And then you say, Okay, I release this, I forgive this.

08:03

And what I find is, people want to know the why because they think that having the knowledge is going to help them unlock some mystery, so that they can now go oh, well, that's the why I figured it out. And so now I'm going to be able to become a new person, I'm going to be able to create the new behavior pattern. But that doesn't work. Because emotions are energy that is stored in our body. And so if you identify the why that's only one step, the next step is the grieving.

08:50

You have to sit with that why? So perhaps you have a habit of attracting friendships or romantic partners or bosses like you have a habit of attracting relationships in which you are not good enough, no matter what you do, you're not good enough. And then you say, Why me? Why is that happening? And your guides and your angels they come in and your loved ones and they support you. And they say, Well, this is happening because when you grew up you had such and such thing happened that told you that you were not good enough. And your brain is creating this world that reinforces this belief. You've had this belief since this thing happened, your child's agenda, you're not good enough and your brain is creating the world for you that reinforces that belief. And so then you say, Oh, I get it now. Well, that was just a belief I had I'm just going to change the belief. Good luck loves good luck with that. You're not just going to change the belief overnight.

09:53

Could you eventually change your beliefs? Sure, if you can continue to practice new beliefs over and over and over again. Eventually, you could change your beliefs. But you know what's going to make it much faster and much easier is if you grieve it first. You've got to grieve it. You got to go back in time and think, Wow, that was painful. And is it all okay? Is it all okay that that's the life that childhood I had that that's, of course it's okay. But that doesn't mean it's not worth grieving.

10:35

Many of us think, because we are privileged or because we have our needs met, or because we're better off than others, that we're not allowed to grieve what was painful in our lives. But guess what, that's not helping the other people that are worse off than you and is not helping you either. You have got to go back and honor your pain before you can release it. For people that are in the habit category, where they're trying to release an old habit in order to create a new habit. The going back finding the why releasing the pain is important. Because our emotions, our emotions, or our are driving our car much more than our thoughts are.

11:32

We think that our thoughts are creating the world in which we live, and they are. But do you know why that's true is because thoughts create feelings, it is our feelings, our vibrations, it's our feelings that create the world in which we live. And so if we don't go back and feel that grief, we cannot release it. We innate, we may not be actively feeling it, to have it vibrationally in our energy field. The only way to get it out of our vibrational energetic field is to feel it. So if you are stuck on a habit and you're going Why do I keep attracting these relationships? Why do I keep struggling with avoiding my feelings? What I keep struggling with whatever it is, you're like, Amy, I'm tired of this habit. I don't want this habit anymore. I want to do this new one. Well, first, we identify the why and then we feel the feelings. And then by the way, guys, while we're talking about it, you know what else we do? We appreciate those coping mechanisms. We thank them for keeping us safe. They served us for whatever amount of time they served us. And so we appreciate them. And then we release them. Think about the difference, think about a parent, dropping a child off at college. And the difference of someone saying, Oh, let me go, I'm going to help you pack I'm going to help you decorate your dorm, I'm going to make sure you feel prepared that we got you know, whatever your lunch card is, like, I'll help you with all of that. And if you don't want help, that's fine. But I'm going to be there and support you in this transition out of my personal home. Okay, your kids leaving the home, there's one way to get them out is to lovingly guide them out. And to say I will miss you. This has been a lovely phase of life in which you were in my home, I know I bless you on to the next phase. Another way of getting them out is to say you're an adult now Good luck, you figure it out. And that I mean, that's not inherently wrong, if that's how it works for you, that's how it works for you. But imagine the way your child would feel. Okay, so think of your emotion, think of the behavior pattern, the habit that you might be trying to release, if you can honor it, and say, Wow, this was a phase of life, I really enjoyed this phase of life to a certain extent you serve to me, I appreciate you. And thank you for being with me in the time that was appropriate. And no, I bless you on your way, you could look at your habit that way. Or you could say, Screw you have it you haven't served me you've been terrible. And I just want to get you out of my life. Like those are very different vibrations. And obviously, one way is going to be a more healing, a more loving experience of releasing a habit or relationship or whatever, than the other way. So when it comes time to releasing something that doesn't serve you if you can spend some time first grieving whatever it is, that how did you create that habit in the first place? And you may not know what it is you may have just been born this way who knows? But you grieve whatever it is. And then you think the habit or the coping mechanism for serving you. It had a purpose. And then you say, I'm lovingly releasing you now. You Because I love myself. And I even love the coping mechanism, I have a love for you because you kept me safe. But I'm releasing you back into the universal field for healing, it's not my job to heal this coping mechanism, it's just my job to release it from my energetic field. Then you've released something with love, you're already in an open, expanded state with which to welcome a new habit. And you're not welcoming a new habit from a place of judgment or fear and scarcity of lack. If I don't change my life, it's going to be terrible forever. So I better change your welcoming a new habit from a place of I love myself and I'm open to my own growth. And I'm open to having more fulfilling experiences. And I'm open to having more love and being more love. That's a much better way to try to change a habit.

