Feelings of the Oneness

Feelings of unity with the Universe - indeed, with the Omniverse - these feelings are the beginning of the alteration that happens when one gets the procedure of relaxation the neckties of the human race and acknowledging the Oneness that Are All. These feelings may include visions, apparitions, sounds, smells and unusual experiences that have got not yet been encountered. Yet, this consciousness is only the tip of the iceberg to that which lies underneath the consciousness that is awakening.

As each individual moves more than than and more into the awakened state, more unusual experiences are liable to go portion of that individual's life. Energy coursing through the organic structure talks of its becoming alive - fully alive and sensitive to the frequences that dwell the word form and fluent out into the formless. There is the beginning of an intimation of remembering how the moving ridges of manifestation work and pulsation as the current flowings from the field of Beginning downward in frequence to the dimensions in which the word form resides. Such are the feelings and they can be accompanied with ideas of losing control, at hand disaster, even death. Indeed, the egotism gets to experience an egoic decease so it is not far off the mark.

During this time, others see the individual as off balance and in a state of chaos. Even medical treatment may be suggested. Yet, the natural course of study of what is being experienced is so much more than profound and there are no words to impart the state of being that he or she may be experiencing, often changing in each moment. Anger comes; a feeling of desertion, hurting and often suffering, physically, mentally and emotionally.

What is this torture that appears to assail those who are letting spell of the electric currents of the mass consciousness while seeking greater heights? Could it be as simple as the development of the consciousness itself as it gets to acknowledge its ain flicker of Godhead Essence? Could it be that world is created, destined for exactly this; that life have meaning in exactly these profound minutes of trial and pain? Could this ordeal be seen as pleasance and embraced with the love of the Open Heart?

Indeed, this is exactly what is being asked in these moments. As each 1 come ups to the crossing between being earthbound and otherworld-centered, he or she must step across that bounds - filled with uncertainnesses and awful expectancies - and touching the farther shore by setting ft on a human race that volition raise him or her into a space that cognizes no end and had no beginning. It is the end of the hungriness and the fulfilment of that longing which appeared to have got no end. The journeying have been worth the traveling and now the impulse is to convey others to this resting place, this topographic point of Godhead Peace.

As each of you step through these doors in your day-to-day life, cognize that the manner is always before you; that what you are seeking is what you already are and that the presence of the Godhead Maestro of your Open Heart takes you surely and safely to the shore that beckons you. Keep your eyes fastened on that shore and you will surely attain it, no substance the obstructions that look to be in the manner of your unafraid arrival. Your entranceway is assured and your way is secure. The way is through your Heart.

Having a Happy Birthday After a Loved One Dies

September 27th was my birthday. When my hubby left for work he kissed me and said, "Happy Birthday Hon." After three deceases in the household I did not believe I would be happy again. "I'll try," I replied.

Three deceases are too much. For calendar months I had been walking around in a fog or thought about the rudiments of life. Who was I? What make I do? Could I still make it? Would I be happy again? Daniel Goleman, PhD discusses the body's responses to felicity in his book, "Emotional Intelligence."

According to Goleman felicity additions activity "in a encephalon centre that inhibits negative feelings and Fosters an addition in available energy, and a quieting of those that bring forth unreassuring thought." Happiness also gives the organic structure a opportunity to rest, he says, and bring forths enthusiasm and energy for pursuing our goals.

I did not have got much energy lately. Three succesive deceases had generated 100s of unreassuring thoughts. I was not sleeping well. The fiscal and legal paperwork came in faster than I could process it. Though I made day-to-day "To Do" lists, at the end of the twenty-four hours the names were longer, not shorter.

Since I have got got been in crisis before I have good coping skills. I have got learned how to care for myself. Emmett Kelly Osmont, MSW composes about self-care inch a brochure titled "More Than Surviving: Lovingness for Yourself While You Grieve." "Your life is important," she composes "To recover a sense of control over your ain life, start by taking complaint of its way now."

What an empowering idea! I could take complaint of my birthday. Maybe I would not have got got a "Happy Birthday" in the ordinary sense of the phrase, but I could have a productive and meaningful one. How did I pass the day? I did some of the things I love most.

Cooking is one of my passions. Fall apples had arrived in the grocery shop store. I adust some apple-cinnamon muffins. The odor of the baking hot gems was cheering and took me back to childhood. I froze the gems for another day.

Decorating is another passion. We had needed a bedside tabular array in the invitee room for years. I ordered a tabular array from a catalogue shop and paid for it with recognition card points. It was almost like getting a tabular array for free. The tabular array will be delivered next week.

