The Need For Healing

Trust your experience and have faith that healing is possible. You might use a ritual on this day to balance past, present, and future, finding and maintaining equilibrium. Sunday is associated with the masculine energies of the sun. You might use a ritual on this day to focus on one thing you’d like to achieve, tuning in to your own capacities. Of course, feel free to adapt the rituals to make them your own, as some will have more richness for you than others. Taking some time for short, regular, and meaningful rituals will ease your grief and enhance your healing. While Introduced has highlighted some possible pathways from grief to healing, it is in your interaction with the themes, ideas, and practises that healing will come to life. Trust your instinct and read for a connection with your own current state. As I say to my clients, you can borrow my hope until yours returns and strengthens. We may grieve when a relationship breaks down, or when we lose a job, a home, or a pet. Arguably one of the most powerful experiences of grief occurs in response to the death of a loved one. Grief is a natural phenomenon that is both a universal and yet highly personalized experience.

Living On The Edge Of The World

Across our lifetime we will grieve for a number of people, and while these experiences may share some qualities, each one is different. The grief following the death of a loved one has a particular character because of its permanence. It may cause such disturbance in every part of our being that we feel we will never recover. An early or sudden or traumatic death can disturb us even more. Unlike many other emotional states, grief seems to take on a life of its own beyond the event itself. These family or community expectations may or may not serve us well at any given point in our loss and healing. We need to give ourselves permission to release what doesn’t help and embrace those things that will best support us as we grieve and heal. To be human is to experience grief. It is the impact that we experience as a result of love and loss. Healing then is a process of mourning and integrating the loss, but it is an invitation that no one wants, as it’s only available to those who have suffered deeply and experienced the pain, distress, and upheaval of losing a loved one. How has the death of your loved one affected you directly and indirectly? Much has been researched and written about grief, and some approaches identify a number of stages in the process. It is most certainly not! Just as our experience of grief is highly personalized, so is our experience of healing.

An Ordinary Miracle

You might also seek the support of a trained professional such as a doctor or counsellor. There is no single pathway to healing, but all begin with noticing what is happening for you and deciding what would help you at this time. The grief experience is handled very differently in Western society. We are usually left alone at some point to get on with it, and often with no clue about what to do next. It is well known that if a broken bone is not treated properly, the chance of a full recovery with full movement is limited. The same may be said of healing from loss. You can do nothing and let time ease some of the symptoms, but healing with the intention to be fully alive yourself requires some attention. It lies at the base of the spine in the perineum. The whole experience of being alive changes with the death of a loved one. It can disturb our energy and displace our sense of security. What was once real and physically present is no longer. Now we remain, but life as we know it has shifted, sometimes in dramatic ways.

One More Try

Following the loss of a loved one, our energy may shift from confidence to fear, from intimacy to isolation, from grounded to adrift. We may experience health concerns ourselves as a result. Walk outside with bare feet on the earth or the sand or the grass. Work in the garden, or on the balcony, or even with your indoor plants. Digging, planting or replanting, pruning, fertilizing, or watering can connect you to the energy of earth. Visualize a deep, rich red. Play with it in your imagination until you have the perfect shade for you. Allow that to fill every corner of your mind, every part of your body, especially the base of your spine and your perineum. Wear red clothing or accessories to remind yourself of the deep human need for security and safety, and to connect yourself with that energy as you begin to heal. Use your breath to bring conscious awareness to your base chakra, breathing deeply into that space and drawing on its powerful energy. It calls us to deepen our awareness and intention as we heal. Write and repeat some of these affirmations that confirm your sense of security and vitality, or add your own. Life flows through me. I am safe and secure. Reinforce each affirmation by repeating it or saying And so, it is. Across time and cultures, poets, musicians, and artists have tried to express their grief through lamentations. Some time after my husband’s death I wrote in my diary, In the eye of the tempest I seek shelter. In this valley of tears, I long for rest. I don’t remember writing my lament, I do recognize my pain and my desire for it to stop. Spend some time with your sorrow and don’t be afraid of any emotion that flows. Know that your feelings will come and go. Only complete this task when you can take the time and space you need. Honour this time you have given yourself. By noticing your body, feet on the floor, chair holding you, and air moving against your skin.