When experiencing intense sadness or loneliness, the last thing most people want to do is get up and go about daily life—never mind exercise or move their bodies. Sometimes, what we need the most is what we feel the least like doing, so today, we’ll explore the balance between honoring where we’re at and gently encouraging ourselves to do what we know is good for us.
We’ll also discuss why intensely depressed feelings make it harder to find the motivation to keep going. The mind and the body are connected, and research shows that movement of any kind can be extremely healing for those of us living with mental illness or experiencing prolonged periods of grief.
So, let’s talk about how we can begin incorporating movement into our daily lives and why it’s so necessary for helping us heal and move through grief, loss, and mental health struggles.
Assessing How You Feel: State vs. Trait
When dealing with intense feelings, they can often consume us, leaving us to consider if we’ll feel like this forever. We may even start to believe the feelings are a part of who we are. It’s important to separate feeling states from personality traits.
States are temporary conditions. For example, “I feel guilty right now”.
Traits are long-term characteristics that shape our personalities. For example, “I am a naturally happy person”.
Even when our emotions are so intense and feel like they’ll never go away, they may be temporary states that will pass with self-care and healing. Identifying that we’re experiencing feeling states can be helpful in lessening the intensity of the pain.
Physical Symptoms of Intense Feelings like Grief and Loss
Grief is not just a state of feeling but a process we must experience to heal from a loss. When we’re learning how to move through grief, anguish, depression, anxiety, or another intense emotion, these feeling states can manifest physically in a variety of ways, especially if we try to ignore them and push through with our daily routines. Some of the ways our emotions manifest physically may include fatigue, upset stomach, appetite changes, a lack of energy, heaviness in the chest, irritability, panic attacks, or trouble breathing. It’s important to remember that grief and other difficult emotions manifest differently for everyone, similar to how we each cope with them differently.
Emotional Symptoms of Grief and Anxiety
Common emotional experiences when learning how to move through grief and loss, anxiety and depression (whether chronic or temporary), and other difficult emotions may include:
- Numbness
- Intense sadness
- Lack of motivation
- Panic
- Regret
- Shame
- Self-blame
- Guilt
It’s important to remember there’s no right or wrong way to experience difficult emotions. Whether we’re talking about chronic mental health conditions or intense feeling states, our emotional reactions often surprise us, especially if we’re having a new emotional experience – like losing a loved one for the first time.
Complex Feelings
Remember too, intense feelings may occur in multiples. For example, if you’re working on how to move through grief, you have a greater likelihood of experiencing symptoms like hopelessness and despair. If you experience anxiety, you may have a greater likelihood of experiencing depressed moods. An experienced counselor can help you sort through these complex feelings – in mind and body – and get to the root cause of what you’re feeling.
Shame and Guilt
These emotions are common and can be amplified by disruptive life events and mental health disorders. Guilt is the feeling that you have done something wrong. Shame is the feeling that you are bad or wrong.
Guilt can be constructive to some degree in learning from our mistakes and shaping our future actions, but when experienced in excess it can become destructive to our emotional health. Shame has actually been shown to have no helpful effects, particularly self-shame. It can correct behavior for a short period of time but its harmful long-term effects generally negate any potential positives.
Yet, when we don’t feel good overall, it’s easier to blame our actions or ourselves – and harder to stop engaging in shaming and blaming. We encourage you to be gentle with yourself when you are experiencing intense emotions. Practicing naming emotions can help put some distance between you, the event or person, and what you’re feeling.
The Mind-Body Connection
The mind and body are intricately connected, which is why we experience our feelings as thoughts, “I feel sad,” and as visceral reactions like the stomach dropping or the heartbeat racing. Similarly, when we take care of our bodies, we encourage the production of our “happy” hormones and the suppression of stress hormones, helping us feel less stressed, more able to access joy and gratitude, and be more present in the moment.
As our minds calm down, so do our bodies. In this way, the mind-body connection works like a positive feedback loop. By taking care of one, we take care of the other. Conversely, when one is activated, the other is also activated. The understanding of this mind-body connection is helpful in developing and using coping skills — by taking more control of our physical health, we can more easily move through our grief and other intense feeling states.
5 Tips for Coping with Grief Through Movement
Most of these movement practices are accessible to anyone and designed to support mind and body well-being. If a practice isn’t movement-based, it’s designed to calm the mind and help your mind and body access more gratitude and joy, even in the midst of sadness.
1. Celebrate Small Steps
Take a moment to celebrate any small wins you’ve had, either today or in your overall healing experience. You can say these wins out loud or write them down in a journal. The point of this exercise is not to take away from any intense feelings you’re experiencing; it’s to shift the focus from what might be feeling really bad to something good, if only for a little bit.
Here’s an example:
“My wins today were that I woke up in my bed, which has extremely comfortable sheets. I enjoyed two warm cups of coffee with my favorite creamer. It was sunny today, which was nice to see out of the window in my office.”
And so on. “Wins” don’t have to be big; they can be anything that brings you joy. You can also celebrate wins in your healing process. For example, you experienced a difficult moment, but you were able to move past it.
