Grief And How This Affects Your Energy Body

Jodi Sternoff Cohen

Thank you, it’s always great to connect with you Keesha.

Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C

Oh, I feel the same. And today, what we’re going to talk about is the role that grief has on that energy system and then subsequently, the physical body. And I know you have a very poignant story of grief. As many people have experienced grief, but I would love if you feel comfortable sharing your story with our audience.

Jodi Sternoff Cohen

Yeah, it’s funny how necessity is the mother of invention and our children are often the motivators. They bring people into our lives, situations into our lives that we never would’ve necessarily chosen or followed without them. But my story really begins actually with the birth of my son, Max, he has an older sister who was very easy child. I just assumed I was a great mom and had another one 22 months later and number two was not as easy. He had no impulse control. One of our cues was like, look at my nose. He could never look at our nose. And so I spent the first three years of his life reading every parenting book, taking every parenting class, banging my head against the wall, thinking like, why can’t I figure this out? And then one day we were at a birthday party and a friend was actually complimenting me on how well behaved he was that day. And then another mom passed out a Ritz cracker as a snack. He ate the cracker and jack-off hided. And she witnessed that and said, oh gosh, my brother was on riddle in his whole life. And it turns out he was just allergic to weird foods. You should take them to a nutritionist. So I thought that’s certainly easy, I’ve done everything else. Took him to a nutritionist who immediately identified that he was sensitive to corn, soy and dairy. 

We took that out of his diet and the next day he could look at our nose and my mind was so blown that, oh my goodness, why did I not think of food, that I decided to learn more? So I went back and got a degree in nutritional therapy and was trying to help other moms, we live nearby in Seattle. So I took a class at Bastyr to figure out how to muscle test, because that felt like an easier way to assess the root cause with little squirmy children and was doing that until another shoe dropped. My husband at the time, I knew he was bipolar. He was mostly manic, but after our son was born, he got more and more depressed to the point where I was worried he would die on my watch. So we moved him into a residential treatment facility. And once I knew he was safe and it wasn’t my job to keep him safe, like I just collapsed. It was like running a five year marathon and finally crossing the finish line, adrenal fatigue, kind of at the most extreme and nothing that I did seem to be helping. And that’s when essential oils entered my life. 

A friend observed that I was so high cortisol for so long, which means chronically inflamed, which means all the remedies I was ingesting, probably weren’t getting assimilated. And so she gifted me some oils and I just started making things up to help myself heal and launched a company as a result of that. And that was kind of flowing well. And then Max was actually killed in a car accident when he was 12 years old. And that, every time you think you’re like prepared, oh, I got this, I’m all resourced. A bigger challenge comes along. And you’re like, all right, I guess I’m not quite sure how I’m gonna handle this one. And so that was three and a half years ago. And in the last three and a half years, I’ve learned a lot, not necessarily things that I would kind of say like, oh gosh, I want a challenge. 

Like throw me this please. But when you’re drowning and you have to learn to swim, you learn to swim very quickly. So and it’s not, you know that idea that time heals all wounds. I don’t think it’s true. I think some things get easier and some things get harder and things change. And it’s really, they talk about peeling an onion, at a certain point, you’ve peeled the onion and you kind of are there. I’m not sure that you ever are done. There are a lot of false summits and you just keep climbing and working through it. But what we’re talking about today, this emotional piece and how it shows up in the physical body and how you can start to unravel it, I think is really important. And I don’t think it’s as discussed as it should be.

Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C

Yeah, I agree. And thank you for sharing that. And as you went through the unimaginable grief that happens with the loss of someone near and dear to you, there are stages of grief and you’ve been able to track them now and map them for yourself. And I would love to have you share them.

Jodi Sternoff Cohen

Yeah, it’s so interesting. The first stage is definitely shock, like was kind of, I mean, I guess there’s no good way to learn that your child has died, but the way it unfolded, there were other boys in the car and one died at the scene of the crime. And we didn’t know which ones we had to go to Harborview, the local trauma hospital with the other families to kind of figure out that it was Max. And my first, like when I found out I just felt nauseous. Like for me, grief was really nausea. Like I just, I couldn’t eat anything. I just kind of, that was kind of my emotion at the time. And then we’re Jewish and they have you bury very quickly, which is kind of a good thing, but you’re doing it in this state of like shock and disassociation. So I really didn’t remember anything. Like it’s funny Facebook like tells you when it’s your friend’s birthdays. And sometimes I’ll go in to send them like a birthday message and I’ll realize they sent me a message like Facebook messenger three years ago that I just either read and didn’t notice or didn’t see. But I think the shock is pretty extreme. And in a way that’s good, you know? It’s kind of like, we’ve talked about disassociating when things are too intense, you fight flight or freeze, you freeze, you leave your body. It’s too much to feel. So you just find a way to kind of check out and go through the motions and long term that’s not great, but in the early days, I actually think it’s kind of nice to be a little numb.

Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C

Yeah, protective.

Jodi Sternoff Cohen

Yeah, exactly.

Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C

Yeah.

Jodi Sternoff Cohen

And so we can talk about that. I mean, it’s basically when you’re not in your body, it’s really hard for your body to heal and that pattern over time is problematic. So that’s one thing like grounding, I’m a huge fan of grounding, which to me means actually getting in your body, because if you’re not in your body, it’s kinda like if you wanna exercise, if you don’t get your sneakers on or get in your exercise gear, you’re not going anywhere. It’s just like almost first step, like stage one foundational, you need to actually be in your body so that you can feel things because it’s only when you feel things that you process through. And I think, I mean, my big joke, I always say, when I don’t know what to do, I do nothing. And I think that can be applied kind of universally, when we are afraid of an emotion, when it’s gonna feel too sad or we’re gonna get too angry or we’re gonna get too afraid, we shut it down. It’s almost like the apprehension of feeling the emotion is often paralyzing us from actually feeling it. But if we just let ourselves feel it, it’s not as bad as our mind has created it to be.

Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C

So past shock, what would be next?

Jodi Sternoff Cohen

Well for shock, what I did, I mean, talking about oils, there are a lot of grounding oils, easy ways to ground or anything that you can do to connect to nature. You can walk barefoot. I actually have a wooden tray that I put rocks in that I just put my feet on when I’m working on my laptop, you can use oils like grounding oils, Vetiver has deep roots, cedarwood, frankincense, all of these things to kind of connect you and your body. I try to make sure that I kind of gear shift my nervous system so that I’m not in that fight or flight state, and able to feel safe. And I do think that that is kind of foundational because I think that if you’re, it’s a little bit like I used to run marathons, right? And you start at two miles, then you work up to six. Then you work up to 12. If you just jumped in and tried to run like 18 miles, maybe you could do it, but you might hurt yourself, you might tear something. There is something to be said for kind of a slow and steady build. And I do think that the more you can feel safe, then that allows you, once you feel safe, you can start to kind of process through things.

Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C

Yeah.

Jodi Sternoff Cohen

And one of the things that I’ve noticed, and we’ve talked about this, this is kind of what I learned from you, but oftentimes if something traumatic happens, you had problems before you had that problem. And the trauma that you’re experiencing from the current trigger is often correlated to an earlier trauma in your past. And if something is, I think of it like a sort thumb that sticks up, like if there’s something in your past that you haven’t processed, you are going to overreact more to something in your present. So when you really start rolling up your sleeves and getting into the deep work, it’s deep and it takes time. It’s rare that, I’ve been in therapy for, I actually was started before the accident. So probably four years on and off. And we finally struck on something that my therapist is like, I’ve been waiting for you to like make this connection for two years. And I’m like, wow. It just kind of, it happens when it happens, but you almost need to give your body the space to allow that tenfold.

Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C

Yeah, that’s beautiful. So the giving yourself the space, I call that curious compassion, right? Where you’re checking in and you’re asking, and you can engage in self-care. And I think in certain stages of grief, you’re not engaging in self-care, are you? If you’re not home in your body, then there’s nothing to care for.

Jodi Sternoff Cohen

Yeah, no, I think that’s totally true. And I also, I mean it’s interesting because dissociation, there’s so many things that are vilified, right? Inflammation, cortisol, dissociation, but we don’t realize there’s, it’s not all bad. There’s good and there’s bad. And it’s just kind of not staying stuck in that place for too long. So I think it’s healthy to kind of understand, to recognize like, oh, this is what I’m doing. Like for me, I became a workaholic because that was a really easy way for me to check out. I didn’t need to feel, I just needed to work. And everyone, you get accolades when you’re productive. So it was self-validating and at a certain point after, it’s really interesting. So I wrote this book for Random House. It did really well, I got a bunch of people to promote it. It had great sales and all of a sudden it was over and I felt horrible. Like right when you’re like crossing the finish line, I should be celebrating, I feel great. I realized, oh my goodness, I was using this as a distraction. And now that I don’t have this distraction, I actually have to like sit in my body and feel, and that’s when kind of the panic set in. And then I was like, oh, that, I’m not as great as people think I am, there’s more work to do.

Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C

So the stages of grief that are often outlined, from Kubler Ross are denial and anger and bargaining and depression and acceptance. And you just went into them one at a time where the depression part happened after being in the community and writing the book and getting that out there. And then, right then all that kind of fell apart.

Jodi Sternoff Cohen

The Kubler-Ross model is actually based on facing your own death. And it never made sense to me. It never really, I never.

Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C

I was wondering that’s why I was asking like on those stages that came from.

Jodi Sternoff Cohen

It didn’t, no, no. And even, I mean, it was my ex-husband that was driving the car. Like I didn’t the only one that, yeah. I mean, I can see whatever, not everyone is cookie cutter the same, but I got a lot of handouts on that. And I kept thinking like, this doesn’t really feel like it fits, like what kind of fit for me was shock. And then there was just a lot of sadness, like really, really deep, overwhelming sadness. And I think like a lot of women who are my age, I was kind of raised to be a pleaser. And I was also raised like, when I was a kid, my emotions were never validated, don’t cry or I’ll give you something to cry about. And so I never felt like it was okay to be sad. I kind of felt like I had to even no matter, I either had to like repress it or keep moving or try to find happy things to kind of compensate. And it’s really interesting. One thing I noticed, I’ve done yoga for a long time and I would start to notice that I could no longer sit cross-legged, like I would, I’d get a block or I’d find some kind of compensation. And I started to realize what is going on? Why can’t I do this? And so I started to kind of look at what would be impeding my flexibility and started playing with fascia. 

The whole idea that the issues are in the tissues. And I actually created a new fascia blend. And one time the instructor was often you do some breathing for a couple minutes, this was lasting for probably like 15 or 20 minutes. I’m like, okay, I’m gonna make a commitment. I’m gonna try to do this as uncomfortable as it is. I’m gonna lean into the pain and just figure out what’s happening. So I put the fascia blend on my hip and all of a sudden the muscles started to loosen up. And then I had this really strong hit, oh my gosh, this is where I carried my son where I carried Max, ’cause his sister was 22 months older. So it was often, she was running and I would carry him to like run after her. And I realized that’s where I had stuffed my grief. Like a lot of it was kind of in my hips. And so it’s interesting, I almost call it a three-legged race because you do something physically to kind of release the vasculature and the muscles and the lymph and everything. 

And then you feel the intense emotion and you have to kind of find a way to breathe through it. Often what I do when I feel intense emotion, I smell oils. And I just walk in nature without any devices. I leave my phone and I often tap, which calms the nervous system. There are many tapping points, but for wherever reason, the clavicles is my favorite and the easiest and maybe I think the least weird when I’m walking around outside, I think it’s a little stranger to go like this more subtle, but I really have to like feel in and integrate it. And the good news is once you kind of choose to show up and feel your feelings, you are not stuck in it for that long, you kind of process it through. And then I often I find that physical emotions are kind of like any other toxicants like I take an Epsom salt bath. I take binders, I look at it like, okay, I’m detoxing something and I’m gonna just help it, like leave my system more quickly.

Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C

Beautiful. So if you don’t move through those stages and it gets stuck, your body will tell you. And in these beautiful ways. And of course, as Jodi’s just pointing out, it’s not going to be the same for everybody, right? So hip tightness was hers. For you it might be lungs, or it might be something completely different. After my dad died suddenly last February, it was for me, lower back pain, you know? And it was so interesting. It was like this nagging, horrible pain right in my lower back. And I knew it had something to do with the death of my father. But until I really went in there and allowed myself to feel, I was holding myself erect and being strong for my mother and getting everything done for her and just not feeling my own feelings. And so my body just said, nope, and started pulling right, pulling on these ligaments, pulling on my muscles and getting my attention. So I love that you’ve brought this up and that the fascia is going to be an ayurvedic medicine. It said that your body is the canvas of your mind, that your undigested emotions crystallized in the physical structure. So this is a really beautiful way of mapping that.

Jodi Sternoff Cohen

That, yeah, that’s exactly what I think happens. And you know, so many of us, like I have this one friend that calls it, like the turtle back like our fascia clenches, so good at eating all the right food and getting the right sleep and supporting the organs. But we don’t realize if something is kind of squeezing on top of it, it just limits our ability to unravel and heal.

Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C

Mm, my daughter’s in chiropractic school right now in graduate school. And she is constantly talking about this, about how it goes in, the issues go in the tissues and then just solidify in your musculoskeletal structure and that turtle back thing, man, I’ve been building that for years. So it’s like, okay, I need to really, and it’s just been something I’ve been consciously unwinding, ever since I was in yoga teacher training and had it pointed out to me, why are you protecting your heart? What are you protecting, how come you keep caving? It’s like, oh, okay. I didn’t realize I was doing that, we don’t, it’s unconscious as the body armors around that energy system.

