The Present Moment Is the Hardest Place to Be After Loss

How much of today have you spent in today?

Not replaying what happened.

Not planning what comes next.

Just here, in the midst of your real life, feeling what's real in it.

If you've walked through a loss, I'd guess the answer is not much. Mine wasn't, for years.

The Present Moment Can Feel So Hard

Grief doesn't live in your past or your future. It lives right here, in your body, in this exact moment. Which is exactly why the present moment can feel like the hardest place to be. If you are here, that means you are allowing yourself to feel the grief, and sometimes we just don’t want to feel it because it’s hard and it hurts.

We're taught two ways to avoid our present moment and therefore all those uncomfortable feelings.

1) Analyze the crap out of what’s happening. Look back at your past, try to understand what happened and why you feel the way you do about it. Therapy does a lot of this, and there’s value in that. I've done plenty of it myself.

2) Or look forward. Manifest a day it won’t hurt so much. Dream about a time when you won’t have to feel the crushing pain of loss. Plan for it. Picture it. Wait for it.

Both have value. But neither one is with you, right here, in what you're feeling today.

And your grief doesn't go anywhere just because you're not looking at it. It waits. It shows up unexpectedly, and it keeps coming our whole lives, whether you're ready for it or not.

The Vision Board I Made 4 Months After My Daughter Was Stillborn

I want to share with you how this played out in my own life, because sometimes it’s easier to spot a pattern in someone else's story than your own.

Four months after my daughter was stillborn, I made a vision board. I cut out pictures and pinned them to a wall in my house. Pictures of a life where I didn't hurt like this anymore. A future version of me, healed and moving forward, doing all the things I couldn't imagine doing in that season.

I also love to journal. I enjoy trying to understand what I’m feeling and why. I spent many years in therapy trying to figure out what was happening and why.

I wasn't wrong to want that future or examine my past. But I also wasn't healing. I was bypassing. I was reaching for anything that kept me focused on that past or the future because then I didn't have to feel my current reality.

The 22 Hour Flight That Taught Me to Stay

The years that followed tested me. We went through infertility treatments. Injections, appointments, tracking my cycle, scheduling my whole life around a calendar that wasn't mine to control. I was already a planner before any of this happened, but fertility treatment just gave me permission to stay future-focused.

I don't really remember those years. I was so focused on the outcome of having a child that I was barely present for my own life while I lived it.

Eventually we reached a point where we had to decide. Keep going with IVF or consider adoption, or stop. I had reached the end of my capacity to plan; I was heartbroken. So I packed a bag and booked a 22 hour flight to Bali. I needed a minute to feel what it felt like to be inside my own life.

On that trip, there were a lot of tears. A lot of resting. A lot of questioning everything I'd been taught about what it meant to be a mom, a woman, a person worth something. I let myself feel it all, instead of examining it or planning around it.

And the decision I made when I came home felt so aligned; I didn't have to question it again. Not because I'd figured it out in my head. Because I'd let myself feel it in my body instead.

What I Do With My Clients Now

This is part of why I became a coach who works with the body, not just the mind. A lot of what I do with the women is sitting in the present moment and allowing them to be witnessed or witness what's happening. Not what happened. Not what's coming. What's here, right now.

If your present moment feels like the hardest place to be today, here's a small practice I use with my clients, and with myself.

What are you thinking right now?

What emotions are coming up for you in this moment?

What sensations do you notice in your body?

That's it.

It's not a solution.

It's a way of staying, instead of leaving.

And staying, even for a minute, is where everything begins to change for you.

If this is a season where your present moment feels impossible to sit in, my 10-day reset is a gentle place to start. Just five to ten minutes a day, an opportunity to witness where you're at right now instead of where you wish you were.

What would it feel like to stay, just for one moment today? Let me know in the comments below.