Volunteering is also a passionateness and I volunteer for wellness organizations. I was working on a nutrition outreach project. This was the perfect twenty-four hours to finalize inside information and compose the fourth estate release -- undertakings that took hours. When my hubby returned from work he asked, "How are you?"

"Fine," I said. "I had a productive and meaningful day. I worked on the nutrition project, ordered a bedside table, and adust muffins." My hubby wanted to take me out for dinner, but I wanted to remain home. We had an easy supper, clam chowder and apple pie a lanthanum mode, and went to bed early. I snuggled in my husband's arms, whispered "Happy Birthday," and went to sleep.

Copyright 2007 by Harriet Hodgson

Opportunities and Gifts From Great Losses

Loss is in the oculus of the beholder. Some losings are considered gigantic. Others are expected alterations to the position quo. More important, the same loss can be viewed quite differently by two people. Yet, all of us endure what we see to be great losses.

Regardless of the manner we see a specific loss in our lives, it can supply the scene for learning more than about ourselves and the human race in which we live. We seldom openly acknowledge that large losses, like the decease of a loved one, alteration us. Nevertheless, loss causes us to see the human race in a more than realistic way, to cognize that sorrow and unhappiness is a reality, and come up to recognize that that alteration is continuous.

But make we really take advantage of the lessons that loss teaches, the Negro spiritual and psychological development that is always available in transformation? As the hurting of your heartache gets to withdraw be unfastened to possible benefits. Here is what many have got learned that mightiness aid us better accept what we cannot control, and cut down self-imposed suffering.

1. The importance of interpersonal relationships. It is so easy to overlook how of import our interpersonal human relationships are until we are down, and friends and neighbours measure up to assist in a clip of need. We are often reminded that human relationships with others are critical to wellness and well-being; they are at the core of what do life joyful. The message is: foster your human relationships and give and accept support.

2. The importance of Negro spiritual life. Death and other great losings always do us to believe large inquiries like Why am I here? and Why did this happen? and How makes this tantrum into any plan? The hunt for significance in loss put bare our Negro spiritual side. We recognize that it is our deep interior life that is so of import in managing the hard bends in life. Many go aware of the strength, through faith, that tin be establish in a powerfulness greater than the self.

3. The importance of the small things taken for granted. The short walkings by the seashore, the odor of coffee, the sounds of nature, the sun and the stars often look more than gratifying and sometimes needed after great losses. We often are reminded of how inspiring and gratifying the simple things in life can be. The message: focusing on what you still possess to equilibrate your sorrow.

4. The hunt for meaning. Why make we have got to suffer? How can we suit our loss into some framework of understanding? Why did this loss happen at this time? Answering these inquiries is not easy, and sometimes replies cannot be found. More often meaning is found, and a new version of life is formed. Often old beliefs are changed and new beliefs adopted about what is really important.

5. The demand for silence and solitude. Being surrounded by many support people for long hours do cherished silence and purdah a welcome gift for many at the end of the day. It often goes a clip for replenishing energy, and thought about new precedences and ways that tin be followed in relearning a human race that have dramatically changed because of our loss. We can especially believe about the fact that life is so much more than than the civilization statuses us to believe it is.

6. The appraisal of our dependance on the individual or physical object of loss. Not infrequently, loss have us recognize that we had lost our personal identity as a individual by depending too much on the loved one or physical object of loss. Now we have got to repossess what we gave away at a hard time. Rebuilding personal identity and taking on new duties and functions is a major challenge that have to be met.

In summary, perhaps one ground we confront changeless alteration is to larn from and turn through our losses, to happen out who we really are, and not dwell on the surface but at a deeper level. Could it be that through agony we larn how great and resilient the interior ego is, that we have got been life a less than full life, and that we are more than than we realize?

Suffering through loss often raises our degree of consciousness to high we never new existed. It can take us to developing our ultimate potentiality as an individual, and in our ability to assist others. The challenge is to be unfastened to learning from all of the experiences life offers, even the 1s we would rather go through us by. The pick is clear: larn or endure without growing.

Can I Forgive My In-Laws For Not Letting Me Know My Husband's Last Resting Place?

Losing a boy is something I have got not faced myself. But I have got lost a husband. So we are talking about the same person, even though we are looking at the state of affairs from different angles. I am aware that my in-laws lost their first kid more than 40 old age ago. I lost my first hubby in the same twelvemonth that I lost two other household members.

They evidently decided that they would not ask for me to my husband's funeral and also that his organic structure was to be cremated without letting me know, allow alone asking my opinion. Three hebdomads passed before they sent me my husband's decease certificate. I have got never been given any ground for their behaviour. It was obvious to me that I was not portion of their family, even though I was married to their firstborn son. I think the blood neckties were the ground I was considered a outcast of the family.

