Ep133: The Sacred Pause: Navigating Grief with Jennifer Kubik

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What if your body's pain is actually unprocessed grief asking to be felt? Aimee welcomes Jennifer Kubik—founder of Sacred Pause—to explore the deep connection between grief, the body, and healing. 

Jennifer shares her personal journey of losing her two-year-old daughter 18 years ago, and how suppressing that grief led to years of chronic illness, disconnection, and losing herself. Now, she holds space for others to do what she couldn't do alone: feel, process, and move through grief with community, compassion, and radical acceptance. 

Jennifer takes us through:

• How unprocessed grief manifests as physical illness and chronic tension

• Why community and being witnessed are essential for healing

• The "in-between" space of grief and why it's okay to not know where you're going

• How grief work is a deeply somatic, body-based process

• Why holding space for others' grief is more powerful than trying to fix it

And so much more!

Guest Bio:

Jennifer is the creator of Sacred Pause, a space devoted to supporting others through grief, healing, and life’s in-between moments. After the death of her daughter and navigating profound personal losses afterward, she finally said enough is enough and began searching for ways to come back to herself. Through her own healing journey, she felt called to create something that honors the messy, nonlinear process of becoming. 

Through Sacred Pause, she offers a grounded, heart-centered presence where people can reconnect with themselves, feel seen, and begin again—without pressure, timelines, or expectations. The biggest takeaway from her journey was that no one should have to navigate grief alone. And that is the center of her mission. 

Connect with Jennifer:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1CJzy76yhC/  

Email: SacredPause.grief@gmail.com 

Website: https://sacredpausegrief.com/ 

Connect with Aimee:

Instagram: @aimeetakaya 

Facebook: Aimee Takaya 

Learn more about Aimee Takaya, Hanna Somatic Education, and The Radiance Program at⁠⁠ https://www.freeyoursoma.com/ 

LISTEN WHILE READING!

A: Hey there, listener. Welcome back to the podcast. My name is Aimee Takaya with Free Your Soma. And we're going to talk about grief today. We're going to talk about one of the most challenging experiences that we all go through in life in different ways. Life is beautiful because things end, things evolve, things change.

And it's also hard for that very same reason. So today I have Jennifer with me, and we're going to explore grief. We're going to talk about her individual story of being in a place now where she's actually free enough and safe enough to share and to hold space for other people in their grief process. So please stay tuned.

Intro: Every day there is a forgetting. And every moment there's the possibility of remembering, remembering who you truly are, awakening to your body, to the inner world, to the experience of being alive. Here is where you find the beauty, the joy.

And here is where you free your soma. I'm your host, Aimee Takaya. I'm here to help you move from pain to power, from tension to expansion, and ultimately from fear to love.

A: Hi, Jennifer. I'm so glad you're on the podcast today. This is delightful. Thank you for being here.

J: Thank you so much for inviting me. Give me this opportunity. I'm so excited.

A: You know, we ran into each other last month at this spiritual wellness fair. And we were both like having booths there. And I think you were actually part of the organization of that event, if I'm not mistaken in some capacity, right? And when I saw you there, it was like I almost didn't recognize you.

Like I was like, I feel like I've met her, but like who is this person? Because your overall presence and demeanor was just so different than the last time I had seen you, which was probably like eight months to a year ago, I think. It was like a good portion of time between seeing you last month and the last time I saw you.

And you had obviously gone through some kind of big shift. And what was even cooler was I saw that you had your own booth set up and you had your own business and it had a really beautiful name, right? And also the branding and everything that you've gone for. I just think it's really like, yeah, just lovely.

Like it has a really clear kind of angelic, soft, tender feeling to all of it. And your business is called Sacred Pause, right? And it's not just a business, it's a, it's a it's a space that you're creating with your person, a space of healing from grief, right? And so I would love for you to just tell our listeners a little bit about yourself, your background, right? And you know, why you have created or been called into this sacred pause.

J: All right. I would love to, because it's been a big journey. So 18 years ago, this month, actually, I lost my two-year-old daughter very suddenly, very tragically. It's not something I would ever wish on, even my worst enemy to have to go through.

No parent should ever have to experience that. But at the time, I also had two other younger children. So I never really grieved my daughter's death. I just flipped right into raising my sons, making sure they had everything they needed, and that they had the strong mom.

They needed that strong presence in their in their life. I didn't realize the impact that not healing and not addressing my grief properly had in all areas of my life. And because I focused so much on being a mother, I had essentially lost myself in it. So about three years ago, my youngest, he was graduating high school, and all of a sudden it dawned on me that I didn't know who I was outside of being a mom.

