What it Means To Lose Your Pet: How to Heal Intense Grief Through Your Environment and Holistic Sensory Design
Hello Beautiful Souls,
Most of you already know, or may not know, I lost my pet Kayla recently, I had taken time off for such processing. I am back from Greece and it’s been a time of my healing journey home, releasing grief, and doing much inner work for me. I needed this time to process my emotions, give away more of Kayla’s things and release the intensity of this time. I was really hesitant to share so much of my personal world with the public, but I was just on my zoom meetings and this topic came up so much, I realized I wasn’t the only one dealing with loss, and it was a sign to share my journey.
It is true, grief really is a place where love has no where to go. I am no stranger to death and the pain associated with heartbreak from it. I dreaded the thought of
of losing Kayla and all the feelings of intense grief that would come along with it, and yes, for me, it was that intense.
I had to work with a therapist with a technique called EMDR therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing)., this helps one to release traumatic events and can help patients gain relief from a wide range of disorders including: chronic pain, phobias, depression, panic attacks, eating disorders and poor self-image, stress, worry, performance anxiety, losing loved ones, and traumatic incidents.
I personally have suffered from PTSD for many years and Kayla was my service animal. I knew that losing her would trigger all of this within me again and it really did, I had trouble driving on a highway and could not stop the panic within my body. Our nervous system is quite powerful, when we operate on flight or flight, this can fire up neurons in our brain and make everything seem like it’s on panic mode.
It took years of meditation and yoga practice to move through such events for me, I really have a handle on it most of the time, but sometimes, some triggers, can flare symptoms up and make us feel we are reliving trauma all over again.
In my yogic studies over the years, I found Richard Miller’s work with PTSD and Yoga Nidra practices that helped to navigate me though my darkest hours. These are techniques I still recommend to others even today. But there are other techniques as well, sound healing and music therapy, chinese medicine and homeopathics, the Tomatis method, and of course, Somatic Dance therapy.
As I move though the next chapter of my life, without her and with all the new beginnings and uncertainty of the next steps, I find myself in a place of sweet surrender and allow the universe to navigate the flow of my life. All I can do right now is trust, it’s such a hard thing to do as a planner but I must trust.
I found another blogger who had a great article on this topic and I wanted to share her work HERE The most important recommendations I can say is, get the help you need to navigate though this time, use trusted friends and loved ones, create rituals, and take really good care of yourself. Greece was that time for me, to immerse myself in culture, dance, and ritual is the way I am healing my grief. It’s so important to process and allow healing to find any relief. as this type of grief unfortunately, it never really leaves us.
Rest in Peace Kayla, Sweet Dreams Little One. #kaylaforever #angelpup #love #16Years
This led me to recognize the importance of creating a healing environment and rituals to process grief. It’s more important than ever, and especially in todays world, to create a home sanctuary where you can feel safe, nurtured, and supported. By having a healthy home, free of chemicals and toxins, low EMF’s and healthy materials, we can have our nervous system feel a place of rest. This is Holistic Sensory Design and can make a huge impact on our daily lives. I will write more on this topic on my next blogpost.
Why do I always feel better in Greece than I do here? Well for one thing, there are way less people in that country, a deep ancient history, and the quality of food is different than here in processed USA. Don’t get me wrong, the convince living in the US far outweighs the village life, but sometimes, when healing, it’s a good idea to immerse yourself in that kind of environment. If the frequency of our environment is erratic, then our nervous systems never really gets the chance to rest. My nervous system needed that, it’s fact that when we live in a healthier environment, we can really thrive.
Holistic Sensory Design is a human-centered approach, by being empathetic to people’s sensory uniqueness, it reflects the philosophy that effective design should be informed by the occupants of a space. Our understanding of the built environment and its impact on the nervous system is evolving at a revolutionary pace. Sensory design is the strategy in the architecture of designing spaces to appeal to multiple human senses (sight, sound, scent, taste, touch) and can be used for connecting us to our human experience.
I created rituals for processing, had a funeral, and a burial. I found it to be a quite interesting link when I saw all the rituals in each archeological site I visited in Greece, these rites are designed to help us grieve and to remember our loved ones and we continue with these rituals even today. Sensory living has a huge impact on us, by becoming aware of it, we can create a safe. nourishing environment to heal in, being in Greece was that for me.
Stay tuned for more blogposts on Holistic Sensory Design and more classes at West Elm, plus more online events to come!
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Thank you so much!