Jodi Sternoff Cohen

Yeah and I mean, heart opening is huge. It’s interesting to me ’cause early on, I’ve been going to yoga for, oh, well my yoga studio just had their 13 year birthday party. So for 13 years, and it was just kind of my natural habit. Like the day after Max died, I’m like, I guess I’m gonna go to yoga ’cause I didn’t really know what else to do, but that was a pattern and I was pretty checked out and disassociated, but when they would do heart openings, it would be really intense for me. And I’m like, oh this is probably good for me. And one of the other things that I wish I had discovered earlier, but emotion code, and your hurt wall that is incredibly powerful and it’s fascinating, there are a couple people that are quite good at it and they’ll say like, oh you had this emotion when you were 43. And it like all lines up and correlates. And so that was another incredible tool. I don’t think there are a lot of things that are helpful. I wouldn’t say like I do work with essential oils and they’re very helpful and they’re not the only magic bullet, at EMDR was wonderful for unraveling trauma, yoga and any kind of movement was amazing, fascia work. I love oils on fascia detox because I do think when you’re releasing emotions, it really is like a physical detox. And the more you can support that with castro packs, binders in absence of bath saunas, the better, the faster you are able to move through it.

Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C

I couldn’t agree more. So let’s talk a little bit about the role of essential oils and healing and moving grief.

Jodi Sternoff Cohen

Yeah, I think it’s really nice because plants have, I almost think that they’re a higher consciousness. I think that we’re all everything on this planet in nature is kind of aligned to support you. And I do think that plants are almost there to help us process and move through things. Like we all know how healing it can be to have a plant-based diet and to add more vegetables to your diet. Terry Wallace pro solidifies that with her walls protocol for kind of rebooting autoimmunity. And I think essential oils are the concentrated essences of plants. So they’re just like a higher power, higher frequency dose. And you can use that. It’s almost like there’s that great quote about the man who was walking in the beach, and there were footprints beside him. And at a certain point he only saw one set of footprints and God said, that’s because that’s where I carried you. I do feel like nature can carry us and certain oils in particular like rose essential oil. There’s actually terrific research. A lot of this is anecdotal, or you’ll just notice like, gosh, when I smell rose, I feel better, but there’s a noble Laureate from Seattle named Linda Buck who was doing research on the olfactory receptors for predator odor. 

And what she found was certain receptors were more attuned to predator odor. And then she kind of took it a step further what might kind of calm that down and cancel that out. And it turned out to be roses. So you can stop and smell the roses. You can smell rose oil, you can put rose on your heart. One of the things that I like to do, I have a blend that’s designed to kind of help your nervous system, put you into the safety gear. Our autonomic nervous system controls our automatic functions, heart rate, breathing digestion, it’s designed to keep us alive. So if there is either physical danger or thought driven danger, and this can be a thought driven danger, like I was assaulted as a child. And so I’m always on the lookout for assault. And in my mind, I replay that and I’m constantly thinking I’m not safe. Your resources are allocated towards survival. And that means that you’re never kind of able to restore regenerate, repair, and even the way your brain thinks about things, the way we’re looking at the world, if you think you’re in danger, different parts of the brain are activated. 

It’s more kind of the reptilian back of the brain and not as much kind of your prefrontal cortex problem solving gear. So the more you’re able to calm your nervous system and recognize, okay, I’m safe. It’s safe to be able to contemplate options and not just look for the fastest way to flee or fight back. Then you are able to really, it’s almost like, if you’re trying to ride a bike, right, and you’re going up a hill and you’re in high gear, it’s gonna be much harder than if you’re able to downshift and kind of cruise up the hill. You’re suddenly able to problem solve, to feel safe, to feel like you have options to be able to take on like, oh gosh, my back hurts. My hip is tight, I wonder what this is. I wonder how I can unpack this. Oh, so the oil, sorry, the oil I use is parasympathetic ’cause the vagus moves the gear shift.

Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C

And I love that blend of yours, it’s so wonderful. And that’s probably the one that I prescribed the most to my patients too.

Jodi Sternoff Cohen

Yeah.

Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C

So do you wanna show, I noticed you just did this, but be a little bit more intentional about how to use it.

