Capture Your Grief - Day 9. Surrender + Embrace

Happy Sunday to you, person reading!

Did you know that Olivia was born on a Sunday? Today marks her 16 week "birthday" and whilst I should be thinking how far I've come in my journey, I get the sad thought that it was 16 weeks ago when I first and last held my daughter and squeezed her perfect cheeks.

I like today's topic description as I have always agreed with the premise of "Surrendering to whatever it is you are feeling is one of the most powerful experiences of being present and in the moment." I have never been a person that gets easily embarrassed and I am a bit too happy to speak my mind and show my full range of emotions. Most importantly, I've always been in favour of people exploring their feelings and NEVER bottling stuff up as it could only lead to a bigger and more explosive reaction whenever you do decide to face it or it decides to show up (even if you don't want it to). 

Olivia grief, as I call it, is a completely different ball game. I have NEVER been exposed to so much pain and, quite literally, despair coming out of me. My thoughts have gone darker than I hope they ever will and exploring those is very very scary... but I have no choice and I do open that door scared but willing to see what's there. I can't fight or control when Olivia grief comes and takes over me, I've been exercising, at the supermarket or even having coffee with people. The latest one that caught me by surprise and froze me for 2 hours was 1.5 weeks ago in Frankfurt. There was an amazing sunset and I went outside to see it and as I started walking with no direction, the veil that my brain puts to protect me was lifted and everything hit at once: my perfect baby is gone and there is no way she'll be back. I cried walking trying to see if being surrounded by people would make me stop - no luck - so I entered the train station and sat on the platform and (like Pierre sys) I opened the valve and gave into my moment surrendering completely to my emotions and crying as much and as loudly as I needed to. Nobody questions someone crying on a train station as it is a place where people say goodbye, and I too keep saying goodbye.

After a while I contacted my friends and Amazing Mums and they stayed in my darkness with me for a bit, understanding every word I said and emotion I felt (thank God for Whatsapp groups and no roaming charges!). The conversation evolved naturally to a healing path that picked me up from that dark hole where I was and after Pierre called three times asking me to please meet him at the hotel, I was able to stand up (take a picture of the sunset) and walk away. I don't feel healing every time I break down, but I do feel somehow weirdly closer to Olivia and closer to smiling more than I cry when I think of her not being here because I can focus more on her and not on the pain of her absence.

Some days I feel like I'm taking 3 steps forwards and then Olivia grief comes and slaps me 10 steps back, but as someone once said to me: at least I took 3 steps forward.