And that sent me on my original healing journey of trying to figure out who I am. Like who is Jen? Outside of being a mom, who am I? And I couldn't find my answers. And as I dug deeper, as I started doing the work, I realized I didn't know who I was because I had never healed my grief. Right.

A: Well, part of you was frozen. Part of you got completely frozen at that time, right?

J: Yeah. For years, I had struggled with health problems. I had chronic migraines. I had illnesses. Doctors couldn't tell me what was wrong with me. I used to joke that I was a human pincushion. I've had every imaging that where I used to joke, I'm gonna start glowing in the dark soon.

And nobody could figure out what was wrong with me. And then I figured out through healing, through finding different modalities and trying it all, that it was all the grief stored in my body. That I had, like you had just said, I had frozen. So I was holding all this grief, all this sadness, this pain. Of course, I didn't feel good. My body was literally screaming that this needed to be released.

So I started going to therapy. I love her. Her I referenced to her as my paid bestie because she's real with me and I need somebody to keep me in check. But she started giving me different kinds of processes to go through. And I was very lucky with my therapist that she's also very into the holistic community.

So through her, I started learning about you know meditation and how that helps not just our mind process, but our body to process. I was always into writing. I love to write, but I never journaled. Because I was like, why would I just journal?

I'm not a teenager. This is like kind of like their diary. But she got me into journaling, and I found that that was releasing the stuck emotions. I had never heard of somatics before, had no clue what that was.

And she had introduced me to different links of YouTube videos, and then I started looking for people in the area, and I got into somatics, and I couldn't believe the release in my body. But during that time period as well, as I was releasing all these motions, it really started to bring to light all of the areas in my life that this grief had impacted.

Not only didn't I know who I was outside of being a mother, I didn't know who I was inside of relationships. So unfortunately, during this period of time, my relationship that I'd been in for over a decade had fallen apart. Um, so not only was I healing this huge grief for my daughter, I decided to completely flip my life upside down and leave this relationship I had been in and start completely over, not knowing who I am, where I'm going, or what I am doing.

And I was very fortunate enough during that time period to find a group of women, and it was through them sharing their own stories that I had so many me to moments. When you're going through such a period of grief and transitions, you just feel so alone. Feel like nobody understands me. Nobody could possibly know what I'm going through. I had periods of times where I thought I was going absolutely crazy. I was like, there's just something wrong with me.

Why can't I pull myself together? And so I started going to different healing circles and community events. And the more people I met, and the more people I talked to, I had so many me to moments. Like, wow, I'm not alone in this.

Other people feel this way. But I had gotten myself so small that I didn't think what I went through was anything big or different, or why would what I went through help somebody else? But it was through these women that I learned that what we need the most during healing, whether it's from grief of a loss or a life transition or a job transition, or you know, just life not being what you expected it to be. The biggest part of healing is with community.

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J: And I think I talked to you about this a little bit at the event about how Sacred Pause was born out of learning that most of my healing happened within community.

To have people sit and just hold space for me. I didn't need anybody to fix me because I know I have to fix myself. I have to do the work. But just having somebody else there that can say it's okay to not be okay, is so validating. And as women, especially, we're expected to keep it all together, especially as moms, especially, you know, in the workforce.

So to actually hear from other women that it's okay to not be okay sometimes was just heart opening for me. So sacred pause grew out of that. It grew out of creating a space where I can sit and talk with someone just like we're talking right now and just listen to them and actually hear them, not to give them excuses or you know, pat them on the back and be like, yes, you are absolutely right. But to hold that space and say, Yeah, I see you, and you're allowed to feel that. But let's work on how we move through it instead of staying stuck in it. Yeah.

A: Yeah, I mean, it's something that when I first started teaching yoga, we talked about how teaching is part of your yoga practice. And I'm using that as a metaphor here to say that when you enter into a healing container as a guide, right? As a spaceholder for someone, this ends up becoming part of your own healing journey. You're at the sharing point in your journey.

You're at the giving back point in your journey after having allowed yourself to be vulnerable and receive the support of a community, the support of other women, those light bulbs that probably were going off when you're seeing, oh wow, this woman is going through something I can fully relate to. I've been over here thinking that what I'm going through is shameful or embarrassing or humiliating.

And here I am listening to this other person say things that have been literally in my own head. And I'm here in this space of acceptance and honoring of her experience. It completely changes the way you view yourself, right? Because you're getting to see yourself in others and you're getting to become compassionate, right? Yes.

