The leaves turn from gold to brown and fall to the earth as the year surrenders its vitality. And with this time has come the Queen’s death. I’m hearing of many people saying how surprised they are at the intensity of their sorrow.
Autumn time, holistically, is connected with ‘letting go’ and the lungs. The lungs also link with sorrow and grief. With the British ‘stiff upper lip’, we’re not renowned for showing our feelings and expressing grief. Statements such as ‘Boys don’t cry’, ‘man or ‘woman’ up’, ‘the show must go on’, ‘put on a brave face’, ‘we must be strong’ often minimise normal feelings. An internal message is sent to ‘hold on’; that feelings aren’t important, or that we are weak for having that natural, caring response.
Minimising Feelings
We try to hide sadness with ‘I’m fine’ – the face of minimising statements. But suppressing our feelings can be a challenge to vital health. If we don’t express our emotion, what happens to them? How does it affect our physical body? Where does taht tension go? Do the feelings get pushed back down, suppressed, in that ‘gulping’ moment. Many of us aren’t good at letting go (unless alcohol is involved!). We may not have been taught that it’s ok to not be ok. And we may find we stuff our emotions down with food, numb painful feelings with alcohol, appease them with drugs.
‘Just get on’
We tell ourselves to ‘just get on’ to survive, to just get through. We may need to arrange a funeral, to ‘be the strong one’, but where does that by-passed grief go? What happens as we get on with our lives? Human ‘beings’ find it hard to ‘just be’, instead getting on with human ‘doingness’. But in doing mode, we don’t allow ourselves to feel which can then get stored as physical tension and ‘dis-ease’.
‘Turn a blind eye’, ‘sweep it under the carpet!’ And like a bottle of pop that is shaken, over time the pressure builds. The top may blow, or the gas, like a tear, may escape. Past grief can ‘piggy-back’ on current grief. Hence why if we have unresolved, unprocessed grief, it can creep out in present situations. There may be genuine sadness for the Queen’s death and her family but it may also trigger our own losses. Past grief takes the opportunity to flow out as the present gateway opens the floodgates.
Healthy Expression
Holistically we see this release as a healthy expression. Held tension can physically soften as we relax and feel better after a good cry. If you have found yourself in a place of letting go, WELL DONE, be kind and have compassion for yourself as you would for a friend.
And as the leaves die and fall to the earth to be composted, recycled, so too do our emotions. The sap falls back down into the stillness of winter and we may find peace, as the seasons unfold, if we can accept the ebb and flow of our own emotions within our inner landscape.