11- Good Grief

11- Good Grief

Even with an absolute understanding that life is eternal and that we can stay connected to our loved ones after transition, acclimating to the physical absence of someone you have spent the better part of your life with is tough.   The grief process is just that…a process.  Even for those with heightened intuition or obvious experiences that we remain connected, there is a necessary period of grief.  As Barbara Brennan’s work shows, energetic cords literally connect us to one another.  The deeper the connection, the stronger the cords.  At the time of a loved ones passing these energetic cords are literally severed.  Appropriately experienced, grief is the way of processing this separation and initiating the return to individuation. Good grief is a necessary energetic release expressed through the emotions.  Suppressing these emotions is as unhealthy as drowning in them. Unfortunately, many do get stuck in the most difficult phases of grief and do not process the energy necessary for healing.  For that reason I want to share an uncommon practice which not only transformed my grief but illuminated my world. 

Following Phil’s transition, from time to time an overwhelming sensation of profound loss would completely encapsulate me.  Anyone who has lost someone very close to them experiences this aspect of grief.  Unfortunately what is more uncommon, is something I experienced in the midst of these episodes of despair.  As suddenly as the overwhelming emotion of grief would come upon me, it would be lifted from me.  It was as if some invisible force literally removed a heavy blanket drenched in the weight of sorrow from around me.  Often my tears would stop in midstream.  The emotion wasn’t replaced with another feeling or thought, the heaviness was just lifted from me.  As a trained counselor and trained reiki master I knew the value in letting the emotion flow whenever and wherever it wanted to, so I wasn’t repressing the intense emotion.  It was quite literally being lifted from me.

The first few times this happened I was perplexed.  Alone in the guest room I was occupying at my daughters, I would occasionally burst into sobs that would cease almost as soon as they started.  Not because I was choking them back, but because the deep grief out of which those cries arose would unexplainably evaporate, much like a dream upon awakening.  All that I was ever left to deal with unaided was a gentle sadness that was manageable and natural.   

After a while, this phase was followed by another which was not only welcomed, but deeply intimate.  A soft introspective kind of energy began to stay with me.  It was a type of tenderness that would emerge as I began speaking about Phil or tending to the business at hand following his passing. It would sometimes include tears or tender emotions, but it had a sweet energy attached to it and I simply allowed it as it arose.  In the presence of a stranger or with friends I was quite comfortable aligning with this energy.  Much like an emotional reverence for all that we had shared in our life together, it was, in many ways, my initial avenue for remaining connected to him.  If I had to describe a feeling associated with this connection it would be an intimate gentleness or tender sweetness that only I could experience.  It was born out of our unique relationship and all that we had invested in it over the decades.  It was Phil, wrapping his presence around me.  This was good grief!

It was this connection that inspired me to write letters to Phil at the end of each day.  Just as one would write and mail a letter to a loved one without expecting an immediate reply, these letters extended my connection to him because it focused my mind in our eternal connection.   Where our thoughts are, our emotions follow.  I realized that the more I stayed focused in the present moment, bringing to it all that I desired, the more I aligned with the signature or essence of who or what I desired to connect with.  This was demonstrated through the letter writing.  Of course, I also talked to Phil all the time as if he were physically beside me.  We had loved our life together.  It was a quiet, simple life and because we were both such introverts, it was mostly solitary, which we enjoyed.  We had one another and were deeply connected in our intimate aloneness.  The type of shorthand that grows between spouses is palpably absent when one transitions before the other, and nothing prepared me for the space this left behind.  Talking to Phil and writing the letters each evening greatly filled that space for me.  Eventually he would reach through time and space and connect with me in ways that touch me even in the remembering.

Early widowhood was not something I had anticipated and after a while I found myself wanting to connect with others who could relate to it and sort of walk me through it.  Hospice kept reaching out offering grief support, but my experiences weren’t reflected in those groups.  I tried reaching out to an online support group for widows and widowers in hopes of sharing my experiences but I soon found out that no one in those groups was having the kind of experience I was.  Many were in deep grief…for years….stuck in that feeling that would be lifted from me almost as soon as it would arise.  As I tried to explain my experiences, the forums reflected that no one understood.  There simply was no framework for them to relate to what I tried to share.  Even among widows, I was without a community in my widowhood.  That’s when I intuitively knew that my experiences were the result of the compassionate non-judgement awakening practice Phil and I had used for years….and one that we had made a game of practicing together in the years before his passing. 

This practice stemmed from studying a variety of esoteric, psychological as well as scientific perspectives. Over many years I had pieced together a practice stemming from Eastern thought, Western channeled material, shamanic practices, as well as psychological and scientific theories I felt led to explore.  Each of these disciplines were teaching much the same things from different perspectives, and sometimes from a religious framework I didn’t personally feel the need for.  Together they formed a foundation of awakening through compassionate non-judgement with regard to life scenarios.  This brought an uncommon ease to life that I had not experienced prior to this practice. 