J: Um, I see everybody now as a mirror. Yeah. And that was one of the biggest lessons I think I needed to learn because we go through life looking for ourselves and other people, not looking at what other people are actually reflecting us back to ourselves. So it's kind of like they say, um, you are a projection of what someone else thinks or how they view you. So you're a different version to every single person you meet.

So you really have to come home to yourself and learn who you are at your core and hold on to that. And when you do that, you realize everybody's a mirror in some way to you. I have met people that I looked at and went, wow, I wish I could be as confident as her and talk and share my stories and be bold and courageous and fearless. That's not me. And now I look at myself and I'm like, wow.

That woman, that want that seeing what I wanted for myself, helped me get to where I am today. Yeah. So it's a it's it's a lot of work. It's a lot of self-discovery and it's a lot of letting go. Yeah.

Yeah. I asked my therapist the one time, because she's always like, you know, you really kind of just went from being so stuck to just speeding up and let's do this and let's go. And I said, Well, I was tired of living like that. I was tired of feeling all these things.

I was tired of my body always being tense and feeling like an elephant on my chest. And she said, Well, that's radical acceptance. I had never heard the term before. And I asked her, what does radical acceptance mean?

And she's like, it's when you finally surrender and accept that this isn't the life you want to live anymore, and you're going to do everything possible to get to where you want to be. And that's where I am now.

And that's what I want to do for other people to make them feel safe enough to come back home to themselves and to their bodies and feel that security within to be able to say, I can be who I want to be. I can be who I envision myself to be. I don't have to compare myself to somebody else anymore because I can be that. And that's one of my biggest hopes and messages I bring to people. Yeah.

A: And working through, you know, grief as a model for personal transformation is a heavy path. You know, it's not the path that most people are actively choosing, you know, because it's messy, right? And it's not easy, but it's so necessary, especially if you've been holding this for a long time, right? Like as you said, it was literally making you sick. It was literally causing you pain every single day.

And there was a point where you just, you know, you can't keep going like that, you know. And for the people who are listening who may be kind of relating to some of the things that you were experiencing, right?

It just speaks to how, you know, psychosomatic grief is as a physical thing. It's it's not, you know, it's not just being sad, it is a physical experience in your body that can take over and change your physiology and change the way that you're like operating every single day.

And so when you're embarking on a grief journey, you're going to be transforming at a very deep level. You know, this isn't just like mindset work. This isn't just like self-empowerment work. Like, yes, there will be some changing of, you know, and noticing of your thoughts, or there will be some, you know, moments of feeling really empowered, but there may also be just moments of really being with with the pain inside and being with the the really you know devastating thoughts and feelings that you've been turning away from.

J: Oh, absolutely. And one of the things about grief is nobody wants to talk about it. And that's the stigma that needs to really be broken. Everyone, you know, when say one of your best friends loses their mom, their partner, somebody, everybody rushes in right away with the condolences and asking how they can help and what they can do. It's the after is when it hits, when those phone calls stop when the casseroles start coming. Oh my goodness, I had so many casseroles in my freezer at one point.

It was it was great, but then I was like, what am I gonna do with all these casseroles? Uh, but that's when the grief sets in, and that's when you really need the people. But as society, we're uncomfortable sitting next to someone else's grief.

Yeah. And it doesn't need to be that way. We need to realize that when somebody is grieving, they don't want us to fix them. They just want us to hold space for them to feel those feelings.

Yeah. They just want the space to know it's okay to feel that sadness. And it's really big in grief that we allow others to feel their grief, to process themselves. And sometimes that looks like just hanging out and watching silly movies for an hour together. Sometimes that's just a walk in the park or a drive out in the country.

It doesn't have to be anything big and extravagant. In grief, people just need somebody by their side. I don't think anyone should have to go through it alone. And as somebody who went through a lot of it alone, where I was back then in the journey I've been on the past couple of years, once I found my community and found the people that would just sit with me.

And once I realize that safety that I could show up authentically, either one day, just as bubbly happy person, or the next day of I am holding so much sadness in my heart. And it was just still okay. That's where the healing really is.

And I think the more we start talking about grief, the more we normalize that grief is a huge part of all of our lives. There's not one person that hasn't gone through some form of grief. It's a huge complex emotion. Yes. Nobody is really taught how to handle and process their own grief or others' grief, either. This is really true.