Optional add-on: Do this with a loved one. Exchange wins and notice what it’s like to listen to theirs and to have them listen to you. You can also practice doing this every night to end the day on a high note.
2. Boost Hormone Levels in Any Way You Can
Sometimes, we need to get out of our heads and into our bodies. Try one of these small movements and see what shifts for you.
- Take a hot shower
- Change into an outfit that makes you feel good
- Receive a hug
- Go for a walk outdoors
- Roll your neck, shoulders, wrists, and feet slowly
- Take a nap if you’re feeling tired
- Dance for 3-5 minutes in a place where no one is watching
- Do 5-minutes of Qi Gong
Or, try something else that allows you to hit the “reset” button. Move around, receive a loving touch, give yourself rest, and give yourself compassion in any way that feels natural to you. And if this level of movement feels out of reach for you today, remember that that’s okay, too.
3. Express Grief Through Trauma-Informed Movement
Trauma-informed yoga classes are wonderful places to express how you feel through bodily movement. Exhale to Inhale is an online, free, trauma-informed yoga class open to anyone. Some yoga studios also offer trauma-informed classes. You can expect restorative movement and invitations to do whatever feels good to you. Trauma-informed yoga classes emphasize the importance of bodily autonomy and aim to be accessible for all as a healing modality.
4. Find What Feels Good
One of the most important tips for moving through grief and intense emotions is simply to find what feels good to you. It may take time to find activities you enjoy while you’re managing difficult emotions, understandably so. Move slowly. Take time to try new things and time to rest. Get creative with what you try. Maybe you bring out activities that brought you joy as a child or spend time outdoors. The most important part of moving through our difficult emotions isn’t what we choose to do; it’s how what we choose to do makes us feel.
5. Move with a Loved One
Finally, we recommend moving with a loved one. It’s common to isolate when we aren’t feeling well. The intensity of our feelings can lead us to want to be alone. However, it’s incredible how being with others can uplift our spirits for a little bit – and often, our loved ones are the people who are going to try the hardest to make us feel better during a difficult time.
So, go for a walk, try a new exercise class, or sit outside with someone you trust to be with you while you aren’t feeling great. You may find that movement and companionship make you feel better in mind, body, and spirit.
Common Grief FAQs
How do I know if I’m experiencing short-term grief or a chronic mood disorder?
This comes back to feeling states vs. personality traits. If you’re experiencing intense feelings and psychological symptoms that are protracted and not normal for you, like panic, a lack of motivation, constant fatigue, the inability to make decisions, constant crying, or fits of rage, for example, it can be helpful to see a licensed mental health counselor.
You can also ask yourself these questions:
- Have I experienced anything out of the ordinary recently that may have been upsetting?
- Do I experience these behaviors and moods often?
- Am I doing anything to regulate my emotional states, like physical movement or meditation?
Depending on your life experiences and any previous mental health work with a qualified professional (or lack thereof), this answer may not be easily understood by you. A licensed mental health counselor can help guide you toward a better understanding of whether something is a short- or long-term pattern of feeling and/or behavior. Through your work together, you’ll learn the most important thing is to focus on how you feel – not a diagnosis.
Are there truly 5 stages of grief?
Yes, and no. Initial research by Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, outlined in her book On Death and Dying, broke how we understand grief into those famous five stages – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. She helped define a set of behaviors we often see in those who are grieving.
However, as her model grew in popularity, criticism emerged that suggested clinicians were using it in a way that was prescriptive, suggesting everyone needed to move through all 5 stages in order to reach acceptance. There is not sufficient evidence to uphold this idea, however.
Newer models of grief emphasize a non-linear grieving process, focusing on the experience of grief rather than the need to fix anything, a support system, and making meaning out of loss. No model is right or wrong. There is, simply put, no right way to grieve.
How can I remind myself coping with grief takes time?
If you’re struggling with feeling like sadness, loneliness, anger, or other feelings associated with grief will never end, you aren’t alone. Practicing a 5-minute meditation, stepping outside, or asking a loved one for help can help ease the pain of disconnection that often comes with complicated grief. You may also find it helpful to take it one moment at a time, one hour at a time, or one day at a time.
Routine work with a licensed mental health counselor offers support to see beyond immediate grief while finding your path to healing. If you find yourself in a crisis state, the 988 hotline is an available resource 24/7/365.
Get the Support You Need in Your Grieving Process
Grief, intense feelings of sadness, and the symptoms that accompany mental health disorders like chronic anxiety and depression can be overwhelming. Utilizing the mind-body connection can help you move through overwhelming feelings while being gentle with yourself and honoring your limits. Remember to find movement that feels good and celebrate small steps as you work toward progress and healing.
At Inspire Behavioral Health, we know that everyone needs support from time to time. That’s why our caring team is here to support you through all of life’s highs and lows. If you’re ready to take the next step toward healing, learn more about how our licensed mental health practitioners can help you with individual or group therapy options. Contact Inspire Behavioral Health today.