Having had many mystical experiences, the work of psychiatrist Carl Jung first captivated me.  His teaching around the subjects of projection and deep introspection had a huge impact on me.   Then came the Taoist and Buddhist teachings of non-duality, and self-inquiry which fit perfectly into the Jungian framework I was exploring.  The work of pioneers like Eckhart Tolle, Bruce Lipton, Larry Dossey and the like also influenced my understanding. Next came channeled material from various sources along with the teachings from A Course In Miracles and the Hawaiian tradition of Ho’Oponono.  It has been my experience that exploring the teachings that show up in response to my ongoing sincere request to be ‘led into all truth’ is my journey to Self-realization as source-realization. I literally follow the guidance placed before me, weighing it as I go for resonance and then trust where it leads.  In this way I have not gotten bogged down in any ‘path’, tradition, religion, philosophy or dogma.  Instead I have been able to grasp what served my truth-quest while remaining open to further lessons.  I do not adopt beliefs!  Anything I believe…and I mean anything, can greatly limit the communication between my larger aspect or higher wisdom and my physical expression of self.

There are many sources and avenues to explore, and these are just some of the ones I was guided to piece together based on my experiences.  I have come to understand the value of expanding intuitive awareness for the support it lends my own higher mind guidance.  When I nurture this connection it grows.  When I allow myself to be externally guided, this connection diminishes.  Creativity is one conduit for nurturing this intuitive connection.  It has always fostered an avenue through which guidance can speak to me and teach me.  Outside material then appears in a timely fashion to serve a supporting role to the intuitive nudges I experience.  Traditional meditation has never spoken to me.  Its passive nature is not my preference for journeying nor do I experience it as an avenue for truly moving into Self-realization. 

In a nutshell, this is my practice;  I understand that everything is a projection based on individual perceptions.  Therefore, I take responsibility for mine, choosing to see everyone extending either an extension of love or a cry for love.  This helps me move away from judgment. I can then embrace whatever emotionally triggers me as though it is simply a reflection of something I have the unique perspective to heal.  From my individual perspective of duality or separation, I take full responsibility for what I am projecting into my awareness, then bring that situation into the healing energy of compassion.  This transmutes (converts) any ‘negative’ energies that were triggered in me, dissolving them and shifting me toward a state of non-dual wholeness.  This heals the fragmented aspects in myself as an individual, and energetically contributes to the healing of the collective.  My experience is that this process also shifts and collapses difficult timelines and, as it did for me, greatly reduces suffering in those times of grief or loss. From this perspective I am opened to further guidance from my higher wisdom and led into all truth, which has been my focus in this lifetime.

We have been conditioned in western society to associate the length of one’s grief to the depth of one’s love.  My hope in sharing the way my grief was seemingly supernaturally lifted because of the practice I had used for years, is that others may benefit from such a practice or from the resources I used.  I would also like to validate the awakening aspects involved in such practices.  Phil and I both felt that our journey through his unexpected illness and terminal diagnosis was greatly cushioned because of our shared practice of compassionate non-judgement. We also felt that a loving marriage fostered a thriving survivorship.  We spoke of this before his passing and I can still recall his loving countenance and peaceful assurance that following his passing I would be okay.  I believe I am doing our marriage of twenty-two years proud by carrying forward all that he gave me.…and continues to give.  His presence in my life following his transition has been unquestionable.  In life, we knew ours was the road less taken.  I know that is still true as I continue my journey.  It takes me places I find impossible to share with those who simply can’t relate to that which is beyond the physical plane.  This doesn’t make me special, it just places me in the minority as one who has consciously undone much of my programming in an effort to experience self-realization as source-realization in this lifetime.  I share my stories in an effort to share myself, my journey and my experiences with any who might also desire such realizations.  There are lots of areas of my life I haven’t mastered, but grief is not one of them. I hope sharing my experiences helps those looking to end the suffering that often accompanies the loss of a loved one.  One of the truest teachings I have ever personally experienced came from A Course In Miracles (ACIM) and it goes like this…. “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”

12- Staying Connected

12- Staying Connected

Unexpectedly widowed at fifty-six, a series of beautifully guided, synchronistic events, had me living at my daughter’s home just prior to, and following, my sweet husband’s untimely passing.  A few weeks before his transition, knowing it was close, Phil and I made an agreement to stay connected.  Our beliefs supported this idea though neither of us knew just how we would pull this off.  Therefore we decided he would be the one to let me know just how that was going to happen once he ‘settled in’ beyond the physical.  