A: I uh I feel like when we when we're talking about grief, the other thing or the other word here that we're also talking about simultaneously is loss. There's some kind of loss. It could be like you said of a job or uh, you know, a loved one or uh a home that you once had.

Like there's all kinds of things that we can grieve, but it amounts to a loss of some kind, some space inside of you, and literally in your body that is no longer being filled by that person, that place, that thing, right? And now there's this empty space inside.

And so what becomes even more compounding and painful is as you said, when the people stop being there for us and the casseroles show up, or the, you know, the well-meaning, you know, uh, but not really intimate conversations, right?

Where people can tell that you're still in something heavy, but they don't want to touch it and they don't want to go there. And they're telling themselves it's because they don't want to upset you, but it's actually because they don't want to feel upset, they don't want to feel you're upset, right?

And it's hard because again, this is loss that we're talking about. This person who's in pain, who's feeling the grief, they're feeling a tremendous amount of, you know, for lack of a better word, like a like a proverbial abandonment. Yes, they've been abandoned by their spouse or their, you know, by God, right?

And then now they're experiencing a compounded abandonment, abandonment of the people in their lives who can't just sit there with them while they feel like shit, you know, like it's really hard. So I love that you're speaking to kind of the enormity of socially how this is taboo in a sense.

It is stigmatized, it is not a conversation that most people are ready and willing to have. And a lot of that is because of our collective unresolved grief. Most people haven't taken the time to look at the things that have happened and move through them in the way that you're describing.

It's not a common practice. And so a lot of people are holding grief, and when they come in touch with your grief, it triggers theirs, and that's why they can't sit still, and that's why they can't be there with you while you're upset, right? Right.

J: And then, you know, talking about you know, support and those beginning stages of grief. There's also what I call the in-between. And that's where I feel like I'm right now, and so many people can relate.

You're not who you once were, but you're not yet who you're becoming. So you're in this middle space, this in between, where you can feel that you're about to expand, that you know, you have all of this ahead of you, but at the same time, you're holding still. You're in a pause, so to stay.

And it's okay, it's uncomfortable. And I think that's where a lot of people want to give up on their healing journeys because they feel that tightness, that constriction before the expansion, and they start questioning, you know, what was all this work for? And that's where I really also want to highlight, you know, in working with grief is that in-between area era.

Because we can work and we can talk about how to move through those initial stages of grief all day. But what happens when you get past those stages? You're not just all of a sudden healed, and it's that, you know, almost liminal space that people find themselves stuck in, and they don't know how to move out of that.

And that's a really huge part of the grief process that a lot of people lose. You know, they go to the support groups, they go to therapy, and once they get to that spot of, okay, well, I can talk about my grief now without breaking down.

I can tell people my story without, you know, feeling like I shouldn't. But now what? Yeah, and and that's a hard place to be in because you can't see where you're going yet. And that's something else that needs to be normalized, especially, you know, in grief work and healing that it's okay to not know where you're going.

And that's also part of the radical acceptance is surrendering to it and just letting it flow, knowing that some days you're gonna have amazing days and you're gonna feel like you know, you are just speeding up and everything's coming at you, and then other days you're gonna feel like you're just in this pause.

And that pause is where everything kind of settles. That's where the integration begins. So we also have to embody not just those beginning stages of grief work, but that in-between space too.

And with the vision I have for sacred pause. And I think I spoke to you a little bit about it at the event, is I want to start getting people together almost collaboration wise of hey, you know, I met Aimee, she does somatics, you don't know what somatics are. This is a brief overview for you, but I'm gonna send you to Aimee, and she can work with you in this way because I can't help you in the way that she can help you, maybe this will work.

And that's really my goal is to bring in the community and all the different holistic practitioners kind of together for people in these stages of grief in these in-between stages, because there's so much out there, and like I said, it'll be 18 years this month that I lost my daughter.

And it wasn't until probably the past three years that I even knew any of this existed. Right. And if I would have had some kind of guidance, if I would have had even one person that could say, Hey, did you try this yet? I really think that my healing journey would have started way long before now. Yeah. Yeah.

A: And, you know, that can be even something that we grieve, how long we've grieved, how long we've been stuck, how long we have been, you know, waiting on ourselves or waiting on our life to begin after something really hard, you know. There's layers to this.

It's kind of this very meta experience grief because it gets piled, you know, there's all kinds of other things that get piled in there with that, you know, like shame and, you know, uh, fear, fear of, you know, someone rejecting you when you're in this really sensitive place. So you just wall yourself off and you just close yourself off to intimacy and things like this, you know, from partners or loved ones, right?