15:52

So when it comes to forgiveness work, when it comes to healing new habits, many of us are skipping the step of feeling our grief. And by doing so, we stunt our own growth. Bare minimum, we slow it down by a lot. Okay, I want to address one other thing. There's a lot of people in the spiritual community that are very much focused on manifestation and law of attraction. And I think that's great. I'm not about to poopoo that in any way. That's all about vibrational energetic alignment. But here's what I what I want to say to you so that you don't get confused. A lot of people think that if we feel our grief, and our pain and our rage, that that is sending out a message to the universe, that we want more of that. But that's not true.

16:53

When we feel our grief and our pain and our rage, we're releasing it from our energetic field, we're actually clarifying our energetic field to be more in alignment with what we truly want. Because remember, if we don't feel it, that energy stored in our body, so regardless of the fact that we may not be feeling it in our physical body, we may not be feeling our physical pain, because perhaps we're doing Netflix or we're attracting the wrong person. And that's a lovely distraction. But that grief is energetically stored in our energetic body until you feel it. So when you feel the negative, unpleasant feelings, that is experiencing the contrast, as Abraham Hicks would say that's the contrast of this is what I don't want. That is your way of experiencing the contrast. And then you release it from your energetic field, so that your energetic field has clarity, so that you can then attract something of a higher vibration. So it's what everybody's afraid of, it's literally the exact opposite. People are afraid that if I feel all these negative feelings that then I'm going to attract more negative stuff.

18:11

But actually, that's what you're already doing by not feeling the feelings. Because those feelings like if you don't go back, let's go back to the example of like you maybe you had like an emotionally abusive sibling, as a child that convinced you that you could do nothing right or whatever. You were worthless, like whatever terrible thing it was. If you don't go back and you feel those feelings, and you recognize, oh, I am in pain about this story, I'm in pain about what happened to me. Then That pain just stays in your body. And it continues to manifest and you continue to attract situations and people that tell you that you're not good enough, because you haven't felt it in order to release it.

18:53

Whereas if we go back and we do the ugly cry, and we throw the pillows and we do whatever the heck we got to do, to be with the pain to sit in the pain and the grief so that we can release it. That is when we become master manifesters. Because we're like, listen, I fully embodied that phase of life. I welcomed all the feelings, the blame, the shame, the rage, the resentment, I welcomed all those feelings. I loved myself through that process. And then I released them and I said, Okay, I'm done. They've had their turn at the mic. I'm done. And now I choose love. Then your vibration is so high, then you're clean. You're not carrying around that energetic stuff in your field anymore.

19:49

Then you're clean. So both from what I'm going to call an outer perspective, the world that we see, both from a physical manifestation perspective of like, what am I trying to heal? What kind of life do I want to have? Do I want a new habit? Do I want to I do I want to forgive this person do I want to welcome this new job into my life? Both from the seen world, and from the unseen world of like, what are we manifesting what thoughts and feelings are we inhabiting and welcoming into our energetic field so that we can manifest in our life.

20:26

In both of those paradigms, we got to feel the ugly stuff in order to be more powerful, in the positive stuff.

20:40

And whether that's growth, whether that's love, whether that's changing habits, it really doesn't matter. What matters is you have to be willing to feel the unpleasant feelings in order to have a vibrational energetic field that has clarity that has intention that has a strength of vision, it has alignment, you cannot be fully in alignment with what it is you're trying to call in, whether that's a habit or a partner or whatever, while you still have the grief and the pain and the rage from the past and your energetic field. And if you never felt it, if you never felt it, if you Netflix, if you drank, if you just put positive thoughts on it, if you just got your gemstones out and your oils, and you never felt it if you use all those tools as a bypass rather than a tool.