I got the feeling that my sorrow was not good adequate for them. Even if I had lost more than household members in that year, they still would not have got understood my overwhelmingly heavy burden.

I cannot deny that forgiving them is not easy. But it is the lone manner I can put myself free from them and the past. By forgiving, I am willing to give up resentment, retaliation and obsession. If I don't forgive, I will be in the battle with them as long as I decline to forgive. I have got ceased to experience choler against them for an offence. I have got got got also ceased to believe about punishment.

I will not O.K. of what they have done, but I understand that by forgiving them mentally, I will be liberated and have a opportunity to travel on. There is no hereafter in the past. I make not have got to transport any more than guiltiness feelings that I was not good adequate as a daughter-in-law. Nothing will change what they have got got done, but I have the powerfulness to take whether or not to dwell in the past. I have got chosen to dwell in today's cherished moments. I am at peace with my memories. I have got said adieu to my in-laws.

An Extraordinary Experience That Eased the Burden of Grief

For over 25 old age I have got been studying the personal effects of the Extraordinary Experiences (EEs) of the bereaved. These events are spontaneous, not invoked, and those who experience them are convinced they come up from an outside source—their asleep loved one or a Supreme Being.

There are numerous positive personal effects from these encounters, not the least of which is the strong belief by the griever that consciousness lasts bodily decease and the loved one lives on. Following is an unusual electrical engineering that had three positive personal effects on the receiver in improver to the two just mentioned.

The receiver of this experience was a devoted married woman and helped her hubby through many calendar months of coping with prostate gland cancer. As she said, "Being present when he was dying was an incredibly profound experience that changed my life. However, I knew his clip was very short, and he would not decease in my presence, as he wanted to save me the sadness. He passed away shortly after I went place that last night."

In her ain words, here is her Extraordinary Experience.

"My electrical engineering occurred approximately 30 hours after Peter's death. I awakened around 7:00
a.m. and saw my 'Happy Birthday' balloon in my bedroom. He had ordered flowers
and the balloon for my birthday two hebdomads earlier. He hadn't gotten me a balloon for
old age but this 1 turned out to be significant. During the four years he'd been in home
hospice care, it hovered around the ceiling in the room where we spent our clip talking
and watching telecasting ('hanging out' he called it). This balloon had never left that
room before, and would have got had to travel up and down through two doors to acquire to
the bedroom—so Iodine knew it had to go on on its own.

When I saw the balloon that morning, I immediately knew it was a message from him that he had arrived at his destination, and wanted to give thanks me for taking attention of him. I went down a short hallway to our presence door to acquire the newspaper, and when I came back the balloon was in his bathroom. He had told me earlier that since his shower was better than mine, I should utilize his bathroom after he was gone. I felt the balloon was reminding me of that, so I took my shower there immediately.

The residual of the morning time the balloon would be in whatever room I was in, although I never really saw it move. I would just look up and see it with me. This lasted for a few hours, then it was over. The balloon lost all its air and to this twenty-four hours rests on a shelf by a jadestone works in my sunroom. I felt this episode was a minute of charming and joyousness in the thick of my new and overpowering sadness."

This experience was a major factor in how Marilyn was able to get by with her great loss. I asked her what was most helpful about it for her. She said, "The timing of the experience set the tone of voice for my bereaved process: Happy mental images (balloon, etc.) immediately linked to the sad 1s (Peter's dying moments). Also, the brush reassured me that his agony was over. Finally, the inside information of this electrical engineering seemed designed by Simon Peter to be a very personal and alone message for me."

These three points are critical to understand. Setting the tone of voice for grieving agency knowing that all is well, though sad, and all is not lost. Reassurance is an of import factor in accepting her loss (a major undertaking of mourning) knowing that his hurting is over. And finally, realizing the personal significance of the message adds to reassurance and her belief that love lives on.

Experiences like Marilyn's have got happened to billions of people in a assortment of different ways from sensing the presence of the asleep or having a vision to hearing the loved one's voice or experiencing a trial dream. The general populace is not aware of the frequence of these contacts or the grade of aid they supply to the bereaved. They stay another illustration of the enigma of life.

Healthy Grieving Techniques - How To Move Through the Grief Process to Resolution

The greater the love you feel for person or the greater the emotional investing in a given situation, the greater the sense of loss you experience when death, passage or calamity occurs. The depth of heartache you undergo is directly relative to the depth of love experienced, invested or needed. Grieving is actually an facet of love, and healthy bereaved is an enactment of love and remembering love.