And then they feel that wall, and then there's this, you know, just there's so much that can happen that at the core of it is coming from this place of not feeling like it's, you know, kind of safe to move forward in any way.

And what you're describing about like collaborations and bringing multiple plaque practitioners into like one person's journey, I think this is really valuable because I think that's actually how it works. It's never just gonna be one thing that transforms you or helps you heal, right?

We could say, oh, yoga or meditation or changing your diet or any of these things that people do, but there's gonna be for that individual person a very specific recipe that's gonna shift and change as they shift and change, right? And so, as someone who's looking to work with people in their individual processes, which it sounds like you are, right?

You wanna be able to meet their needs by helping them diversify the kind of help that they have. And I think that's gonna make you very successful in terms of this person's going to, you know, continue their healing process even when you're not around. Right.

J: And that's a big part of it. Because just like for example, I used to joke that I've done all the things and I do all the things, and I will continue to do all the things to see what clicks, what works, what helps.

But I've also found just because something worked for me six months ago doesn't mean it's working for me right now. So I've pivoted a lot in my own healing journey of okay, I think I've gotten as far as I can with this modality. What else is out there?

What can I try now? And I think that that is really important to identify because, like I said earlier, a lot of people get to this in-between stage, and then they feel like the progress stops, and that's when they give up and they never actually move through the process fully.

So, like I said, I've done so many things. I have, you know, just randomly seen events on Facebook and have been like, you know what, it's worth a shot, let's do it. And there has been ones that have been amazing, and other ones where I've gone, yeah, that's not for me right now.

But that's okay too. So I think by bringing people from all over the community together and letting individuals kind of do what I did and try it out, see what works for them. And what might not have worked for them in the beginning, they might circle back to that and say, you know what, I think I want to give that a try now, and end up finding out that's what's clicking and working now.

A: Right, right. And it can change too. I mean, with the kind of work that I do, is it's very intimate, it's very deep somatic releasing on a very physical level. And so when someone isn't ready or, you know, doesn't want to do that right now, you know, because we say isn't ready almost as like a judgment as like they should be ready or they could be ready.

But it's like sometimes it's like that's not just this just a no, and there's no need to explain further. I just trust people. I've learned to just trust people and not try to convince them or keep inviting them, right? If I get the sense and someone's telling me, like, I want to do this, but and then the then might be I'll like be like, well, I'll put them on my mailing list and maybe they'll come around, right?

But if the person, I've had a few experiences where like I met this woman and she, you know, was very gung-ho, very excited about everything I was up to. She suggested that we collaborate together. And I was like, well, before we collaborate, maybe you should experience what I do because it's pretty different than most things.

And I was like, let me send you like a video for you to try. And so I sent her a video, a couple of videos for her to try and explain what it was. And in the meantime, like, you know, after I sent her the videos, I went to her website. And on her website, like she was just so straightforward about like all of the traumas that she went through. Like just it was like intense.

Like just on her website, it just like went through thing after thing after thing. And I was like, whoa, like this is a lot. Like I didn't know just meeting her that all of this stuff had happened to her, right?

And so I was really curious. I was like, well, how's it gonna be for her to like, you know, invite her body to let go of this at the level that you know her neuromuscular system can. It was I got up the next morning, I had an email from her, and she just said, I tried the video, and this is this is a hot this is like a definite no from me.

And she like blocked me on Instagram and like blocked me on Facebook and like never talked to me again. And at the time I was like kind of shocked. But then as I sat with it more, as I was like sitting with it, you know, because I also felt like kind of rejected and kind of like, well, she was the one who approached me, you know. Um, and then I was also like, well, what's wrong with what I'm doing?

Is there something wrong with what I'm doing? And then I really just sat with it and I was like, you read all that stuff that she's going through. She's at this point where she's able to talk about it.

She's able to put it out on her website, but she's not at the point, and it's not up to me to decide if she's gonna actually physically connect with all that and find a way to let it go. And granted, you know, doing it with a video is a lot different than doing it with a practitioner, you know, going through like a process with a YouTube video, you know, most people who are have a lot of you know, grief, have a lot of trauma, they might just be like, nope, turn it off, right?

But if they had a skilled practitioner there who they felt comfortable with, who they trusted, who when that wave comes up inside of them and their body's going, no, this isn't safe, I'm afraid. There's a person there to co-regulate with, right?

Complet changes how things go. So I've really learned to trust people when they say, No, it's not for me. And I always leave the door that that could that it could change at some time, or it could always just be a no for them. Right.

