Uncovering my hidden grief - The Body Keeps The Score

17 Feb

I recently completed a 7-day breathwork, somatic movement and trauma processing training with Biodynamic Breathwork (BBTRS) in Cuernavaca, Mexico. I’ve been wanting to take part in this training for about 3 years! So I was psyched to attend. This was following me co-leading the powerful 7-day “Awakening Through Trauma” retreat, also out in Solferino, Mexico with Keli Carpenter.

This incredible experience allowed me to connect more deeply to my body. I honed my breathwork facilitation skills. I made some beautiful new friends too. I was held so tenderly in my processes. I was supported by many others, deeply meeting layers of emotions. Before I reveal more about the training, I want to share a personal story with you… One that will highlight just how powerful breathwork is and the importance of safe spaces for us to process our trauma.

A personal story

I was pregnant once.

I was about 20 years old. I am pretty sure, although my memory is patchy, as is common for events that relate to stress or trauma. I had the coil fitted. For the uninitiated, this is a copper coil or IUD that’s placed in the uterus as a form of birth control. I was one of the 0.1% of women who get pregnant with the coil. It is - or was then - the most effective form of birth control out there. I was “very unlucky”, something I was repeatedly told by the numerous health professionals I met with over many stressful weeks.

It was fascinating because I had this knowing that I was pregnant. My period was late. My body felt different. I didn’t wait around. I bought a batch of super cheap pregnancy tests from the local pharmacy. I did all 5. They were all positive…. Definitely an “oh, shit” moment. I called my mum. I was pretty scared to tell her but I also knew I didn’t want to face this alone. I told her “I think I might be pregnant” and she casually replied “darling, if you think you are, you probably are”.

The next stage was to call my GP. Over the phone, they told me I “couldn’t be pregnant” because I had the coil. Riiiight. Useful! This was demonstrative of the type of attitude I was met over 3-4 weeks of being pushed between different medical professionals. There was confusion and hesitation about what to do with me. My pregnancy hormones were super low. This meant that I might miscarry anyway or it could be that it was an ectopic pregnancy, which can be very dangerous. I had to have blood taken every 2 days to monitor my levels. I remember nurses exhausting my shy veins (even now my veins are well hidden!), eventually resorting to taking blood from veins in the back of my hands and upper thighs.

In between trying to stay on top of my university physics degree experiments, I remember being judged harshly by nurses for being young and pregnant. Once they’d read in my medical notes that I had the coil, their distain would immediately vanish. I’d then be told - with a lukewarm pat on the back of my hand (the one not being drawn blood from) - “gosh, that’s terribly unlucky! You must be hyper fertile”.

I remember sharing waiting rooms with heavily pregnant women. Being surrounded by posters about breast feeding and support groups for new mums. I kept my eyes down, as I felt like I shouldn’t be there.

The morning sickness was vicious. I stopped eating eventually. Partly because I couldn’t keep anything down. I was being sick about 5 times or more a day. And also because I didn’t want to be pregnant. So I was playing my part in making it harder for my body to keep it.

Eventually it was agreed an abortion was the best route. Because I’d caught it so early, it was still possible to use a pessary/pill combo. I started to miscarry the morning of the abortion appointment, but we went along anyway. I remember it being around the Easter Bank Holiday weekend, so the clinic was mostly empty with only a few staff. I learned how to do sudoku with my mum and sister in the treatment room, as I waited for the medication to kick in.

The grief in my lower belly

Fast forward to a 7-day breathwork training in Mexico in 2023. We have received training on the different “belts of tension” within the body and how suppressed emotions are stored there. Today is the day we focus on our belly. As I engage in a circular breath, being guided by my awesome friend Briana Pharos, I bring my awareness to my lower belly and womb. Suddenly - and in a way that totally took me off guard - it was like a deep gong of grief was struck inside me. It reverberated my whole being. The memory of the abortion appointment was so clear in my mind.

The wipe-clean green painted walls of the dingy ward (the Victorian era building has since been torn down).

The stainless steel toilet.

Big old single-glazed sash windows, large to let natural light in.

The greyness of the sky.

Seeing a dark red placenta cupped in an equally grey cardboard bowl. From the bowl of my pelvis, to this papier-mâché type bowl…

In the breathwork session, I could feel how my body was confused.

“That’s mine”.

My animal body pined for her baby. She was confused. And in pain. The baby was here and now it’s not. What’s happened? Where has it gone?

Lying on a mat in a room with 30 other people at the breathwork training in Mexico (all in pairs doing this same work), my grief wailed out. I sobbed great big tears, and held my belly. I shared the memory I was reliving with my good friend Briana, who was guiding the breathwork session.

She didn’t know - I hadn’t shared this past event with her before.

“I am grieving the baby I lost…. It’s mine. Where did it go?” My eyes screwed shut tight, tears pooling in my eye sockets. My teeth chattered as my jaw trembled with the emotions releasing through my body. Briana held that space for me, inviting me to stay present and checking in.

“Where did it go?” I whispered. My chest felt tight, my belly convulsing and shaking with the waves of sadness and confusion being released. I had one hand on my heart, my resource - a place of grounding where I can find strength in a breathwork session if I am feeling very challenged.

More insights came. “This is why I am afraid to create. Scared to really create something special. Because I’m afraid it’ll get taken away from me… “

The body keeps the score

If you stopped me in the street and asked me about what happened, I’d recall the facts about being pregnant with the coil once in a pretty matter of fact way. Maybe in talking therapy I might express my anger with the way I was treated. And feel some pain and sadness at how I was judged by others who didn’t know the full story. Consciously, I don’t really have very strong feelings about it all. It was hard, sure. Very stressful because of the circumstances and how medical professionals kept needlessly delaying the process. But it’s over now. I didn’t really feel much.

