Hello simone, @strongbey, I'm so happy that this piece resonated with you. Thank you for taking the time to share your experience and feedback here. I've been offline, and my heart is touched by this connection with you. Take good care of you.
Google searching “intense joy followed by grief”. I was hit with my emotions today while at the movies with my family. (Frozen sing a long) During the big hit song in the middle of the movie, Elsa starts singing Let it Go and the lights come up in the Tampa theatre and there is snow falling all around. You could feel how exciting that was for all the kids and families there. And in that moment I was so intensely happy and at the same time brought to tears and feeling the weight of losing my mother 8 months ago.
I’ve had this specific feeling of intense happiness and then that feeling of grief twice now so was just looking to see if there is a name for this or maybe just to connect with experiences of others. But now that I’m here I feel some kinship in both our Pennsylvania heritage and losing a mother to cancer in a hospice bed it sounds like. The club none of us want to be in… So I guess for now I’ll let it go…
Hello, dear Elizabeth, thank you for sharing this story and insight. The odd beauty of loss and grief is that they can in fact connect 'strangers' like us, and that's a such a gift, especially in this Ai-sort of world evolving around us. Yes, intense happiness and that deep well of grief can co-exist in a moment, because they co-exist in us.
The world is changed without our mothers in it as a physical presence, and that hurt will show up in unexpected ways. I imagine you would have liked to have shared the lovely experience you had in the theater with your mother, and in a way, that wave of grief is one way she was there with you. The world, despite its awful-ness at times, is still a beautiful place, and you are meant to feel that joy. In fact, joy is not the opposite of grief, but how we work through the grief and keep living the life we're still here and meant to live.
Namaste, and thank you so much for sharing a bit of yourself here, which brings me joy.♥️
It’s not just a feel-good thing to experience happiness and joy in the midst of loss and grief, it’s actually part of how you heal your life.
Like other traumatic experiences, we carry our losses and hold our grief not only in our minds and emotions, but also within our animal body, that is, physically.
We are not just parts, we’re whole beings in which thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, and spiritual orientations constantly interact with each other to keep us going from breath to breath, moment to moment.
If you stay too long in pain and despair without allowing happy moments and tapping into your store of inner joy regularly, you can actually change your neurochemistry and biology in non-life-supporting ways.
Hi Sara, welcome here, and thank you for sharing your take-away. Yes, absolutely. It can be so hard to see and feel the possibility of joy, or even well-being, when the pain and longing of loss are great. Yet, by allowing and then inviting such possibilities, we're really allowing and inviting ourselves to live fully into our heartbroken and still beautiful lives. Here's to your healing.
“You are also your own personal planet.” I love this so much 💞 I also really agree that these two facets of life are deeply entwined. The more we lean into our one little [very brief] life, the more we can embrace it, accept it, and be moved by it. Lovely exploration of this truth!
Hello Kara, and thank you for this lovely feedback. I'm so glad this piece connected with you. I see you also write on Substack, so I look forward to reading some of your work. Let's each enjoy our too-brief little planets ;-)
This was beautiful! Humbling and puts all into perspective. Thank you!!
Hello simone, @strongbey, I'm so happy that this piece resonated with you. Thank you for taking the time to share your experience and feedback here. I've been offline, and my heart is touched by this connection with you. Take good care of you.
I just came across your writing while
Google searching “intense joy followed by grief”. I was hit with my emotions today while at the movies with my family. (Frozen sing a long) During the big hit song in the middle of the movie, Elsa starts singing Let it Go and the lights come up in the Tampa theatre and there is snow falling all around. You could feel how exciting that was for all the kids and families there. And in that moment I was so intensely happy and at the same time brought to tears and feeling the weight of losing my mother 8 months ago.
I’ve had this specific feeling of intense happiness and then that feeling of grief twice now so was just looking to see if there is a name for this or maybe just to connect with experiences of others. But now that I’m here I feel some kinship in both our Pennsylvania heritage and losing a mother to cancer in a hospice bed it sounds like. The club none of us want to be in… So I guess for now I’ll let it go…
Hello, dear Elizabeth, thank you for sharing this story and insight. The odd beauty of loss and grief is that they can in fact connect 'strangers' like us, and that's a such a gift, especially in this Ai-sort of world evolving around us. Yes, intense happiness and that deep well of grief can co-exist in a moment, because they co-exist in us.
The world is changed without our mothers in it as a physical presence, and that hurt will show up in unexpected ways. I imagine you would have liked to have shared the lovely experience you had in the theater with your mother, and in a way, that wave of grief is one way she was there with you. The world, despite its awful-ness at times, is still a beautiful place, and you are meant to feel that joy. In fact, joy is not the opposite of grief, but how we work through the grief and keep living the life we're still here and meant to live.
Namaste, and thank you so much for sharing a bit of yourself here, which brings me joy.♥️
This is what I think is an important take-away:
It’s not just a feel-good thing to experience happiness and joy in the midst of loss and grief, it’s actually part of how you heal your life.
Like other traumatic experiences, we carry our losses and hold our grief not only in our minds and emotions, but also within our animal body, that is, physically.
We are not just parts, we’re whole beings in which thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, and spiritual orientations constantly interact with each other to keep us going from breath to breath, moment to moment.
If you stay too long in pain and despair without allowing happy moments and tapping into your store of inner joy regularly, you can actually change your neurochemistry and biology in non-life-supporting ways.
Hi Sara, welcome here, and thank you for sharing your take-away. Yes, absolutely. It can be so hard to see and feel the possibility of joy, or even well-being, when the pain and longing of loss are great. Yet, by allowing and then inviting such possibilities, we're really allowing and inviting ourselves to live fully into our heartbroken and still beautiful lives. Here's to your healing.
“You are also your own personal planet.” I love this so much 💞 I also really agree that these two facets of life are deeply entwined. The more we lean into our one little [very brief] life, the more we can embrace it, accept it, and be moved by it. Lovely exploration of this truth!
Hello Kara, and thank you for this lovely feedback. I'm so glad this piece connected with you. I see you also write on Substack, so I look forward to reading some of your work. Let's each enjoy our too-brief little planets ;-)