The ground that anger, daze and denial disrupt and in some lawsuits halt the heartache procedure is because they take you away from love. That is what they are designed to make as protective mechanisms.

Here's the existent determiner about love and the heartache process—remembering, writing about and talking about love takes you directly into the pain. As this haps however, all of the unconscious defence chemical mechanisms designed to protect you from hurting are activated. This is where the anger, daze and denial come up in. The instinctual reaction of avoiding hurting is natural. If you let this to predominate however, you will never complete a bereaved process. We must be witting of our instincts, and enactment according to our wisdom.

Ultimately it is only a focusing on love that gives you the strength and depth of emotion necessary for moving into your pain, releasing your sorrow and completing the heartache process.

Here are some thoughts and accomplishments you can utilize to ease your ain heartache process:

-Understand that heartache come ups in waves. When the initial daze have on off, the first moving ridge might experience overwhelming. Fortunately, each moving ridge of heartache eventually subsides, just as moving ridges in the ocean do. You can therefore comfortableness yourself during each moving ridge of sorrow with the consciousness that "this too shall pass". The better you react to the moving ridges of grief, the more than quickly they go through and the sooner you will finish your bereaved process.

-The heartache procedure endures from a few calendar months to respective years, depending on the type of loss experienced. That agency the moving ridges will travel on to come up and go for that clip period of time. Fight them and they will just acquire stronger. Learn to travel with them and move through them effectively, and they will subside more quickly.

-Some crying tin be and even necessitates to be done alone, whereas facets of the heartache procedure necessitate that you make at least portion of your crying in the presence of trusted loved ones.

-You absolutely must cognize how to cry. Crying tin actually be seen as a skill, in that some people cognize how to make it, some don't, and it can be taught. Here are some exercisings to assist you shout if you have got trouble doing so:

--Go into a dark or dimly lit room, where you will not be interrupted. Curl up on a bed or on the flooring in a heap of pillows. Let your emotions and the sense experiences in your organic structure be your guide, they will state you what to make if you have got the sensitiveness to listen.

--Make a vocal sound that lucifers with the feelings of sorrow and hurting in your stomach, bosom and throat. This may come up out as a wail, a whimper, a howling or a roar. It is indispensable that you allow these sounds out, as they give you emotional release that otherwise is just not possible.

--Deep, long sobbing is the cardinal to powerful emotional release. That's what you're going for in the attempt to cry. Quietly leaking a few crying is better than nothing, but it won't acquire to the bosom of the matter. When you undergo deep loss your organic structure necessitates to sob, deep and long until you experience a release and a sense of relief. You may necessitate to make this respective modern times during the bereaved process. Sob happens as a sort of rapid coughing or convulsing beat in your belly, so the abdomen must be relaxed for this to happen. Relaxing your tummy and external respiration deeply can often ease crying.

--Sometimes there is a powerful layer of choler or even ramp surrounding sorrow. Because of this, choler release work may sometimes be necessary to let crying to start. I have got seen literally 100s of clients travel into crying after powerful choler release. The verbal statements that mightiness travel with choler release for grieving mightiness be "No, no, no…" Oregon "Why did you go forth me?"

--Grieving rites are extremely of import for those of us in civilizations and societies that make not have got them. Here are some thoughts of rites and ceremonials that may be utile to you, beyond the funeral procedure that most households utilize:

--Your ain private bereaved ceremonial will let you to procedure your feelings and move through your moving ridges of heartache on your ain schedule, requiring nil of
others. Following are some recommendations:

1. Go into a private space where you will not be interrupted.

2. Put on some appropriate music that volition remind you of the individual or that volition link with the feelings you desire to travel through.

3. Light tapers to put a sacred space, and to make a quiet and reverent mood.

4. Take out photographs, videotapes, audiotapes, cards, letters and memorabilia that incorporate or remind you of your lost loved one or of the state of affairs you are grieving. Topographic Point these around you on the flooring or on a tabular array in presence of you.

5. Talk out loud to the departed, or to anyone associated with your loss. You can also compose letters (that you may or may not direct to anyone still alive) expressing all of your feelings.

6. Stay in this space until you experience some sense of release or resolution. Understand that you may necessitate to make this respective modern times during your heartache process, or in some lawsuits 1 such as rite will be sufficient.

7. Ceremonies and rites that affect household and loved 1s also affected can be very healing. Some illustrations include:

--Releasing balloons in a parkland or floating a taper down a watercourse or river.

--Storytelling ceremonies, in which you and your grouping acquire together to trade memories of the departed. Be aware that if these narratives focusing on anger, guiltiness or denial they can make more than injury than good. While it is necessary to travel through these facets of grief, the intent of such as a assemblage is to concentrate on love, release, forgiveness, healing and letting go.