J: And you're absolutely spot on with that. Like she might have just been like so overwhelmed, so just you know, ready to talk about, you know, this is me, this is what I went through. But those emotions in your body are so personal.

Like that's yours. Like just my personal experience, I held on to that grief. Like it was the biggest, you know, part of me that if I let go of it, I was going to fall apart.

And that was a huge fear of mine. Who am I outside of this grief when I let it go? Yes. But what you also said is extremely important. Watching a YouTube video and working with a video is a lot different than working with someone in person. Because at the end of the day, we all just want to be held.

We want somebody there to soothe us to let us know it's okay. And sometimes just being witnessed helps ourselves, our bodies, our minds to finally let go. And she might surprise you and finally circle back to it. You know what I mean? Like she might be like, okay, you know what? Now I'm at the point in my journey where I'm ready to be vulnerable. Yeah.

A: Or maybe she'll find a different practitioner who suits her better. Maybe based on the specific kind of configuration she had, you know, maybe it would be better suited that she had a male practitioner who, you know, did something like somatic experiencing, which is more talking oriented and not so sensory, you know what I mean?

Like there's just different layers and levels, and there's different ways we can approach things. And not everybody is gonna be like fully ready for like what I'm doing, and not everybody's gonna be fully ready for energy work or any of these other things. You know what I mean? We all have the configuration we have.

And we have maybe even the, you know, social or societal programming that we have that's also part of how we're figuring out how to navigate and decide what's actually going to be effective for us. Right. Yeah.

J: And that's another reason why I feel it's so important to be able to have a community of not just one practitioner for every modality, so to say. because someone say you and I did the same exact thing. Someone might really resonate with me and not resonate with you. Yeah.

Someone that really resonate with you and not resonate with me, but at least they have that choice. Yeah. Yeah.

I think that's really huge and important because there's so many people that think, well, if I go to this person, I can't go to this person. And I've heard it. I've heard it within the community. Well, I already see so and so.

I don't want to go talk. And it's like, no, because two people can offer the same basis of a service, but what they actually have to offer that is personal that comes from their heart space, is completely different.

A: Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. When I do my retreats, you know, my body work-based retreats, I have other two other, usually one, at least one, if not two other Hannah-somatic educators there, you know. And granted, the ones that live closest to near me and I know are really good are my family members, my dad and my cousin also do this and have been doing it, you know, technically longer than I have, right? But I love that they do this and they do it differently than I do.

They have a different approach, they have a different handling, they have a different way that they go about it. And they're both men too. And one's a man in his, you know, he's all me, my dad's 70 now.

And then another one is like my cousin, who's like this young, cute, like tall, you know, half German, quarter Japanese like guy who wears like really cool jewelry, you know what I mean? Like someone's gonna be looking at the three of us and they're gonna know who they're most comfortable with, or they're gonna know who's gonna be the best medicine because they're kind of challenging them a little bit.

You know, I will tell sometimes my female clients like, hey, I don't know if you've ever really received safe loving touch from a man, especially a man the age of your father, you know. But it's a it's a powerful thing to experience that kind of safety with a man touching you.

It has the potential to be very healing. But if you're not ready for that, I don't want you to feel like you have to work with him. If you want to make the request that you only want to work with me because you're not comfortable with a, you know, a man touching you, right?

Or a young guy who, you know, is kind of cute, like it might be like even that could be kind of triggering, you know what I mean? Yeah, like for some women, and if they could just really be honest about that, and then they can tell me, you know, and I even just feel like having that conversation with people and giving them that choice, as you said, that agency.

Hey, you get to choose, and nobody's gonna hold it against you, what you choose, right? They start to be like, well, maybe I do want to have a session with your cousin, you know, or maybe I do want to try this. Like, you know, maybe that will be kind of interesting. I think I'm open to the challenge, you know, versus not talking about it, and then they just, you know, they don't know where to put any of their feelings or thoughts. They just are trying to figure out what you want from them, right?

J: Yeah, and then that causes them to freeze, and even if they choose to work with somebody because they think they should be working with them, they actually don't get the healing benefit out of it because their body is so frozen, their nervous system is so stuck in that fight or flight of I'm not safe. They're not gonna get the full experience as it is. So it is about creating a lot of safety, and I think choice and autonomy is huge in it.

A: Yeah, yeah. Because that's one area that we can really get disconnected from in our grief because we don't feel like, well, grief is not something you have a choice about. The feelings that come up, you can't control them, right?

