Embracing Chaos: Healing Through Meditation and Grief

What if embracing your chaotic thoughts during meditation could be the key to healing from profound grief? This week on "Have a Cup of Johanny," I open up about the deeply personal journey through the loss of my beloved pets, Lentil and John, and how meditation became an unexpected ally in my healing process. Initially, meditation seemed like an insurmountable challenge, with my mind racing and refusing to settle. However, a simple piece of advice from a meditation guide changed everything: acknowledging rather than fighting my thoughts. This shift allowed me to process emotions more fully, stay connected to precious memories, and find a path forward amidst the turmoil.

Join me as I explore the transformative power of meditation in acknowledging and accepting emotions rather than burying them. Through therapy, journaling, and guided meditations, I've learned to navigate the storm of grief without succumbing to it. This episode invites listeners on a journey of self-awareness and emotional acceptance, offering insights into how meditation can serve as a powerful tool for healing. Whether you're struggling with loss or seeking a deeper understanding of your emotions, discover how acknowledging your feelings can lead to clarity and peace.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Oh we could, we could fly. Welcome to this new season of the have a cup of johanni podcast. So I want to title this new season that I'm embarking on with I'm growing, so this is going to be the season of growth and that's what I'm going to share with you throughout the season. So I thank you for coming over here and sitting with me, and I hope you enjoy. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to have a Cup of Joannie podcast.

Speaker 1: 0:32

Today, we're going to talk about something that has helped me through some of my hardest days, which is meditation. More specifically, we're talking about how meditation can be a powerful tool for healing from a loss. Are you ready? Let's begin.

Speaker 1: 0:59

So, on the last episode, I shared with you how I lost my cat, lentil, and before that, john, and grief has hit me hard, very hard, and, to be honest, at times it's very chaotic and I didn't know how to handle the overwhelming emotions that came my way. I lost other pets before Lento and John, and I felt like I muddled through those or sometimes I will postpone it because I was busy doing other things and didn't allow myself to feel, which meant for me that this heaviness that sits on my chest due to grief I couldn't shake. And that's the thing there, that I'm a self-preservation. I'm a self-preservation queen, all through and through. So I will do some weird things to keep myself from feeling those tough emotions. And I learned that about myself through journaling, meditation and therapy therapy. So it is why I can say now that I muddled through those episodes of grief be it from the loss of a fur baby or from the loss of a family member or a friend because I wanted to reject the emotion. And that's the thing, that's something that I learned that when you reject it, you don't shake it away, it stays with you. The emotion just says, okay, fine, I'll pretend I'm not here, but the emotion is still there.

Speaker 1: 3:05

So as I learned to be more self-aware, so as I learned to be more self-aware started with therapy and it just developed through journaling and meditation is that I learned that I couldn't reject or ignore those emotions. I had to accept them. Of accepting those was through meditation, as a way to help me process them, to help me understand, see them first and understand them, which will then help me to heal from the loss while staying connected to their memory. The thing about meditation folks is that their memory. The thing about meditation folks, is that I don't know about y'all, for me it's not easy. It was certainly not easy at the beginning. It's still not easy now because there's so many thoughts going through my head. And it wasn't until one of the meditation guides said it's okay, that is super normal. He said for your thoughts to go in and out, just accept that they're there, acknowledge them and accept them, that's it. And when they say that, it kind of like shifted my mindset because it gave me permission to let my mind be as chaotic as it is and still get after meditation and still gain something from meditation, just by simply saying I see, you thought, I know that you're there, you know.

Speaker 1: 4:39

And it was so weird because by acknowledging that the thoughts were there, were coming in and out of my head, they kind of started to go away. They're still there. They haven't all gone away, they're still there. And on those moments that I have a lot in my mind and I don't journal before meditating, it's even more prevalent. Journal before meditating it's even more prevalent. But the trick all along was to acknowledge that they're there as opposed to avoiding, rejecting or ignoring them.

Speaker 1: 5:16

And I started using these guided meditations to clear my head so that way I am able to see myself better, to see my emotions better, because I am just a ball of emotions, a combination of emotions walking around in human form. A combination of emotions walking around in human form. So through meditation, I was able to acknowledge them, to see them, to know that they're there, to know that they're present. And from understanding what was present then I was able to understand how certain things were affecting me, to include grief. And it's funny how, in the stillness of meditation, acknowledging the loss, the heaviness, the manifestation of that loss in my spirit helped me to heal, because through meditation, it was almost as if I was tapping into that self-awareness, into okay, johnny, let's figure out what you have inside, what is here right now, what are you feeling and why are you feeling it?