Several weeks after Phil’s passing I was writing one of my evening letters to him in my journal.  This was a practice I had started after his transition to ease my grief and move into a new way of being with him.  It really seemed to help me find ‘us time’ to share my day with him.  But it wasn’t a two-way street and I really wanted that.  Since we had agreed before his passing to keep in touch,  it dawned on me to give him a symbol to use to let me know he was around.  Dragonflies had always been a personal totem for me and was even the logo I used for business in the form of my initials.  This seemed the perfect symbol.  As I wrote the letter telling him to send me dragonflies if he was around, I also wrote how difficult this might be since I was most always inside.  Not long after I put my letter away the phone rang.  Lo and behold, my three year old grandson was put on the phone to tell me about his new temporary “dwagon-fwy”  tattoo.  I laughed and cried and excitedly shared the news with everyone.  Phil was in touch!

Lighter and happier, the next day I shared the news with a girlfriend as I accompanied her to an appointment.  As we sat together across from the man she was seeing, he began questioning me rather than my friend.  I explained that I was just accompanying her, but still he asked me a bit about myself and my work.  As I explained my work, a look of excitement came over his face and he reached beneath the table he was sitting behind, pulled out a rather large book and said,  “Oh, you have to read this!”  A huge dragonfly illustration adorned the cover of the book he held up, and my friend and I could hardly contain our amazement.  The book, as it turned out, addressed many of the esoteric based questions I had been asking my late husband about in the letters I wrote each evening.  This was not only his way of answering the questions, but of saying hello once again.  I know this, because as I went to purchase the book that evening, the edition now available had a new cover….without the dragonfly!  Had I not gone with my girlfriend, I’d have never seen that edition let alone been directed to it for some of the answers I sought.  I have since learned how our loved ones can inspire our thoughts in order to align us with such synchronistic events.  This is exactly what Phil had done!  And he wasn’t through yet.

All of a sudden I began hearing from my family about their own unusual dragonfly experiences.  My mother, who had become widowed only a day before me, had a dragonfly visit her patio daily that she had never encountered before. This went on for a good week or more.  My sweet niece, for the first time she could recall, not only had a dragonfly appear at her home, but it perched itself on her shoulder, which she couldn’t wait to tell me about.  Dragonflies randomly appeared to my daughter and my grandson’s mother around this time as well.  But no dragonfly dance was as profound as the one I experienced a year following Phil’s passing.

Prior to his transition, Phil had never expressed one bit of concern about my life without him.  When I would say how much I was going to miss him, he would simply reply “You’ll be fine.”   For twenty-two years we had done absolutely everything together and loved the introverted cocoon we had built around our life.  Imagining life without him was impossible.  But now, as I look back, I wonder if he intuitively knew something I didn’t.

About a year after Phil’s passing, I went to dinner with a man I had met through yet another series of profound synchronistic events.  Such alignments had become almost a way of life and I needed only to follow the clues scattered like breadcrumbs before me.  Seated at a window overlooking a lake, my mind turned to Phil.  He had loved the water and whenever I am near it he always comes to mind.   I suppose it’s natural, after a long marriage, to wonder if your late spouse approves of your life moving along with someone new.  Having had no doubt, that Phil had a hand in arranging our meeting, as I sat there I wondered what he thought.  At that very moment a huge swarm of tiny dragonflies arose from the lake right in front of the window where we sat.  Hundreds of tiny dragonflies circled and danced outside the window the whole time we were there.  For me it was Phil not only acknowledging his approval, but taking credit for the matchmaking itself, saying….  “See, I told you you’d be fine.”  

Dragonflies were not the only way Phil communicated.  One day, not long after the phone call from my grandson about his timely tattoo, I was in my bedroom at my daughters house tidying up.  I was talking out-loud to Phil as I always did, telling him we needed a better system.  Dragonflies were great for saying hello but I needed something more.  As I continued to talk to Phil about ways we could connect, I reached for the remote and turned on the TV.  Again, perfect timing!   Just as I turned on the TV a woman on the screen was demonstrating how one could use a pendulum to connect with their deceased loved one.  The series, which I had watched countless times, had never even remotely shown anything metaphysical….let alone a clip about connecting with a deceased loved one.  Phil had done it again, and so I reached for a chain that held beautiful handmade glass bead Phil had once bought me.

