Help With Grief
Loss, and the grief we feel around it, are an inevitable part of the human experience. We lose people and things and we miss them.
As a somatic therapist, I have worked with many people concerning their grief after a significant loss. Physicians and cognitive-behavioral (talk) therapists also refer clients to me for help with grief when the work they have been doing together either has hit a plateau or no longer seems to be helping.
In these situations I generally find that the problem isn’t the client’s grief but their understandable resistance to grieving.
Grieving is painful and can be exhausting. Some clients are also afraid that if they grieve their loss fully they will lose the only remaining connection they still feel in regard to the person or other being or possession (such as a pet, a job, a home, or even an election) that they have lost. Their resistance can go on for months, or even years, which can be quite draining and debilitating compared to letting go. This lingering process can also cause or aggravate existing health challenges.
The somatic work I do helps people let go—not of connection—but of the bodily tension or ‘holding on’ they are doing which doesn’t serve them and only delays the relief that comes from gently relaxing and letting go.
In fact, letting go allows for more connection to one’s self, to others, and to our aliveness because we have more space and capacity to feel all of our feelings including our sadness and our joy for the love that we were so fortunate to have experienced.
Many clients actually report feeling more connection, a new one, with the person or possession they lost because they have restored their ability to feel—in the present—the love or other cherished feeling that they felt before. In essence, a new relationship is established—a living one— even in the face of physical loss.
One more point here: sometimes the grief we can’t let go of isn’t about what we think it is. Feelings of grief around a recent loss can also trigger feelings of grief around prior losses that we never fully mourned or resolved for ourselves. Those feelings are often buried and stored in the body and our physical nervous system. The extremely gentle, body-based work I do can help relax our tendency to ‘hold down’ buried or stuck emotions and help them to emerge, be acknowledged, and leave—freeing us up to feel and live.
If you have suffered a significant loss and feel stuck or that you can’t move on, consider a gentle, therapeutic approach that works directly with the body and can ease the resistance that may be extending your grief and delaying your healing.
Todd Schwartz is a somatic therapist with offices in Denver and Boulder. To learn more about me and the work I do with clients, please consult my website: toddrschwartz.com. Or, feel free to call me directly at 303.704.8331 to discuss your needs and how I might help.
My somatic work is neither a form of nor a substitute for competent medical or mental health diagnosis, care or treatment. It is, however, a fine complement to these and all other approaches to health and wellness.
Copyright © Todd R. Schwartz, 2025.