Moving and living with grief

Hi everyone.

It’s May 1st today; a powerful day following the pink full moon which has caused some intense emotions (anyone with a toddler too: I feel how tough the last week or so have been!) and has invited us to assess and let go of bad habits, and introduce some more positive ones. The death and rebirth of winter into spring coupled with the intensity and the letting go of summer and autumn, all captured in the space of a week or so. Phew - it’s no wonder a lot of us feel a bit fried at the moment.

That’s certainly been my experience of April 2024. I lead a wonderful community called the Antidote Community, a growing group of individuals who are ready to embrace greater health by antidoting modern-day stress - but since March, I have just felt an innate need to retreat and not communicate. This has been tough because we are taught by every podcaster out there that ‘consistency is key’ - basically, that we should be churning out content whether or not we feel like it.

Well, I’m sorry to say that if it’s health, connection to your self, spiritual contentment and fulfillment you’re looking for, that doesn’t work.

So after a month of retreat and quiet, I’m here to speak to everyone in the Community already, and those who are ready to find the antidote to our modern, disconnected way of living where we just feel a bit anxious, a bit overwhelmed, and a bit empty all of the time. I wish there was a way I could have taken you all with me on the journey I’ve taken over the last few weeks - maybe there is a way and I’ll figure it out for next time! - but as I didn’t this time around, thank you for bearing with me whilst I’ve dealt with one of the most challenging rites of passage we can go through: grief.

In April 2021, whilst I was 23 weeks pregnant, my fiancé and I headed off one Sunday morning for a walk at The Roaches, a beautiful spot in the Peak District National Park. It was a gorgeously warm and sunny day with views for miles. We captured our happy mood and chatted as we walked about the months ahead and our impending shift into parenthood. When we got back home, we invited my mum and dad over for coffee and mochi (my favourite Japanese treat) on our sun-drenched terrace. We talked about our plans to sell everything and travel in a motorhome with our baby the following year. I remember Dad eating most of the mochi (never one to disappoint when it came to eating habits) and wearing his favourite hoodie, covered in holes and stains from motorbike oil, gardening, or fixing something (often with duct tape). I remember thinking: ‘I should comment on him wearing that hideous hoodie that really should be in the bin by now’ and catching myself, some inner voice telling me to ‘just leave it’. I remember giving him a big hug and watching him leave having said ‘I love you. See you soon’. I will never forget those moments and those feelings.

That night at around midnight, my sister called. I knew it was about Dad before I’d even answered the phone. I was out of bed, getting dressed, waking Nik and preparing to fly out of the door. My mind flashed back to the time I drove Dad into A&E with Mum, when he desperately needed a second heart surgery a few years earlier. Calming him and playing some of his favourite music, talking about whatever run I was training for and swapping barbell stories to keep his mind off his struggling breath. I remember thinking: he’ll be fine. He’ll get through this. He always does.’ I couldn’t envisage things any other way.

My camera roll: taking my baby bump for a walk at The Roaches; a few hours later, receiving flowers from a beautiful friend honouring my dad’s passing

When I flew through the door of my parents house a few minutes later and my desperate expression was met with a shake of the head from my mum and sister, my whole world changed. Of course, as is often the case with grief, I couldn’t take it in to begin with. My body shook and didn’t stop four hours. My dad and my daughter would never get to meet. A fear I’d held since getting engaged in 2019 had been realised: my dad wouldn’t walk me down to aisle when I got married (we were due to marry in my parents’ garden that summer). The worst part of it - but also potentially the part that saved me - was that I could not fall apart. I was carrying our child and I absolutely had to deal with everything I was now being faced with, because I had a responsibility to her as much as to anyone else. I do honestly believe that the polarity of dealing with birth and death simultaneously, fundamentally shaped my entire experience of intense grief.

So why am I recounting this now? What has been different this year versus the previous two, that has caused such an intense resurgence of grief?

I work with the seasons a lot: not just the outward seasons, but the seasons we experience inside. These apply particularly to grief and trauma and in a way, there has been a summer-esque intensity to the last three years of my life, beginning with the day my dad passed away, through August and the birth of our daughter to those first few months of motherhood. For us, though, life has only started to settle over the last six months since we moved into our house. We sold everything and travelled in a motorhome for a year - an incredible experience that I would not change for anything. Then we spent a few months in limbo whilst I went through redundancy and set up my company, We Are The Antidote, my partner returned to work, we househunted - oh, and got married. The relentlessness of grief and missing someone you love - I use the present tense deliberately because our love for someone does not wane simply because they have died - is matched only by the relentlessness of parenthood. Although I do believe I’ve done a huge amount of processing and flowing with my grief over the last three years, I also now understand that each year brings with it its own seasons, challenges and depths of grief. Year One is mostly about survival and living through each of the ‘firsts’. Year Two, for me, included so much upheaval and other experiences that required my body’s attention (leaving a company I loved, facing my fears by working for myself, getting married, moving house) that perhaps my grief was focused more on how other people were getting through (the classic transference/distraction technique). This year, finally, I have allowed myself to focus on and associate with my own grief. And boy, has it hit hard.

The need for quiet crept in during March, as I taught The Body’s Signals with the Antidote Community and tuned in even more to my own body and what it was saying. As April drew closer, I felt an even greater need to spend more time outdoors, running in the Peak District (my home stomping ground now we’re settled). The anniversary of Dad’s passing came and went and I spent it walking and sharing a meal with my family, and on a long run. ‘I survived it!’ I thought. I congratulated myself on getting through unscathed.

Then I delivered a Wellbeing Circuit session for a group of wonderful young people in Leeds. I felt truly honoured to have the opportunity and a deep responsibility to deliver to them the powerful toolkit of antidoting. I followed it up by running with a friend across the wilds of Kinder (sorry again, Bryony, for getting us lost and guiding us into that peat bog!). I could feel something shifting inside me, something that needed to get out. I went into my own medicine, working with the Universal Laws of Antidoting, and was drawn to the Law of Life. My grief began to unravel: that hopeless feeling that can threaten to overwhelm everything. My body was giving me all the signals that I needed a rest (illness, headaches, digestive issues, a racing heart, shortness of breath - I know my body’s go-to issues and I expect you do too, even if you’d rather ignore them like I used to!) and I was basically shut down for about 48 hours. I focused on breathing, walking and drinking water. I allowed my grief in, fully, and let it flow.

Today I have awoken with a renewed sense of love, compassion, and hope for the future. I can see a way forward that includes my grief, whatever shape it takes.

Working in the field that I do, where I help people discover their antidote to modern-day stress and uncover their true self, my past critical self would say that any signs of poor wellbeing (perhaps sadness, illness or worry) means I am not qualified to do the work I do. But we are human and humans are emotional creatures - they are our energy in motion: e-motion. In these points of the cycle, I keep the faith. I keep the faith in my Self (my soul, spirit, DNA, gut, core essence, persona) more than ever. I go into my own medicine and breathe, connect with my body and listen to her, connect with my higher Self and listen to her. I treat myself and my grief with kindness, because whatever we might be taught, grief is borne out of love. We cannot grieve if we have not loved, and so I keep this close to me and my body, in all its wisdom, helps my mind to amplify the love instead of amplifying the pain.

There is such wisdom in the body, but to hear it we have to listen.

I look forward to reconnecting with my Community over the coming weeks as I come out of my retreat. If you would like to join as we evolve into a new format, please email me for an intro session.

Your comments and reflections are welcome, as ever.

Much love,

Lucy x