"I'll give you something to cry about"

Hey there ,

In this edition

• How grief gets buried

• Grief and joy—same river

• The science of grief

• How to access healthy grief

• Please reply—I’d love to hear your thoughts

I’ve been alone for the last few weeks.

On an island on the great St. Lawrence River.

My daughter and I have been spending summers here for the last few years.

But this year, “suddenly”—she is an adult! She’s living her life in the film biz in LA.

And the weather’s cold, rainy, and windy, so no fishing.

So, I’ve been stuck with me—and my grief.

It’s been bursting through without warning. 

First I resist. And fortunately, I’ve learned to surrender a bit.

Here’s what I know about grief:

“Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.”

—Rumi

When I lost my first daughter, I grieved deeply.

For the first time since I was a kid.

She was a preemie and lived for two months.

When she left, it cracked me open, and I couldn’t stop crying. 

And it scared the sh*t out of me.

So, I slammed shut with force, and my wife eventually left me.

Then, came the next wave of grief—which got me into recovery and healing.

I’ve been healing for 30 years, and the grief is still with me—and I still resist it mightily.

Why is that?

I always feel better after a good cry.

Why do I resist it with toughness, busyness, and intellectualism?

Well, I’ve discovered that the blockade is stored shame, pain, and fear—mostly from childhood.

How Grief Gets Buried

I was good at expressing emotion as an infant!  Then I got my training. 

Like a lot of us, I got the message early: emotions make people uncomfortable, and grief is especially dangerous. 

Even without anyone yelling it, the message was loud: “Get it together.” “Be strong.” “Don’t let them see you cry.”

And if you did cry? You might hear something like, “I’ll give you something to cry about.”

So we learn to swallow it.

Boys are taught to be tough.

Girls are taught to be composed.

And somewhere in the middle, our full-bodied grief gets stuffed into corners we can’t even see anymore.

Even mild trauma—being shamed, dismissed, or just unseen—can wire our nervous system to believe that grief is unsafe. That vulnerability is weakness. That showing pain means losing connection, or worse, being punished.

I’ve spent decades healing, but I still resist grief. 

I go into productivity, control, and distraction. 

But the body never forgets. And when the grief comes, it doesn’t ask permission. 

It shows up when the house is quiet, when you're alone on an island, when there’s no one around to impress.

No matter how much work I do, the old fear is still there: If I let this out, will I fall apart? Will I be too much? Will I be alone?

The other day, I was on my boat with no one around. Sadness came up, and I cried for a few minutes.

Then suddenly I thought, “What if someone sees me and asks ‘What’s wrong?’” Then I laughed at myself…no one around for miles.

I know where that comes from. As a kid, I had an over-reactive mom and a tough-guy dad. I learned to hide my emotions to keep things calm, and so I wouldn’t get questioned. And so I wouldn’t look like “a wimp.”

So I’m still carrying years of suppressed grief.

And I’m learning that every time I give it even a little space, I come back smiling, at peace, more alive.

With a taste of something that looks like true joy.

Grief isn’t the problem. Repressing it is.

Grief and Joy: The Same River

Here’s something I’ve learned: grief and joy are not opposites. They’re part of the same river.

You can’t dam up one without blocking the other.

When we shut down grief—because it’s messy, inconvenient, or just too overwhelming—we don’t just protect ourselves from feeling the pain. We also wall ourselves off from joy. 

Real joy. Not that happiness thing everyone’s chasing. Not the manic, performative kind, but the quiet, soul-deep joy that rises when something has been fully felt.

I’ve noticed that after a wave of grief moves through me, there’s this strange lightness. I feel more connected to beauty, more present with people I love, more alive in my skin.

But when I clamp down—when I distract or override it—I get dull. Disconnected. I may be functioning, but I’m not really here.

Grief makes space. It clears out the debris. And what rushes in afterward is often joy, not because we forced it, but because we made room for it.

Letting grief flow, even in small ways, is what makes the river move again.

The Science of Grief

We like to think of grief as optional—emotional, dramatic, inconvenient. But biologically, grief is regulation. It’s how the body metabolizes loss.

When we allow ourselves to grieve, the nervous system shifts out of survival mode. 

There’s research on how crying discharges stress hormones and activates the parasympathetic nervous system—the part responsible for rest, digestion, and repair. 

In one study from the University of South Florida, people who cried during emotional distress reported feeling significantly better afterward, while those who held it in reported worsened mood and more physical tension.

We’ve all experienced this. It’s not big news.

But we resist it so strongly. There’s your scientific reminder.

Here’s some more.

Grief is literally cleansing. Tears carry stress chemicals like cortisol out of the body.

Crying also releases oxytocin and endorphins—our natural painkillers and bonding hormones. That’s why, after the storm, there’s calm. The body finds its rhythm again.

But when we block grief—when we toughen up and push through—we interrupt this healing sequence.

The stress stays trapped. The body stays tense.

Over time, unprocessed grief can contribute to chronic inflammation, anxiety, immune dysfunction, and heart disease.

So when grief comes, even if it feels inconvenient or endless, it’s actually doing something vital. It’s not weakness. It’s wisdom. A built-in, biological rebalancing.

Body First: Accessing Grief Through the Body

The mind tries to manage grief—but grief lives in the body. Healing starts below words.

This is where body-based healing work matters.

Somatic Experiencing, developed by Peter Levine, teaches that trauma and emotion get stuck in the nervous system. By tuning into body sensations—trembling, sighing, tears—we allow what's been frozen to move.

Psychodrama works similarly. By acting out unspoken stories, we bypass analysis and land in the emotional truth. The body leads. The result is often deep release—not from figuring it out, but from feeling it.

Inner child work helps, too. It’s not about regression—it’s about tending to the parts of us that never got seen. When we meet them with care, grief flows as a sacred return—not a breakdown, but a breakthrough.

It’s rare to be able to get to the grief without support from someone who is NOT TRYING TO FIX YOU.

A skilled therapist with experience in somatic healing can create a safe and supportive space for you to reach those healing waters.

The body remembers. And it knows how to heal—if we let it speak.

We live in a world with a lot of repressed grief—being expressed through posturing and violence.

The best thing we can do is heal ourselves and bring a healthier, more solid person into the world.

Stay Tuned: Something very juicy is coming your way — the Inner Work Community. Much more about that soon.

Glad to be on the path with you,

Stay connected to your heart,

With warmth,

Bob

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