And so, yeah, feeling completely out of control is a very common thing when it comes to grief, you know. I, you know, and especially like the fear of that experience of being out of control, like, oh, if I start down that path, if I walk down that kind of place in my mind, like like you said, I don't know what's gonna happen, you know. Like, I don't, it's it's very intense, right? So part of coming out of that is feeling that sense of that you get to have a say in what happens or what doesn't happen.

J: Right. And that was really big for me in my grief journey. Like I said earlier, I went to support groups. The ones I went to, they didn't fit who I was and where I was and what type of death I went through. So I had found a local chapter for grieving parents, but it was from all ages.

And it was like very separate. You had, you know, the people that had stillborns or miscarriages, and younger children who had died from some kind of illness. And then you had the adult children who may have died in a car accident or from a long illness then, or it's still all out of place death, still all real. But I always found myself in this space of my daughter was two. She wasn't sick.

It was very sudden. So I could not connect with these people. And that almost made me feel like I was wrong. It was a very weird feeling to have inside of a support group to feel like you were wrong because I couldn't relate to the other people in the group. But through the years, I had to learn that their feelings, their experiences were just as valid as mine, but in a different way. And I had to learn to see their grief from their perspective, not through my own perspective.

And a lot of this healing work is like that as well. We go in with certain expectations. Yes, we're human. We you sign up for something, you expect a certain outcome. And sometimes you don't get that outcome.

And that's okay too. But you have this fear of what if I'm the one not doing it right? You know, what if I went and had a session with somebody and I left feeling kind of like lost and well, did that even do anything? What did I do wrong?

Was I not present enough? So I feel like it's also our job to make people feel safe and recognize that you know, you might try something new. It might not resonate now, but oh goodness, there have been times I have looked back, you know, six months ago, and all of a sudden I'm like, oh wow, that just hit me. That's what happened. That's what finally integrated. Right.

So it's it's about creating that safety too, of letting people know that your journey is unique to yourself. Everything might not be a fit, things might seem like they're not working, where at the same time, like either way is okay. Yeah.

A: I think it's a really great thing when people can, you know, let go of making themselves wrong, you know, let go of making themselves wrong for whatever choices or decisions or ideas they had in the past, you know, like unshaming that and kind of forgiving themselves, like however it might, however, the the language or the situation might lend itself. The idea here I'm saying is like everything you did, including those experiences that you chose that like maybe weren't a fit at the time, are all part of your figuring out what does work for you and what you do need, right?

Sometimes you go to a thing thinking you're gonna feel better, you leave feeling worse. It's because something got like stirred up in you, it's because something got you know, kind of triggered or aggravated, or the person wasn't quite the person that you needed, and that that kind of friction can help you better discern in the future what kind of person is the person you want to be with, what kind of person is the person you want to follow, or what kind of you know, environments and people do help you feel comfortable. You can't discern that as well if you don't have the contrast and the friction and the discomfort, right?

J: And that's a huge part that people skip. They you know, they feel that, and a lot of the grief process, unfortunately, we all want it to be very short, yeah. Yeah, and it's a long one. It's it's a like I said before, it's a deep complex emotion. There is no quick fix to it, and so you know, even on my personal journey, there was times I was like, ugh, that just wasn't for me, and I would feel that frustration, and I would then feel that guilt and that shame of well, was it supposed to be for me?

Should it be for me? But it was learning those feelings, learning how certain experiences felt and finally listening to my body and not my mind telling me how I should feel, but actually listening to my body telling

A: me feeling what is right, being with what is happening versus how it should be or what you think should happen, right? That's huge. That's like that's a big place to get to that point where you're not sucked into the mental uh assumptions, right? And comparisons.

J: Oh, huge. If you would have asked me a year ago, if I would take a pause and actually listen to how things felt in my body and make decisions based on that versus what my mind says I should be doing, I would have looked at you like you were crazy. Right. I would have been like, no, this is the logic. I'm very, you know, logic, things should be in order and this, this, and that, or I should say I was.

Now I listen to my body. If it's a no, it's a no. If it's a yes, well, then it's a hell yes.

Let's do this. I don't question it anymore. And it's really about learning, especially in grief, because it is so many different emotions, all balled and tangled into one thing to kind of be able to pick all those out and learn where in your body that comes up. And what triggers that a lot of times in grief, I know for myself, I get triggered really easy by things that you wouldn't think would trigger somebody. But now I can say, this triggered me. Why did it trigger me? Where am I feeling this in my body?

