Healing the body of past traumas is imperative because most people experience instability or project that instability onto our children, unknowingly causing irreparable harm. Healing grief itself constitutes a forward thinking lifestyle and lots of hard work. You must act, do, keep moving, find something that you resonate with to keep your brain focused in the present moment with every breath and grounding exercise. You must be allowed to express your grief according to Dr. Mary Frances O’Connor in The Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science of How We Learn Through Love And Loss. She states grief can be caused by separation in empty nest, divorce, death, and estrangement, arguably the most damaging next to a suicide of a child. But, I think estrangement from a child is harder than my own daughter’s suicide. I know where she is. I can’t think about how she got there. It’s madness to dwell in deepest grief and regret but incongruent to behave as if you don’t miss the person. But, in death you know they are not returning and can accept just that in time.
Healing modalities at home help us calm and work allows for us to practice mindfulness, like resting
or taking a walk to get out of our heads and into gratitude. According to O’’Connor, humans have physical place
cells in the brain that act as place holders in a hierarchy of your relationships. Those cells look for and categorize
all the important people in your life all day, every day and it runs in the background. Reacting and lashing out
come from unprocessed fears or anxieties.
So, when I snap at someone I don’t even realize I just saw a billboard of a successful and beautiful mother daughter realtor team who reminds me that my entire life will be without my children, and look alike like my Taylor and me. I have to ignore the general public in which mothers and fathers talk about their sons being in the same trade or coming to move a couch or having a baby and I have to ignore it all. I can’t allow myself to conceive the idea that I’ll never be close to my son’s children or have a daughter in law to love…and it makes me feel like I don’t want to be here anymore.
O’Connor explains those place cells are arranged like a bingo game board. Picture each square filled with avatars of people ranging from people who are closest to you in location and in emotion to acquaintances at work and people you don’t like. One example is when out of the blue you randomly think of a co-worker you haven’t seen in a while and say, “Oh, hey whatever happened to Mike? I haven’t seen him for a while.” That’s a great example of your brain rearranging place cells in the subconscious, maybe moving him down as less critical and someone up who you’re engaged with but it can be taxing, according to the author.
So, when my brain constantly asked where my daughter was after she died, the PTSD I experienced would not allow for me to close the loop in my mind as to where she is.The brain only wants to solve your problems. In all death and ghosting or separation, guilt is the most natural response. Neuroscience proves that the brain in all separation, death, or ghosting wants to know:
Where is the loved one in the world? How close are they physically? Lack of physical contact brings many more issues, like the hormonal and chemical bonds from physical contact can calm. The physical pain is real and ongoing.
What did I do to make them go away? That’s the problem-solving part of the brain and where guilt can be processed in trauma therapy like EMDR.
What do I need to do to get them back? The brain needs to settle the question, maybe with an altar or ritual for the lost loved one.
O’Connor presents the evidence that we don’t compute death. We compute ghosting. So, in a matter of ghosting, we keep reaching out because our subconscious mind is struggling daily. That is the loop that can’t be closed. That’s where control is initiated along with depression, desperation, anxiety, and the need for self-love and care becomes mandatory to change the definition of you.
Our children feel fear and refuse contact to diminish their trauma response or negativity, whatever they feel is right for themselves. They should never be the enemy. Our children are not wrong or lazy or incompetent. The truth is that our behavior and lack of knowledge causes an effect that we may never heal. I may never have grandchildren or a daughter in-law who loves me. My son may never feel safe with me. So, my mission is to love myself beyond the mother I was or am. I am finding my strength to be in the world as myself beyond a wife or daughter, too. We do this work alone. It’s normal to miss those we care about on our bingo card. And, all the desperate attempts to love the unwilling is normal. Wanting to give up is normal as long as you can express it and move through it.
(If you’re thinking of giving up, reach out. Don’t do it, it’s also part of the brain trying to work out the right thing and it’s confused. Put yourself to bed or get on the phone or out on a walk.)
It’s time to engage with acupuncture, yoga, breath work, massage, Reiki, Rolfing, sun exposure, walking in nature, meditation, writing, and lots and lots of support. Even that sense of hope that seems to thread in is part of the process of neuroscience, love, loss, and life. I know I’ve been growing since she died and will always carry a very large hole in my heart that is filled with her spirit in the quiet moments and in dreams. I also go to see my son in my meditations and love him. I won’t give up on love. Finding gratitude, present moment joy and forward thinking physical activities along with trauma therapy, and remembering who you are, we come back different as we all shed the old and discover the You.
