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EMI let warmth in the cold of winter as a way to bring in joy.
Honors my daughter, because she's with me in every cell of my body...
You may have heard this:
That guilt proves you loved them enough.
I believed that once.
After loss, guilt can feel sacred. Like carrying it keeps the bond intact. Like if you put it down, even for a moment, you are putting them down too.
But what if that belief is quietly tightening your body where softness longs to live?
Somewhere along the way, many of us began to fear joy.
As if smiling were disloyal.
As if delight could erase devotion.
As if lightness meant leaving them behind.
I remember the first time laughter slipped out of me after loss. My nervous system braced. My chest tightened. It felt unsafe.
Not because I didn’t love.
But because I did.
When joy returns after grief, the body can interpret it as danger. Neuroscience confirms that after trauma, the nervous system becomes sensitized to shifts in emotional state — even positive ones can feel destabilizing. That bracing isn’t betrayal. It’s protection.
Dear one, joy does not undo grief. It walks beside it.
Your body remembers.
And remembrance can be tended.
Safety can be relearned.
Not because love has faded — but because it still lives.
You can begin here:
✨ Choose one soft pleasure — morning light on your face, your favorite tea, a song that feels gentle.
✨ Take one slow breath and feel your shoulders lower.
✨ Whisper inside, “We are here together.”
✨ Whatever comes — tears, warmth, resistance, stillness — let it be sacred.
This is not moving on.
It is moving with.
It is letting joy become another language your love can speak.
With practice, joy won’t feel like forgetting.
It will feel like returning
💫You don’t have to navigate this alone.
Join the Embodied Healing Circle on March 15th.
Link in bio.
💫Or grab your free somatic practice to help to remember to let joy in, as you soften and relearn safety
I see you. I'm holding you. ❤️
#griefjourney #grievingparents #healingafterloss #somatichealing #sacredgrief
@embodied.nurse.ann