Speaker 1: 6:37

And when I learned those things through meditation, then I was able to be less judgmental with myself, which then caused me to be less reactive, because when I'm grieving it is just like everything hurts. So just imagine, right as if somebody just has all these cuts everywhere in their body. To me that's, that's like what griefs feel, and when you interact with other people, like they are bound to touch any one of those cuts that haven't healed, and then it is bound to sting and you're bound to like cry out in pain for it and try to hurt them if you feel a certain level of anger or violence. But through meditation I acknowledge that it was there and I acknowledged why it was there. And then I turned it into something different. I turned it into a celebration of the fur babies that I lost. I turned it into thinking about the happy moments that we had together. I started thinking more about the rescue stories, how they rescued me, how the cat distribution system got it all right that day, how the stars aligned perfectly when I came across these fur babies and they became part of my family. And when I start shifting my mindset to those moments and shifting my meditation to remember those moments, then I come out of there with more gratitude for what I gained through them, as opposed to the recent loss.

Speaker 1: 8:45

But I found that meditation didn't take the grief away. They only helped me to carry it more easily. I mean, like I said, right, it's, the loss is there. I mean, I'm a human being, so I'm upset, I am sad when someone I love leaves, and that is such a human thing to feel. But through meditation I can understand why that feeling is there and I can also shift it, to not hone in so much on the loss and I tell myself it's just a part of life, right, we all go through that. We were born and then we die and it's just a natural thing that happens to all of us.

Speaker 1: 9:45

But then those moments while we were alive, those were the ones that I try to carry with me in meditation so that way it can fill me with the joy and then the gratitude of having had those moments. So doing those two things in meditation allows me to one, acknowledge the weight of my feelings, which is quite heavy right now, but it also gave me a moment of peace and a moment of joy. And it's weird at first to feel that, but, like I said, even from the first episode that we talked about, how I honor my fur babies is through a celebration of the time we met and then the things that we did together. So, while it's weird at first to feel that sense of joy, it becomes normal later on, the more that you do it, because you start to understand that while they were here with you, you had some great moments with them, and that is a joyful thing to think about. But then, you know, there are moments that I'm sad, there are moments that I'm more somber than others, while I'm grieving, and I think grieving is like forever.

Speaker 1: 11:13

I don't know who gets over any of these losses. I don't know. I still cry when I think about my grandma, and she died so long ago and it's just so weird. I carry that loss knowing that she's no longer here with me to this day. And she died the same week. My son was born, so celebrating him. Son was born, so celebrating him. I remember that she died. So through all these losses, I realized that grief isn't linear and it's okay to feel a mix of emotions. You're going to feel a bag of emotions all at once. Like I said, I'm just a shell filled with emotions. I'm walking in human form.

Speaker 1: 11:58

The meditation taught me to not be a coward and sit with that complexity and let it be what it is. That's it, just let it be what it is. So for anyone out there struggling with grief, I encourage you to try meditation. I encourage you to try it and don't feel like intimidated with the whole thing, because I'm like the most squirreled out person. I get distracted. I have a million and one thoughts going in and out of my head all at once all the time, even like two, three in the morning. But just get after it, because even just one minute, one minute, you'll be surprised what a one minute of stillness a day can help. If you cannot do one minute, do 30 seconds, you know. But do something where you are still and focus on what you are feeling, what is going on inside. Like I said, if you have a hard time being still, you can count your thoughts, count your breath or, like me, just say, hey, thought I see you, you're there, okay, now I'm going back in. Or you can focus on a memory, on a joyful memory or a calming visualization.

Speaker 1: 13:22

I'm telling you, meditation just gives you space to be with your feelings as opposed to trying to control them or change them. And that's the key there. That is what is so transformative about meditation, because I think we go through life that has been my experience at least is that we go through life trying to ignore our feelings, trying to change our feelings, trying to push them deep, down to where we don't even know that they're there and reject them. But the thing is, peeps is that they don't ever go away. You are a bag of emotions walking in human form. You have feelings, so it's best that you go on about acknowledging them and knowing that they're there, so that way you can reconcile that part of yourself, and then it is that which brings you that sense of peace.

Speaker 1: 14:24

Grief is a journey, and I'm a big believer that I don't think it ever goes away. Tools like meditation can help us find moments of peace along the way, and I thank you for being here with me today, and I hope that this episode encourages you to try meditation as a way to heal and honor those you've lost. Take care and I'll see you all next week. Bye. Thank you so much for listening. I want to hear from you. Leave me a comment, do a rating, if you can on the podcast, share it with somebody you love, but, most importantly, come back. See you next time. Bye.