--Memorial services that include combinations of the above elements, for the intent of honoring the departed and the love felt by those left behind.

The attack outlined here can be applied to many sorts of losses. Here is a listing of losings which necessitate a time period of grieving:

-Death

-Divorce

-Loss of artlessness through physical or sexual maltreatment

-Loss of love through forsaking or rejection

-Loss of childhood through being required to take on too much duty too soon in life

-Loss of wellness through illness, hurt or aging

-Loss of occupation

-Loss of money through investing downswings and/or alterations in the economic system

-Loss owed to moving away from a place that you loved

-Loss of community because of a geographical move

You may be able to believe of other types of losings that you or others have got suffered. The of import point to maintain in head is that you make not have got to endure from these losings for the remainder of your life. You can take complaint by moving through your ain heartache to a point of peace and resolution, becoming wiser and stronger in the process.

Grief And Loss, My Story

I've been authorship these sorts of narratives for about 10 old age now. I started handing them out to clients in my therapy pattern to see how they would react. Their responses were typically positive. Those in heartache knew right away how their loss had affected them and they reported finding comfortableness here in these words.

A few old age ago, I establish out for myself what an impact these narratives could have got when I went through the heartache of losing my mother. That event tossed me into a state where unhappiness and loss were my chief companions. I stayed there for many months. Re-reading the narratives and contemplations brought me hope. They provided comfortableness when I turned to them. I was reminded that my gift for authorship had come up from above, that these narratives had arrived via "cosmic e-mail," and they could profit anyone, including myself.

At first, I couldn't understand why I had been "selected" for this. Then it occurred to me that, to this point, this had been my life theme. Seeking comfortableness for myself through my ain trials and trials had steered me towards guidance and therapy where I brought comfortableness to others because I knew how they felt. I "knew" these experiences from the interior out.

I'm not in those fortune anymore. My heart, which had been badly bruised in earlier years, have been mending nicely for some time. I had to allow travel of my private pattern because I'd given too much, and not conserved enough emotional energy for my ain needs. Burnout is a very tough lesson.

Here I am at this phase in my life, reflecting on what I've done and wondering where to travel next. These narratives and contemplations come up back to me now in a vastly different way. I see them as a gift to myself and to those agony through their ain losses. Having been there a few more than modern times lately, I think it's clock to share once again. My last large loss was my calling and, as a result, I've had to larn how to reconstruct myself into the individual I'm supposed to be now, as per the Cosmic Plan.

Currently, my life is more than about giving, caring and, yes, "receiving." That's a large word nowadays. So many of us workaholics were too busy slamming into walls to see the virtue of that one. Not to worry, I'm in good company. Thousands more people are colliding with their several walls these days. If it isn't work related "burnout," then it's the decease of a household member or friend. Climbing the ladder of success for hand clapping or that corner business office have lost its luster. So many people are now saying "I don't believe so, not anymore." All of those ends that "invite" and then "take us apart" are semblances of course. I, like so many, was seduced into believing that this was the right path; till we crashed.

This book is for "lovers," for people who desire to fall back in love with their Self, in the healthy sense, in the artistic and ingenious sense, in the manner that Supreme Being designed us. "In His Image" right? Well, so it states in the good book. Let's return a near expression shall we. Are we here just for ourselves, or to do a contribution? Are we here to soar up with the eagles, or to fire up like a falling satellite? What's our narrative anyhow? Let's inquire that and see what replies we come up up with.

Yes, let's look at ourselves more than closely and ask: "What makes Grief have got got got to learn me?" Let's human face it, when the bits are down and we don't have friends to attain out to, then we have very little. Because what Grief says, loud and clear, is: "You can't make this alone." And that is it in a nutshell. Let this book be your "friend" for now, while you travel out there and obtain some comfortableness and loving, the sort of friendly relationship that volition remind you: "You are not alone." He'll be there waiting for you, in whatever "shape" you require. Count on that and: "Believe."

Teenagers And Grief - How To Deal

You just got the telephone phone call - "Did you hear? ______ is dead!" After those first words, you may or may not have got heard the rest. The caller's voice may look to have got trailed off in a linguistic communication that you don't hear or understand. Those prickling words were all your encephalon could handle. No 1 is there, but you curse person just punched you as difficult as they could in the gut. How can this be? You just talked to _____ this morning! It can't be true. You get to cry, and then to scream. Then you pick up the telephone to seek and happen person to state you it isn't real.

