Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the
moment and making the best of it without knowing what’s going to happen next.
I really wanted to be freed from the endless suffering the
brain can create when I keep going back to second guess my actions. Truly, this
second-guessing is wasted energy. These thoughts are a non-thing, something the
mind creates.
Why you ask?
Because we
are human, the left-brain has a field day analysing. Try not to analyse too much when you’re
grieving it can put you into a downward spiral.
When we are grieving the present moment is our friend. I
know this because it is what helps me now....
When you are beating your beautiful self up, please go into
your heart. Sit down, put your hand on your heart, close your eyes, and
breathe, just breathe, slow down the breath slows down the busy mind.
Losing a loved
one is so traumatic no matter the age, changing your life forever.
Nurture
yourself!
As you sit please bring the
most loving memory of the loved one into your heart. Continue to breathe in and
out slowly.
When you think of a loving memory, bring in all the senses
too. The smells, the FEELINGS, laughter, warm smiles, hugs.
See the colours of
the memory and even what you may have heard.
Recall that life, and the gifts
that came with it.
You can change that
downward spiral; get out of that loop in the brain. As with any new practice
take your time with this.
If the mind wanders gently bring it back with the
breath even if you have to say the words I am breathing in… I am breathing out. All this little mindful exercise does is slow
down the brain, refocusing into the present moment.
I’ve been thinking about it because something occurred to
me:
When I was born, I became a daughter.
When I was two, I became a sister.
After that time, I became a friend and a student, many times over.
As an adult
I became a spouse, and then a mother, and then a teacher.
I am still, and will
always be, each of these. Once you assume these roles you have them for life,
even when you are not actively playing them.
When I am talking about critical
thinking to my friends, I am still a mother.
When I am comforting my
son, I am still a daughter.
When I am walking with a friend, I am still a
spouse.
As I am writing these words, I am still a sister.
To live means that I have to grieve, in whatever way grief
shows up every day. Grieving is now part of being me.
It does not define me any
more than my other roles define me, but it is an essential ingredient in the
recipe of who I have become.
Without it, everything would fall in on itself,
like a cake without leavening, and I would be diminished, neither fully myself
nor fully alive.
There’s this idea floating around that to bring grieving to
a close should allow love and life to flow as before, unburdened, but to me the
opposite is true.
Once it begins, grieving feeds into living like water from a
new spring feeds a stream, then a river, then the ocean.
It must flow freely to
allow life to continue. To shut it off is to slow life to a trickle. In fact it
seems that the more authentically we can experience grief’s ebb and flow as it
comes up, the more we are able to welcome everything that life still offers us.
Grieving in some form will always be a part of me now, as I
am always a mother, always a daughter, always a sister.
So yes, I’m “still”
grieving.
That means I’m also breathing, laughing, crying, thinking, striving, and living.
Just help me face what I feel rather than shut it off or turn away...
love light and peace
ps/smoh
