Copyright © 2022 Lee Spirit
Mother Earth offers the best playground for us to celebrate ourselves, each other, and our accomplishments. Just look at this beautiful mountain scenery! On the mountain, we feel grateful for our good health, vitality, and strong bodies that got us there. We feel love for our partners, our loved ones, and enjoy the expansive state of our spirits breathing in all that fresh air. Friendships and loving memories are made. The mountain is also a great place for healing grief.
For instance, there may be blood, sweat, and tears shed on this mountain. Pachamama (Mother Earth) takes it all in, absorbs it all, and leaves us feeling refreshed and renewed in spirit. Going out into nature solo is one of my best healing modalities. I feel extremely peaceful, spacious, and present to my surroundings, letting go of thought, and shedding grief. Healing grief really does happen on the mountain, and you, too, can set your soul free out there.
What Does Grief Feel Like?
It might seem obvious that grief just makes you feel like you’ve had your heart ripped out. It is, however, a process, that can sometimes take a long time to heal. Grief can be about the death of someone you love, a friendship or relationship that has fallen apart, loss of a job, a pet, a home, a child, or even just a change. Grief can be anger not yet expressed, or depression. It doesn’t feel good at all, and you wish you could get rid of it.
Grief often starts with something that you don’t believe is really happening to you, and it may be shocking to you. I remember feeling this when I lost a partner I loved so much many years ago. It felt like our entire relationship was flashing across my mind like a movie – Sort of like how people who have had near-death experiences say their lives flashed before their eyes. After all, the end of a relationship is a type of death!
Healing grief doesn’t happen automatically, as the next phase might be denial that it’s really happening. I made up every story in my head that this breakup isn’t really happening. It’s a defence mechanism to cope with the pain.
You may then notice that you try to negotiate with the lost one by saying, “I promise I won’t do this or that anymore…” Then when you don’t get what you want, you get angry at the other for treating you that way. You may fall into a depression and despair. Basically, grief sucks!
Taking Adequate Space From the Situation
Grief is something that must travel through you and be fully felt for it to be healed. There are no quick solutions I’m afraid, and no real shortcuts. Taking adequate space from the situation is one way to get through it.
This could mean distancing yourself from a person, or taking a “mental health day” off work to take care of yourself. When I’m sad, I like to go on long drives listening to music that makes me cry. Anything that gets the grief flowing is going to help you heal. Maybe you watch a sad movie and let the tears fall. The mountains and forest trees offer a great healing space. Whatever you do, just take the space for yourself to properly heal, and treat yourself with loving kindness.
Other Beneficial Ways For Healing Grief
There are many things you can do to properly heal. Go for a massage, have a relaxing bubble bath, or treat yourself to a day at the spa. Have a night out with friends and giggle your faces off, and ask for hugs. You might want to hold yourself in a gentle way, talk to a trusted friend, or dance it out on the dance floor. Maybe chocolate is what you need! 🙂 Anything to get your mind off things, even for just a little while.
Nature is my go-to place to clear the mind-space. If it makes you feel better to go alone, give your grief to Mother Earth, but if you’d rather go with friends and have some company to feel better, do that! When you’re out in nature, you’re breathing in fresh air, exercising, and getting the body fluids circulating. This will decrease your stress levels immensely, and healing grief will become much easier. Go heal your grief on the mountain! It’s the best place!
Don’t forget the effects of pet therapy too! Take your pet for a walk to get the exercise you need. Spend some cuddle time with your dog or other fur friend! It will improve your mood and mental health, reducing your anxiety and depression.
Healing Grief Without Hurting Yourself and Others
When we’re feeling grief, it’s easy to go back and forth between anger and depression. We sometimes internalize the grief and turn it on ourselves, beating ourselves up with guilt or shame. Our mental health suffers, and we get anxious, insecure, fearful, and negative. It really takes a toll on our self-esteem, and in the end if we don’t release this, we end up with physical symptoms and dis-ease.
Click here for more tips on how to Feel Through a Loss.
Healing Grief in Healthy Ways
None of us want physical symptoms of grief, and that’s why it’s so important to look after ourselves by healing grief in healthier ways. Talk it out, cry it out, laugh it out, scream it out, dance it out, sing it out, exercise it out, punch it out (preferably on a punching bag or something soft!). Feel the pain, and allow it to pass through you. The way out is through. This is how we heal grief without hurting ourselves or others.
Click here to learn How Best To Cope With Grief in Recovery
Healing Grief in Unhealthy Ways
We certainly don’t want to heal our grief in an unhealthy way by taking it out on others. We get angry, get into fights, walk away, go silent, or burn others in hurtful ways. It’s one thing if someone is being abusive towards you and is hurting you purposefully in some way. In cases like that, you may be justified in just walking away or burning bridges with someone without word or warning.
However, if you know someone loves and cares for you deeply, but you just can’t handle this relationship anymore, then it’s not okay to give the silent treatment, ignore them, walk away, or burn them without word or warning. That is being hurtful and disrespectful, and it says more about you than it does about the person you’re hurting. It’s important to communicate with others that you just aren’t feeling the relationship anymore, it isn’t going to work for you, and give that person some closure rather than making them wonder what they did wrong. In most cases, you haven’t done anything wrong, it’s just not meant to be.
The person who ghosts others is the one with the communication issue, and they have to live with the guilt and shame of how they treated that person. The one being ghosted has to wonder what they did wrong, and try to heal the torment of being ignored without any communication or closure. So just be sure that when you’re healing grief, you’re doing so in the healthy ways mentioned above rather than in hurtful ways.
Healing Grief Through Meditation
Another way to heal grief in a healthy way is through meditation. Click here for one of my free meditations on Healing Grief and Bringing in the Positive. Meditation is a great, healthy way to feel and release your grief. Remember that healing takes time, and you are stronger than you think. Grief has no timeline, but you will feel better if you allow yourself to go through a grieving process and feel what you need to release. Take care of yourselves out there! Take care of your heart!
Lee Spirit is an avid outdoors adventurer with a love for nature, photography, health & fitness, wellness, and spirituality. She helps those who suffer from anxiety & negative thinking to become healthier in mind-body-spirit. Her own personal journey has led her to the study and practice of mindfulness, health, wellness, yoga, spirituality, sound healing, meditation, and personal development for over 20 years. Get mindfulness, meditation, and personal development tips in her Free Natural Mind Healing Report.