grounding

right now, where you are sitting: take a moment. feel your feet on the ground. feel your hands on the keyboard, or on your lap. feel your behind in the seat, and your back supported by the chair you're probably sitting in. breathe. feel the space your breath is creating around you. just be aware of where you are in time & space... what you're doing right now is called grounding, and i've been doing a lot of these last few weeks.
we've made an agreement, my wise husband and I, that we would make no decisions about family-building until we both had healed ourselves a little more, through time and love and therapy. we have a regular counselor we've seen since before we were married, and his knowledge of us as individuals and as a couple over a long span of years has built trust and depth that we are grateful for. we are also seeing another counselor who developed a somatically-based model of trauma therapy that she now uses for the benefit of those with PTSD and large-scale disaster survivors, but whose early work was with those who experienced any sort of pre- or neo-natal death.
we've learned a lot in these few weeks, and i've made myself do a lot of "homework." anyone who has been to any amount of counseling will tell you that you can have productive sessions, but if you don't work on your stuff over the time in between, you won't get very far.
the grounding is how i've been starting my "work" times -- whether it be meditation & prayer, journalling, reading related material, etc. it brings me to the present, and anchors me to myself. keeping this awareness of the physicality, and the physical location of my emotions, has been a powerful tool for getting to know the snake and the shadows, and for starting to understand things that have been hidden inside of me. i'm feeling more like "myself" than i have over the last few months, which is both exhausting and liberating.
there's still quite a ways to go, and meanwhile the circumstances of my life aren't exactly the most stable, as i find that this is a season of saying goodbye to parts of my old life & career, and welcoming new opportunities and directions. but i think i found a flashlight and the shadows aren't as menacing.
for those of you who have been sending your love in various ways: cards, e-mails, gifts, declarations of friendship & self-sacrifice: i thank you. you remind me not only that i am not alone, but that i too need to keep reaching out to those who struggle with grief and loss over time, not just when it happens.