A Story of Loss, Love and Return

Grief arrived like a force I hadn’t known how to meet.

In the days after losing my father, it felt as though the very act of breathing became impossible. As though my body didn’t yet know how to hold what had just happened.

Anyone who has known heartbreak understands that moment when the body gasps, tightens, pauses – when the surge of feeling is so immense it threatens to split you open. That mighty force we call grief.

I’ve often wondered if there is any emotion quite as powerful.

In my line of work, I’ve met a lot of people who have rolled their eyes at me when I utter the word energy. Especially as I talk of ’emotions’ being ‘energy in motion’. I’ve often wondered if these are people who are yet to experience loss. Because whilst I may not see grief – my lord, can I feel it. And that energy is very real. A force so powerful that if resisted, can be destructive.

I’m reminded of the words of the wonderful Elizabeth Gilbert on grief:

“It’s this tremendously forceful arrival and it cannot be resisted without you suffering more. The posture you take is you hit your knees in absolute humility and you let it rock you until it is done with you. And it will be done with you, eventually. And when it is done, it will leave. But to stiffen, to resist, and to fight it — is to hurt yourself.”

I used to fear the power of grief. I was so scared that if I allowed myself to step into that darkness — I may never come back up. People would ask me how I was feeling but for the first time in my life — I had no words. I’d sit in therapy rooms, having very little to say. How was this helping? I’d think.

Until I stumbled into a Conscious Connected Breathwork session. Suddenly my breath was taking me into parts of myself that words could not meet. It dawned on me — I didn’t need the words.
I needed to feel.

I hadn’t realised how much of my life I had talked my way out of feeling, until my breath began to guide me back into my felt sense. It was the biggest invitation back into this human experience. I hadn’t realised I was moving through life so numb — until my breath, my grief — had heightened all my senses. Life began to feel so rich. Yes, I was heartbroken — but I was open. Yes, the heart ached, it longed, but it too melted in the warm embrace of my loved ones in a way it hadn’t before. I began to question whether I had been living my life behind a veil and grief and my breath had lifted it — revealing a newfound ability to experience the rawness of this human experience.

I continued to dive deeper into my breathwork journey as I used it to help me metabolise my grief. Help me move through this new unwanted companion in my life. However, over time, this unwanted companion soon became the companion I had lost. As I dived deeper into my felt sense, I started to connect to these very subtle energies within… and I started to feel him. I may not be able to see him — but I could now feel him.

I understood the power of faith in the face of loss like never before.

I started to find a space within me, a very sacred space, that I could come back to. I just had to use my breath to connect back into me and if I was quiet enough, still enough, perhaps I could hear him.

I owe that to the practice of breathwork.

There is something incredibly humbling about grief. It has no mercy on anyone. No matter where you come from, your background, your job title — there is no heart untouched by loss in this lifetime. In this way, I find grief to be a beautiful equaliser. Some of the most moving spaces I’ve ever been in — are circles where people come together to share their grief. Strangers united by this one universal emotion. While all our stories are unique — underneath it all lies a shared grief. A shared experience — that can bind people together from all walks of life. A reminder that we are all human and we need community — we need one another, to hold one another through hardships.

Some of the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever looked into are those that know of pain. That know of tremendous heartache and still show up open-hearted and holding hope. It was in witnessing this resilience that I found the courage to confront my own sorrow.

Over time, my breath has reframed the relationship I hold with my grief. Grief shattered me, whilst my breath pieced me back together. What once felt scary and unbearable – started to make me feel most alive. As I started to create more space for my grief – the energetic tsunamis became less – as I had built a space for that energy to flow through. To move through. Through me. Through my breath.

I don’t fear grief the way I once did; I’ve come to have love grief. For the lessons, the new lens on the world and for bringing me to breathwork. My experience of the world is all the more rich for it and I see it to be an honour to feel so much.

Only deep into my breathwork journey did I learn that in Traditional Chinese Medicine the emotion of grief affects our lungs and a TCM practitioner would, in fact, prescribe you breathwork as a remedy to support you in grief. A beautiful revelation – affirming my experience of the power of our breath to heal emotional wounds.

Some of the most profound experiences I’ve had with clients have been in breathwork sessions when they’ve felt the love of their lost one. You observe a new energy being birthed, along with a sense of hope. It’s deeply moving and I feel so privileged to be welcomed into someone else’s grief journey.

Breathwork pulled me out of my 2D vision of life and brought a new hyperawareness of subtle realms of existence. It’s brought so much colour and richness to my life. What’s more – it brought me back my Father. 

He can now be with me and guide me in ways he wasn’t able to before.

Breathwork gave me a way to stay connected — to myself, to him, to something greater.
For that, I’m deeply grateful.

Aimee Robinson-Davey

If you’re walking with grief, I offer psychotherapy and breathwork sessions to support you.
You can also access my free Insight Timer meditations for grief, designed to help you create space for yourself, all of you – honour and tend to what’s true.