Processing Grief Through the Body: A Personal Reflection
In the wee hours of yesterday morning, my beloved sister Eileen passed away at the age of 80. It happened long before any of us expected. The shock, the heartbreak, the sheer weight of loss—it hit me like a tidal wave.
Thursday evening, I found myself deep in the raw, unfiltered intensity of grief. My body became the vessel for a storm of emotions, and I let it. Full-body weeping gave way to heaving sobs that vibrated through my entire being. I didn’t try to contain it or intellectualize it; instead, I allowed the energy of grief to move through me, trusting my body to process what my mind and heart could not fully grasp.
Yesterday, I stepped into a different role: leading an all-day somatic energy retreat. While the energy moving through me during the retreat wasn’t about my personal grief, the work still involved my body, my presence, and my attunement to others’ healing journeys. Even as I held space for the participants, the very act of facilitating kept me grounded in my own body, ensuring that energy—whether mine or theirs—could flow rather than stagnate.
This experience illustrates something profoundly essential: grief, like all emotions, is not just something we “feel.” It’s something we embody. When we allow grief to move through us, rather than locking it inside, we begin to integrate it into the fullness of who we are.
For me, this is the power of somatic energy work. It’s not a quick fix or a way to escape pain—it’s a way to be fully present to life, even in its most challenging moments. Practices like Core Energetics invite us to honor our emotions as sacred energy, to engage with them directly and physically, and to find freedom and healing through that engagement.
If you’re navigating grief, or if you feel stuck in any part of your life, I urge you to consider exploring somatic energy practices. There are practitioners in many areas, and virtual options make this work accessible no matter where you live. It’s not just for times of crisis; it’s a practice for life itself—a way of inhabiting your body and your experience with deep presence and authenticity.
I’m sharing this not as an advertisement for my own services, but as an invitation. If this resonates with you and you’d like to learn more about somatic energy work—what it is, how it can support you—I would be honored to hear from you.
Grief will always find us, as will joy, love, and transformation. Let’s meet these energies not with resistance but with a willingness to feel, to move, and to grow. That’s the journey, and it’s one we can take together.
With love,
Ronen