Everyone grieves. Everyone experiences decease at some point in life. Some people see decease when they are young, some when they are old. So what do you, the teenager, so special? Well, physically and psychologically, you are special. You are different from everyone at every other age. One of the toughest things about the adolescent old age is that you experience everything modern times about a hundred. All the growth and the hormones, you just feel more. You are at the most sensitive topographic point in life, so when heartache happens, it hits sol hard. Another particular thing about you is that you have got this astonishing powerfulness to resile back from things that knocking you down.

There is hope for the teens who grieve. When decease hits stopping point to home, whether it is a household member, a friend or classmate, it do us recognize that we actually can die. It doesn't just go on to 'other people'. Our basic security acquires shaken, and for maybe the first time, we are afraid. We also experience the heart-wrenching emptiness where this individual used to be. The friends set together. We write, draw, sing, drama music, whatever conveys some kind of comfort. We experience agony, despair, loss, depression, or disbelief. It is of import to cognize that these feelings will go through in time. We must happen a manner to cover with the initial daze period, and then slowly get to set the pieces back together.

Teenagers are the absolute best at honoring their fallen blood brothers and sisters. The integrity and honestness they demo in these dark modern times excel what most grownups are capable of expressing. So now what make you do? Now you must grieve in your ain particular way, so that you may dwell a full and happy life. You cognize your loved one would desire it that way. But How?

There are some basic guidelines you must retrieve after a loss.

•Stay stopping point to those who share in your suffering. Clinging to each other is the best manner to cover with the daze of death. (Remember- even when we cognize person is going to die, we are never truly prepared for the existent event)

•Talk about it. Cry, boot and screaming if you necessitate to.

•Find A trusted individual to speak to about your feelings

•Try not to close the grownups out who seek to help. They necessitate to cognize how to assist you.

•Write, draw, sing, whatever is your manner of ego expression. Creativity is a perfect mercantile establishment for emphasis and emotions.

•Memorialize. Building some kind of a memorial, whether it be a scrapbook, a cadmium of your loved one's favourite songs, a butterfly garden, planting a tree, lighting a candle, watching their favourite movie, or wearing their favourite carpet slippers around the house, it is a very healthy manner to experience close to them. Perhaps putting together a photograph record album or a book for all the friends and household to subscribe and compose notes. These are all fantastic ways of helping to heal, and honoring the memory of the 1 you have got all lost.

•Expect the unexpected. You may undergo temper swings from unhappiness to rage, and everything in between. THIS IS COMPLETELY NORMAL, and it may travel on for a while.

You may happen you are experiencing overpowering anger. This is normal. However, it is of import that you happen a manner to cover with it so no harm is done before it passes. Hurting yourself or person else out of choler and heartache NEVER helps. It just do things worse. Anger usually come ups from fear, guiltiness or pain, underneath. Examining these possibilities with a friend may help. Sometimes professional may be needed for utmost uncontrolled fury until the crisis passes. There is no shame in asking for aid when you necessitate it. Look at what you have got been through!

Survivor's guiltiness is very common when person dies. The inquiry "Why them?" or "Why not me?" is common, especially when perhaps you were supposed to be in that auto and they went at the last minute, or you experience you should have got somehow been able to halt this. Guilt is possibly the most misguiding emotion we have. It is only utile to remind us about right and wrong. Too many modern times we experience guilty when we are absolutely not responsible. Reason these things out with another person. You will see things much clearer than if you allow it revolve around inside your head, and you are the lone individual answering yourself!

Ask for aid if you ever experience like you desire to ache yourself. If you cannot talking to your parents, happen an grownup you trust. PLEASE make not disregard danger marks such as as this! Nothing is EVER hopeless!

How Your Life Can Have Meaning after the Death of a Loved One

How can you find meaning in life now that your loved one has died? How can existence possibly have any purpose? It is common to feel that life has ended for you. When someone we love is no longer physically present, we are often haunted by despair, emptiness, and the lack of purpose.

Even though grief therapists know this is a common yet temporary experience, it is not common and temporary as far as you are concerned. It is too real and deeply painful to consider what the death of your loved one means.

1. The first step to take is at some point in your mourning is to decide that you will become restoration oriented. I cannot tell you when that will occur; only you can make the call. In short, you must form the intention of reinvesting in life despite all of the feelings inside that say, no way. You may not be able to do it today. Later, a little at a time, will do. However, it is clear that a loss orientation always leads to stagnation and increased unhappiness.

One of the secrets of human behavior is to discover that you can act your way into new beliefs and assumptions about life. Yes, act. You don't necessary have to start with the positive mental attitude everyone talks about. This happens in someone's life every day. What they never thought could happen within, suddenly changes due to their persistent make believe behavior.