Or I thought I didn’t.

Breathwork has an incredible way of helping us access deep memories and unprocessed emotions.

Trauma specialist Bessel van der Kolk talks about this in his book “The body keeps the score”. And how talking therapy can only reveal and process so much. It’s tools like breathwork that can help us access much deeper, subconscious emotions that our body is carrying. And this is why I use it as a modality! Breathwork really cracked me open emotionally, especially when I did in-depth 7-month training in 2020. I’ve been on a hugely powerful journey of reconnecting to my body, learning to feel again. I’ve been on a Hero’s Journey to consciously feel the suppressed layers of emotions from the past. Including grief I didn’t even know my body was holding.

Sure. I knew this event had happened. But I was genuinely surprised to feel that my body mourned the pregnancy. It’s hard to describe. It really is more of a feeling.

At the time, I used science as a way to reframe the pregnancy and abortion. To reduce the magnitude of the emotion. As a strategy to reduce my pain and suffering, I’d used my intellectual mind to make it all OK - to be matter of fact about it. This is not shame myself and that strategy. It’s there to keep me safe and avoiding feeling pain. But I also didn’t realise how that type of reframing was disconnecting me from my body and the grief my body felt.

Integration and healing through sharing

A week on from this deeply healing breathwork session, I stood in the Frida Kahlo museum in Mexico City. She lost multiple pregnancies during her lifetime, owing to Frida’s extensive injuries from a near fatal crash when she was 18. A large poster named “Intra-Uterine Life” adorned the wall of her day bedroom where Frida painted. It charted the different stages of a pregnancy, the journey of reproduction from conception to birth. My eyes studied the biology poster furtively. I noticed that my breath was shallow and jaw tight. Part of me tried to remember how far my pregnancy had gone. I was curious about what the baby look like. I can’t really remember. And I didn’t want to try too hard either.

“Intra-Uterine Life” poster at the Frida Kahlo Museum, Mexico City

Briana had moved onto another part of the exhibit, but came back when she saw me standing there. She wrapped an arm around me and rested her head on my shoulder. We stood quietly, her holding space for me again.

As I write this now on my return flight from Mexico City, warm tears are flowing down my cheeks. A more shy part of me is thinking “oooh, erm, isn’t this a bit TMI? Is it too personal to share??” But at this moment it feels right to share. My animal body grieves the baby she lost.

1 in 4 pregnancies in the UK don’t make it full term. My story is unique because it is mine. And it’s also the story of so many women…

Giving birth to grief in safe spaces

Let’s rewind the clock back to that grey day once more, when I was 20 years old. Once my womb was empty, the induced cramping from the medication I’d been given totally doubled down. I was on all fours in the clinic bed, in agony. My mum asked the nurses if there was anything they could do for the pain. “Just paracetamol - she has to wait for the medication to pass through her body”.

My womb wrung itself out over and over. Continuing to hollow out of all that she held, even though there was nothing left. Twisting so deeply, it took my breath away. I really wish I knew something about breathwork then! I am pretty sure I was bearing down, holding my breath and gasping. But when I could consciously feel the pain of my grief in the breathwork session in Mexico, it was like the twisting I didn’t know I was holding finally eased. I could feel it and let it pass. With support, love and non-judgement, Briana witnessed me give birth to the grief that had laid dormant in my body for 15+ years.

I was able to witness my grief. To realise that, yes, I have the capacity to feel this. I am within and at the edge of my Window of Tolerance. To be present to what we feel is how we integrate it. It fucking sucks sometimes. But I can feel the body sensations and allow them to move through me.

I was also so deeply moved and touched that my body told me. Thank you, my sweet body! I didn’t know you were carrying this. I didn’t know… thank you for telling me. “I love my body - thank you for letting me know what you feel” I shared this aloud with Briana, as we began the integration part of the breathwork journey.

What I desire is for more safe spaces where we can share our stories. To be held, to be supported as we move through challenging emotions. Huge love and thanks to Briana for holding space for me and being there to witness my grief that I didn’t even know I was carrying.

This is the work I do. I do it for myself first, and then for my clients/community. I am truly honoured to do this work. And I am humbled to work alongside some incredibly talented practitioners and to take part in life-changing training.

This body of yours, it keeps the score. Of all past events, where the emotions weren’t given safe passage. They are imprinted emotionally upon you - energetically within the nervous system and physically within the fascia.

“Our issues are in our tissues”, as they say.

And my body grieves what was…

I was pregnant once.

Thanks for bearing witness to my story. I am well resourced, grounded and supported.

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Thank you

Huge love and thanks to those that supported me in my processes during this amazing 7 day training in Mexico. Biodynamic breathwork founder and trainer Giten Tonkov, biodynamic breathwork lead Prema McKeever, and biodynamic breathworker Matt Gunn. Trainers and students: Majdi Elkabir, Irantzu Pinillos, Gregory Schimpff, Kateryna Chorna, Keli Carpenter and of course Briana Pharos. And to everyone else at the Mexico training, who’s vulnerability, courage and love allowed me to drop so deeply into my body, and to feel again. Thank you and I love you!

Check out Biodynamic Breathwork Training here: https://biodynamicbreath.com/

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If you’re interested, here’s how you and I can work together:

BREATHWORK: 1:1 breathwork + coaching package - “Transformation Through Breathwork” - drop me an email to find out more: https://www.brionygunson.com/contact
RETREAT: Myself and Keli Carpenter are co-hosting the “Awakening Through Trauma retreat” retreat near Barcelona, Spain, 15th - 20th May 2023. Come and join our retreat and be held to meet yourself in a way that you can’t escape. Read more here and book your place now (spaces are limited and this retreat is likey to sell out quickly due to high demand).