21:37

And listen, no shame here, I'm not shaming anybody. This stuff is hard. And I catch myself avoiding grief and avoiding pain all the time. So I am not saying this from a place of judgment. But the truth is, when we are not feeling our negative feelings, we cannot get clear on the positive feelings. Whether it's joy, whether it's peace, whether it's ease, whether it's love, whether it's growth or expansion, like whatever it is that we're wanting to call in our life, whatever positive change we're seeking in our life, we cannot simultaneously seek that positive change, and carry or old pain and be effective. We got to feel the pain, release the pain so that we have more vibrational capital to get into alignment with where it is we want to go. Please don't skip the step of feeling your grief. And if you have no idea how to catch this, I will give you just some easy pointers and say, look at any of your habits that would involve eating that would involve well drinking, substance abuse of any not abuse, but substance use of any kind, media, TV, Internet, look at any of those habits. And when you're engaging in those habits, just check in with yourself. Am I doing this? Because I want to am I doing this? Because I don't really want to do this other thing. Perhaps it's sit at my desk and work perhaps let's have the conversation with my mom, I've been putting off for years, like whatever it is, why am I choosing this behavior right now. And this could be like, you ordered pizza instead of salad. For some people. That's where they're at. For some people, they're watching too much Netflix like you will know the ways in which the show up in your life. But when you're looking at food, when you're looking at consumption of any kind, what are you consuming, whether it's news, sitting there, listen, there are many of us that avoid our pain by taking lots of online classes. By reading lots of books, by doing things that we can give ourselves a pat on the back for, okay, so it's not always going to be I'm avoiding my pain with drugs and alcohol, you could be avoiding your pain by going to lots of you know, personal development conferences and just continuing to only focus on the positive. So when we are consuming that is a time to do a check in and say, Why am I consuming this? And it's not to make yourself wrong. Look, there are plenty of times when I've had a drink and I'm like, Oh, I'm celebrating with such a good day. I just feel like celebrating. I just feel like having an indulgence. And I'm very clear that like I've had a good day and I'm choosing this. And then there are times when I've had a drink and I'm like, I want to take the edge off. I don't want to feel what I'm feeling right now. And so I want to dull that pain and I want to take the edge off. And when I have that awareness, sometimes I drink and sometimes I don't it doesn't mean I make a different decision. But I'm not asleep at the wheel about it. Okay, so that is an easy way to look at grief is to look at what am I consuming. And when I'm consuming whatever it is, again, it could be news. It could be something, you know, smart and helpful. Or it could be food, alcohol, it could be binging Netflix, you know, many, many things when you're looking at what are you consuming? Check in with yourself. And you don't have to check in with yourself ahead of time. You could check in with yourself later that day, later that week, later that month, whenever it is that you're going, hmm, I wonder. I've been watching a lot of TV lately. Like, why have I been doing that? Or my pattern changed around this? I wonder why. Just check in with yourself. You don't want to make yourself wrong. We're humans having Well, we're spirit having a human experience. And it's hard to be a human. It's not it's not the easiest place to be. It's way easier to be non physical. Yeah, they're, they're tougher. They're all laughing Yeah, that's a heck of a lot easier to be a non physical. So check your consumption. That's a really easy way to know if you are avoiding grief.

26:10

Another way is, if you have felt something, and maybe it's on grief, maybe it's anger or blame or resentment, whatever, if you have felt something rise up in you at an inopportune time. And you're like, Listen, I'm in the middle of a meeting, I do not have time to be experiencing these emotions. I'm going to come back to it. That's great. Good on you. That's great. But then, when are you going to go back to it? The end of the day, next year. When are you going to allow those feelings to have their voice until they've had their moment and is stored in your body loves it, it's in there. It's in your vibration and it's part of what you attract. It's part of what you create. So I want to say don't skip the step of feeling your grief. But it's so easy. We're all going to skip it all the time. Okay, like we're human, we're not going to do this perfectly. Try not to skip this step of feeling your grief. When you can't feel it loud. And in the moment, hopefully you can feel it later. That's what therapists are for school counselors are for that's what loving supportive relationships are for. That's what journaling is for. That's what group sessions are for. Like, think about the 12 steps think about allanon Think about people that come together my church has a thing called Journey Through Grief. There is something about experiencing our pain in a group of like minded people. That's so healing. So find a way allow your pain to have a voice and trust me when I tell you that the emotion will not kill you it will not last forever and that once you feel it, you will be able to heal it you'll be able to release it out of your body okay, thanks for listening love's I hope this has been a helpful podcast episode. I feel like I say the same things 100 different ways. But they keep needing to be said I'm just gonna keep on trying. I hope you guys are having a fantastic week. And happy summer. And I'll see you next week. Bye loves