Compassion Summer 2021

Summer 2021 - Compassion | www.tcf.org.uk 24 Listening to Dr Joanne Cacciatore’s talk connected me to so many feelings I have experienced since I lost Claire. She opened the talk describing her work as a ‘tragic privilege’. Such loss is indeed tragic. Her book, ’Bearing the Unbearable’, is so aptly titled. This is just how I felt in the early years as a bereaved parent and continue to feel as the years have passed. I found it a very moving and heartfelt talk. There were so many areas of grief explored and so much that would help us through our journey into grief, therefore, what follows are a few paragraphs on what I related to at that time. The first was on yoga and meditation, which had become her practice through grief. As I practice both yoga and mindfulness meditation, I was interested to hear more. The analogy she used to illustrate her point, explained how muscles are stretched in yoga, to the ultimate edge of the stretch and beyond. By continuing to stretch and repeating the exercise, strength and new muscle is formed. In the same way as with physical exercise, we also strengthen our mental and psychological being. Mindfulness and meditation allows ‘head space’ to be created. As she says, in time we ‘can come to a place of expansion’ growing bigger than our grief. We are often encouraged to exercise when feeling depressed or down as part of our self-care routine. I can see now clearly just how this works. She also suggested other forms of movement, Tai Chi, exercise that ‘makes you sweat’ and other creative pursuits for lifting the spirit and creating energy, often blocked by the weight of grief. Movement allows energy to be released. I found it very useful to visualize her description of early grief. She explained it graphically by metaphor. She described a house, with grief filling the whole room, leaving no space for anything else to exist Bearing the Unbearable: Grief when a Child Dies Talk by Dr Joanne Cacciatore