Fall can feel heavy to me. 

The always anticipated summer is coming to a close. School begins, the weather becomes cooler, leaves fall, pumpkin lattes are everywhere, and shorts and t-shirts are put away. The notion that winter is coming. But these are not the reasons why fall feels heavy to me, even though I do love warm weather and summer.


My reasoning is different. My reasoning is grief. My body feels it coming. It anticipates sadness. As the weather changes I can feel the heaviness of my heart grow. Over the years, I haven’t always been able to identify that it was my body anticipating my husband’s death, but as I have learned, healed and grown in my grief I get it now. Our bodies go through such trauma losing our spouse it feels etched into our whole being. Our brains work to try to protect us from trauma and will pull out all the survival mechanisms and can even block us from thinking and remembering our trauma to help us cope(especially in the early days of grief). But somehow my body can still sense it coming.

 

The Mind-Body Connection in Widowhood

For many of my readers you have come to know this feeling well. As special days, events, holidays, and anniversaries approach there can be a definite shift in your body, mood, energy or whatever you want to call it. You can’t seem to piece together why you feel so “off”, sad, anxious,angry or even ill. When you do finally connect those dots it all makes sense. The mind-body connection is real. In Definition terms it is described as: ”The mind–body connection involves the dynamic relationship between mental processes and physical health (Domar, 2011).”

 

How Our Bodies Hold Grief

An “AHA” moment! 

Of course our body holds our grief. Because our body held so much when our partner was with us. It held our partners hand for the first time, as you felt all the butterflies on that first date, it felt a warm feeling of security as our partner hugged us when we were having a bad day, it felt a rush of energy, as we shared in the joy of the news we were pregnant, it knew the feelings of an upset stomach, when we were in a stupid fight. Our body feels all of what our mind processes because they are intricately connected . 

And finally and unfortunately we understand that a broken heart wasn’t really just an expression, but that our hearts actually can physically ache and feel raw pain after the death of our spouse. It’s a real thing called “broken heart syndrome.” and is recognized by the medical community.

 

Why Seasonal Change Can Trigger Grief

So back to my original point. Fall is coming and my body feels it. My husband died in the fall and my body holds the trauma deep in my bones. Almost etched into the new DNA of my widowhood. 

As the cold weather comes and the leaves begin to change my body knows the challenges and hardship it experienced those years ago, and it knows and processes even sometimes before my brain can catch up. 

Both mind and body worked so hard on my behalf to keep me afloat because there was so much emotional pain that I thought my physical body could even die from the sadness.

 

Finding Awareness & Healing in Grief

So what does this mean for us that have lost someone? Will it always be this way? Through my own widowhood and through my many conversations with other widows I found that awareness helps. And what I mean by this is that just acknowledging and understanding my grief better helps me with healing. Not avoiding those emotions but also being gentle on myself during this time frame. Understanding that for example if I feel more weepy than usual, or more sensitive then most during this time of year… that’s ok. My mind and body experienced severe trauma surrounding the death of my husband and I know that it’s not good to stuff or hide those feelings away. 

Processing through those feelings, understanding why they are there, and choosing to do healthy coping strategies are essential towards healing. I have also found that the lead up can feel worse than the actual day. I have heard many widows discuss this phenomena. If there is a special day, occasion, anniversary. It seems that the day, week or even month before can evoke more feelings than the day itself. This may not be the case for everyone but for myself, bringing this to my awareness helps. I can then identify that I might feel more moody, sad or angry leading up to an event.

 

The Body Remembers: Honoring Both Mind & Heart

In conclusion, our minds and bodies are designed to be tightly intertwined. They both need each other to survive and balance, so we can live in a healthy manner. 

If one is suffering, the other does too. Just as my mind can reflect, remember and process my grief, my body does the same. 

Because with each of those memories, my body was there too. It remembers their touch, it remembers the butterflies, it remembers the love, and it remembers the loss.

 

Katie