Act as you wish to be is an ages old recipe for adapting to change. Hard work? Yes. Yet it always works, if you do one thing: keep acting "as if." This means acting as if you are where you want to be.

2. Embrace that which is unfamiliar is the second step. It is the familiar and predictable which gives us a secure feeling. The loss of your loved one forces you to face a new world, a new life, devoid of the presence of the person who added so much meaning to existence. You will have to face the unfamiliar, learn new skills, and reach out—or live a much contracted existence. That is a given. But you can approach the task with special motivation to look for ways to reinvest your emotional energy.

Here is a taste of what others have done. Take short or long trips to places you have never been. They can be places near your home or out of the country. Start sampling foods from other cultures. Some you can purchase in your local super market. Others can be tried in restaurants. Try a sport or exercise you have never done before. It could be Yoga, Tai Chi, boating, breathing exercises, or golf as starters. Never stop learning. There are thousands of things we have never done.

3. In welcoming the unfamiliar, don't be over-controlling. Let whatever you discover in your attempts to embrace the unexplored to play out. Don't judge too soon whether it's good or not so good for you. See what it fully offers by giving it much time and space to play its role in your daily life. Consider the satisfaction it brings and the interpersonal relationships it generates in your evaluation to make it a part of your new life or to abandon it. Let these events unfold to create a multiplicity of possibilities and wonder for your greater good. Study the possibilities carefully.

4. At root, you are searching for meaning in the death of your loved one and in a life without him/her. Realize how vastly important meaning is. It is the flywheel of life around which everything is organized; you are a universe of meanings and emotions. It builds and tears down, brings sorrow or joy, throws you into the past or causes you to become interconnected in a web of relationships. Changes in meaning can bring changes in your ability to cope; even your body will respond in healthier ways.

We act out and believe what is meaningful and makes sense. Meaning will change your life for good or for the worst—all on the way you choose to perceive an event. The miracle of it is that you can find new meaning for your life, let go of the old, and cooperate with the massive changes imposed by loss. For it is meaning that will keep you connected to your loved one, and learning to love in separation.

Don't forget, all of the above works if: you act as you wish to be, seek and accept the unfamiliar, and refuse to be controlling as you allow the new to play out. This will facilitate making a diligent search in your thought life for other meanings in the death of your loved one and in your life. What other meanings can you find?

Does the Work of Grief Ever Really End?

Are you wondering if the pain will ever cease, if the emptiness will ever leave? Will life ever have meaning again? You may not think so now, but the answer to all three questions is an unqualified yes. And there are millions of people who can vouch for that fact.

But that does not mean you will be your old self once again. Nor does it imply that you will be somehow totally free from the anxiety of your loss experience. There are a constellation of variables that determine the intensity and the length of grief. They range from the type of death, number of secondary losses, and degree of emotional investment in the deceased to your coping behaviors, health, social support system, and expectations, to name just a few.

What do we know about the length and intensity of grief work, that process we have to go
through to adapt to all of the changes imposed by the death of a loved one? Here is what will help you to arrive at your own answer to that question.

1. The intense feelings certainly lessen over time. That will be obvious. However, to put a time limit on how long they last is to dismiss one incontrovertible fact about grief—it is a highly individual process. So that great pain and emptiness can last days or weeks, depending on your individual variables.

2. You will also experience what may be interpreted as an ending to your grief, or at least a feeling that you are doing quite well—only to find yourself suddenly thrust right back to where you were a few weeks ago. This can be a very discouraging, albeit normal, occurrence. Some event may unfold where normally your loved one would have been with you, and you are brutally reminded of his/her absence.

What is often called the "year of the firsts" may include a number of these episodes. There is nothing wrong with feeling anxiety, anger, or a host of other emotions when this happens. It is not only normal, it is to be expected.

3. It is also quite possible that years later, when you have adapted to the physical absence of your loved one, a wedding, birth, graduation, or anniversary may bring a revisit of sadness or the need to cry and express emotions. Don't hold back on these feelings. They are a common result of memories and a part of life.

4. As said previously, grief work is a process of adaptation, or as many believe, a process of healing. That healing can go on for years with stops and starts that bring new awareness and views of life. In fact, there are a number of people who believe that healing never ends. (I have heard some say, once you grieve, you grieve forever.)

Perhaps we begin our healing attempts with our first major loss. Then with subsequent losses, we have to continue the healing process, learning as we go. Maybe adapting to change—or healing—is an ongoing or forever process. If it is, we need not make it an object of anxiety and give it unnecessary power to distract us from enjoying life.