In the years since his passing I have learned how easy it is for our transitioned loved ones to inspire us with guiding thoughts toward things they want us to know or experience.  The pendulum proved to be a great tool for ongoing communication and greatly reconnected me to Phil on an emotional level in that first year following his transition.  I rarely use it to connect with him today as we are quite literally on a different wavelength and communicate differently.  However, I do use it, and have taught others to use a pendulum, to regain a physical connection to those who have transitioned.  I can’t tell you how many times I have held it and simply asked Phil to use it to ‘hold my hand’.  For us that means the pendulum will spin in a circle with quite an energetic pull as I hold it.  This worked like magic to lift my spirits in the first year following his passing, because the physical absence was so profound.  

Since Phil’s transition I have encountered three separate mediums who have connected with Phil and given me confirmation of messages I intuitively received from him, without me sharing the tiniest bit of such information with them, including his existence!  This initially helped me to trust what I was picking up.  The two mediums I spoke with after I met my new partner even stressed that Phil was taking full credit for having put us together.  I had also intuited this because of the synchronistic alignments that happened to arrange our meeting.  This made me smile and appreciate how he was even taking care of me from the non-physical.  Mediums are great for tapping the lower planes if you can find one with a good track record.  There are lots of charlatans however using something called ‘cold reading’ to appear to have a connection, so, if you are inclined to use one, do your homework.  But, trust me, there is nothing like having your own ongoing connection. Six years into his transition I experience Phil very differently these days.  A couple of years ago my new life partner became my husband, and while he fully embraces the connection I have to Phil, it has become much more subtle. It is my sincere feeling that this subtlety is how Phil honors the life I live today.

15 - More Than Meets The Eye

MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE

My father’s experience in the last days of this life were proof that life will surprise even the toughest skeptic.  Not one for metaphysical or spiritual beliefs, my dad was intrigued by science.  While he believed their was a power greater than himself, he didn’t wrap this notion up in myths or stories.  He was a hard working, practical man.  It was in fact, his journey into agnosticism during my early teens, along with his exploration and abandonment of religious philosophy that laid the groundwork for my own fascination with exploring the nature of spirituality.  I also watched him struggle and overcome a family history fraught with alcoholism.  So with more than thirty-five years of sobriety at his passing, it was also his reaching out for help that inspired my career in counseling.  

15- More Than Meets The Eye

My studies and my own personal growth work led me deeper and deeper into questions about consciousness and the meaning of life.  As my spiritual journey filled with multi-dimensional awareness and mystical experiences, I explored energy work and became a reiki master. My sister followed a similar path and we, along with my mom often spoke of our metaphysical experiences despite my dad’s scoffing.  Even though he was highly intuitive and very grounded in nature, he thought our take on things mystical was foolish.  However, from his deathbed in the last days before his transition, he began to have experiences that would change this.

As my dad neared the end of his life he was in hospice care in his home.  From his bed he began to see pets and loved ones long crossed over. I gratefully managed to get away from my dying husband’s bedside for a few hours in time to be with him before his passing.  I was able to tell him what his life had meant to me and all he had taught me through witnessing his journey.  This meant a lot to me but what has meant even more is what I experienced at the close of my dad’s life.  As I sat close by his side, terribly weak and only able to whisper he asked, “What are all these people doing in my house?”.  Since only a few immediate family members were there, I said, “Dad, you are seeing things that we can’t see.”  He looked straight into my eyes and with wonder in his, he exclaimed, “I think I know that!”  It was a statement that not only acknowledged what he was experiencing, but that he now knew for himself that there was more to life than meets the eye. A mostly unseen world that eludes us unless we are open to it surrounds us all.  It was wonderful to watch him accept this awareness.  In his last days he knew death was not an end.  His life would continue in other dimensions and he would indeed reach out to us from there, as my mother now experiences continually.

I was so grateful for these hours with him; for witnessing such a profound transition at the closing of his incarnation.  Once again, watching another of my father’s life experiences, shaped and strengthened my own journey.  We all have an opportunity to come to such realizations at the close of our lives. Some of us, those who desire to awaken before death, will experience our multi-dimensional nature at will.  This is the way of true self-realization, stepping not onto a path, but directly and experientially into our true essence.  I have had and so many personal experiences of this expanded state that I have no fear of death what-so-ever.  I know it simply as a transition from one state of being to another. I am grateful that in his last days my Dad began to experience this awareness as well.  My brother was with him as he departed this realm and the story he shared with me about his transition was quite fantastic and other-worldly. My mom is visited by him often and she has told me of seeing him and also waking to him cradling her in his arms. My mom’s sister also had a vision of her husband following his passing and my grandmother was connected to many of her relatives after their passing.  I share this to emphasize that life does not end and death is a fallacy.  We move from physical expressions, yes but this is not death.  The more we embrace this truth the more we can remain in contact with one another following these transitions. I have heard and experienced countless stories from people who have done just that.  Hopefully we are moving into a time when this will be the norm and we can let go of our conditioned ideas about death.