Jodi Sternoff Cohen

Yeah, so basically the longest nerve in your body that most people have never heard of is cranial nerve, number 10, your vagus nerve. And that can serve as the gear shift between sympathetic, I’m in danger and parasympathetic safety, starts the face of the neck splits is most accessible right behind the earlobe. If everyone just feels with me, you’ll feel a divot between the earlobe and a bone. That’s your mastoid bone. That is where your vagus nerve is the most accessible to the surface, which means it’s really just the easiest point to help stimulate it. From there, it winds through your throat, your heart, your lungs, every organ of digestion and detoxification, diaphragm like breathing, all yoga twists and turns, coffee enemas, taking probiotics, any point where the vagus nerve touches, you can use to stimulate it. It’s just that people, even things like breathing, which should be simple. You know, we do it every day, all the time for whatever reason, people find that hard. 

So I created a stimulatory blend of essential oils. It’s parasympathetic, clove and lime, and you can literally flip a bottle and put it on that point and it serves as a gear shift into calm, which is just a nice way. Especially if you’re carrying a lot of baggage and emotions like so many of us do, it helps you kind of feel ground. If you’re off to take a big test or you have something important that day, you might wanna eat like a healthy breakfast and get a good night’s sleep the night before just to put you kind of in the best place to take on whatever you’re taking on. Similarly, if you are looking to kind of chip away at the iceberg and work through some of your layers of grief or whatever emotion you’re processing, it’s helpful to feel kind of centered and able to show up as your best self.

Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C

Beautiful, so I just wanna point out to people that the parasympathetic blend is one of many, many, many offerings that Jodi has. And one of the things that I said in her bio that she’s really well known for is she’s a great investigator and bringing that information back. So it’s understandable for people and you’re giving viewers a free gift, right? The parasympathetic activation guide.

Jodi Sternoff Cohen

Yeah basically if you’re like, huh, that seems a little complicated. I am better reading things than listening to things. We have a guide that walks you through kind of the two branches of the nervous system and then gives 25 ways to activate your vagus nerve. One is as simple as using your tongue, like a paintbrush to paint the roof of your mouth, all things that you can do at home often for free, but just to help yourself kind of gear shift into safety.

Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C

Beautiful and then for those of you that have been listening to all these amazing experts and say, yeah, I wanna do the all access pass and I wanna make sure I have some of these practices and the information at my fingertips forever. And you’ve purchased that. Then Jodi’s also offering her new fascia guide.

Jodi Sternoff Cohen

Yes, our brand new blend, which is-

Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C

Brand new.

Jodi Sternoff Cohen

It is, I started, ’cause you start realizing I mean, it’s like anything, right? You’re an endurance athlete and you’re like, I’m making progress, but not as much as I want, what am I missing? Like you’re constantly seeing blind spots. So I do think because fascia’s kind of close to the surface. Well, it’s everywhere in the body, but oils are a really good way to help you kind of loosen, unfasten, be able to work through your turtle back or your hip pain or your low back pain.

Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C

Beautiful. Jodi, thank you so much. Is there anything else that we’ve skipped over that you want to mention about the role of grief and the energy body and how it affects the physical structure?

Jodi Sternoff Cohen

Well, I think, I mean, one thing that with all of the uncertainty in the world, I think it can feel, I think we can feel disempowered, and like we don’t really have choices or options. And so one of my favorite quotes is from Holocaust survivor, Victor Frankel, he says, “Between stimulus and response, there is a space and in that space lies our power to choose our response. And in our response lies our growth and our freedom.” And I just wanna invite you to consider that even, you know, you might turn on the news and see something that is horrifying and feel like you’re powerless to make a difference. You do have the power to kind of choose your response and to choose how you show up. And I do think that the more you can activate your parasympathetic nervous system, the more you’ll feel like you have options and choices and are able to control your response, which then, it’s kind of like if you catch it early, it never becomes terror trapped in your tissues or a sense of not being empowered.

Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C

It’s really important. And “Man Search For Meaning” was one of the most pivotal life changing books that I read when I read it as a teenager. I’m so glad that you brought Dr. Frankel into this ’cause it’s so true. And a lot of times people will land on vagus nerve stimulation as a way of healing trauma. And my response to that is it’s a great way to down regulate your response. But at the end of the day where we’re going, the compass setting is to not trigger in the first place. And so that’s that space that you’re indicating right there and the essential oil blends to be able to help open that space in wide and then a little bit to give you, okay, I’m going to now take that in practice. That’s just a beautiful gift. So thank you.

Jodi Sternoff Cohen

And it expands your threshold. You know, that idea of if your cup of water is completely at the rim and you’re trying to walk with it, you’re gonna spill. If we can kind of lower the stress level, then you know, life is bumpy. You never know when something unexpected is going to happen. And if you are feeling kind of resilient and grounded, it’s easier to navigate all those little bumps.

Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C

Thank you.

Jodi Sternoff Cohen

Thank you.

Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C

All right everybody, until next time, be well.