So how do I move it out now? And it's the same in any experience, you know, whether it's looking for a new modality to try, whether it's working with somebody new, whether it's meeting somebody on the street, and you're just kind of like, no, I don't think this person's for me, or I think that person's my new bestie.

It happens all the time in the world, but we're so attuned to our minds and our minds controlling what we think and what we see and telling us what we feel that we become disconnected from our body and what we actually do feel and what our body is actually telling us. Yeah. Yeah.

A: And this uh sacred pause is a powerful way back in terms of being able to slow down enough to observe the noise of our mind, observe the conditioning and reorient to the other things that are also going on, right? So tell us more about sacred pause and how you're, you know, kind of holding this container. Is it groups? Is it one-on-one? Like what's kind of the process for people who are saying yes to this.

J: So, first off, what I tell everyone, and this is something for my own journey and something we actually talk today a lot about. I like to meet with people, whether it's virtual or one-on-one, and uh an atmosphere that's comfortable for them.

Because I talking about grief, it's it's personal, you know. Like you don't want to just be like, hey, let's go out to a busy store and talk about this. So, you know, let's go somewhere where they're comfortable.

We'll talk one-on-one just like this, but it has to be a fit. So they have to resonate with me just as much as I have to resonate with them, because if I don't think they're at a place in their journey at where I can actually help them, I'm going to be completely honest with them. Like, you know, I can support you in these ways, but where you are right now, this is where you might want to start your journey.

A lot of people that I've been coming across, been talking to, I have found that they prefer one-on-one when it comes to the deep seated parts of their grief. But what I eventually want to open up is a group space, because that's where the healing really happens. It's through each other, through each other's experiences.

I can only come from my experience and my story, where there might be somebody else in that room that it's a part of their journey. Someone will resonate that will be healing for them. I also, as soon as this weather gets a little bit nicer, I'm going to be started offering eco-therapy walks.

So I found even just with myself, part of my journey was getting outside into nature. And I had this beautiful moment last summer where I was on a solo hike and just kind of stuck in my head and I caught myself stuck in my head.

And I stopped and I really started paying attention to everything around me. And I really learned how many lessons that nature holds for us that we don't see because we're too busy.

So I'm going to be offering one-on-one walks because some people are more comfortable with that one-to-one, where we ground ourselves in nature and we look at nature for its lessons in healing. But sometimes that can, you know, feel a little awkward for someone who's not used to, you know, hiking or really looking into nature. I somebody said to me, like, it's just a tree.

And I was like, let's really look at this tree. So I also this summer, I'm gonna start um offering monthly community walks. So I'm gonna keep them small. I don't want to give them too big and everybody gets squirrely and running off and doing their thing, but something small.

I'm thinking about, you know, about four to six people maximum, where everybody can talk about what they're seeing, what they're feeling, how it relates. You know, we look for signs and you know, nature all the time, like people find the feathers or the rack or you know, a certain bird comes out at them. And I've found that that's healing for other people to see too, and they connect with it.

And a lot of the grief healing is connection with others because you become so isolated in yourself in the journey. So I'm hoping to get some people outside this summer.

A: Oh, yeah, you don't have to twist their arm in buffalo. I mean, this weather, people see the sun shining and they can't stay inside. I mean, that's what I've experienced. So I think you're gonna have a lot of success with that. I'm really excited about what you're up to. And I'm just, I'm just really happy for you on a personal level that you are not in that frozen space anymore and that you're feeling much more fluid and open and available to life, right?

So thank you so much for sharing about your journey today for sharing the sacred pause with us in terms of your development where you see this going and the holistic nature of the yeah, the path that you're walking with other people. You really I really get this sincere, strong feeling that you're gonna make a difference in people's lives if you haven't already.

J: Honestly, and I keep telling everybody if I can just make a difference in one person's life and that creates a ripple effect where they can help one more person too, then this has all been worth it.

A: Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Jennifer. If you are going through something and you resonated, you felt comfortable with Jennifer, please reach out. Um, you can look for her information in the show notes and you can book an introductory session with her to start exploring where you're at in your journey and how you can fall into that space of safety, right? Yeah, thank you again. Thanks, Amy. Hey there, friend. I hope you enjoyed today's episode.

Outro: I would love to hear your thoughts. Follow me on Instagram at Aimee Takaya and send me a DM about this episode. I'd like to thank you for being part of this somatic revolution. And if you'd like to support the podcast and help more people learn about somatics, consider leaving a review or a rating.

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