So, does the work of grief ever end? The answer, of course, depends on your individual beliefs and interpretations. For some, grief work ostensibly ends at a point in time. For others, it is a matter of being revisited by grief. Whatever your belief, you can be sure each of us possess the inherent ability to deal with our losses. And, with a little help from our friends, make it through those early days of confusion and change.

Where it goes from there depends on our choices.

Grief is Not a Problem to Be Fixed

In a culture such as ours, death is often viewed as a malevolent aberration rather than the normal and natural outcome of being alive. Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of putting it off as long as possible, but the brutal fact is that we can't put it off forever. Sooner or later we will make that passage as will all those we love.

As sobering as the fact of death is, even more sobering is the impact of our own denial on those left behind following the death of someone they love.

In a culture that thrives on quick fixes, grief is often treated with impatience and scorn. This does a profound disservice to those who are grieving by instilling in them a vague sense of shame about their grief. It makes them question whether there is something wrong when they don't bounce back to "normal" after the funeral, as if the funeral were the end of it when anyone who has been through it knows, the funeral is just the beginning.

Worst of all, this cultural discomfort makes people who are grieving distrust their own experience. In my work with people who are grieving, I've heard way too many people doubt themselves, and worse berate themselves, because they can't "get a handle" on their grief. This distrust and denial of the process yields a predictable result...prolonged pain and incomplete healing.

Rather than seeing grief as the means to healing and embracing it as such, grief becomes the enemy. Grief is viewed as a problem to be fixed, something in need of healing rather than what it is...the means of healing. Grief is what heals us after a loss. Whether anticipated, sudden, accidental, timely or not, grief is the process through which we heal.

Maybe that sounds like semantic nitpicking but it is a vitally important distinction. Here's why: The problem is not the grief. The problem is the loss. It's the loss of someone we love that is causing the pain. Grief is the process through which we come to terms with that loss. Is it painful? Of course it is. That doesn't mean we need to fix it. The interesting thing about pain is that it increases when we resist it. This is true of emotional and physical pain. Tightening muscles around physical pain increases the experience of pain. Trying to block emotional pain intensifies the pain and sends it spiraling out of control.

Human beings are miraculous creatures. When we experience suffering, as in the death of someone we love, we have an innate capacity to heal from that loss just like we have an innate capacity to heal from a broken bone. Grief is every bit as natural to us as the knitting of a bone. There are certainly ways to support the process...writing, telling stories, creating rituals to name a few...which can be quite effective when used in support of the grieving process, not in denial of it.

When grief is denied, rushed, or scorned, the whole mechanism of healing ceases to function. We are designed to heal. We can't deny the process nor can we improve upon it. Grief, when we trust it, knows exactly what we need in order to heal. It is a most trustworthy companion when we possess the wisdom to follow it.

Empathy 101: What to Say to Your Upset Friend

The trauma resulting from my near death, passing of my mother-in-law, mother, father, and unborn son was a real strain on our marriage. Michael and I had married just 6 months before the losses began, and I felt robbed of a normal honeymoon period. Making matters worse was our drastically differing coping styles: I was openly a wreck while he did not express as much angst. This difficulty was compounded by the fact that I was in more anguish than he was. Michael, unfortunately, simply did not know how to respond to me, even if I was his wife.

It is now nearing the 8th anniversary of the worst day of my life—that day on which my father was crushed by a flying empty tank on the highway, I went into cardiac arrest, and our unborn son died. While nothing can be done to remove the horrid memory of that day, I'm happy to report that this loneliness…this inability to speak comfort to one another, is no longer a problem for us. However, the road to truly "being there" for each other wasn't randomly stumbled upon. My husband had to literally be trained on what to say, and I had to learn to give him some grace when he just didn't get it.

As I travel and speak, it is not uncommon for hurting people to approach me after the event. It seems these folks fall into one of two groups: 1) those wounded by life, and 2) those wounded by their seemingly inability to handle the hardship of their hurting loved one. Now several years later, I finally see that I wasn't the only one in turmoil back then. Indeed, only a truly sick person can stomach the sight of the one they cherish in pain. Watching in horror and not knowing what to do can be almost as hard as living the nightmare.

So what can be done to help your hurting friend? Of first importance is hearing the struggling person's story. We can assist them by repeating back what they have said with new clarity. The main goal is to keep the conversation from shutting down with statements that imply "This about me." People say this when they communicate, "I already know how you feel because the same thing happened to me," or "You hurt me too!" You can keep the healing process going if you avoid telling the other person that they are wrong or stupid. Phrases like, "This isn't so bad." "All things happen for a reason," or "God must have a special plan for you and that's why this is happening," will leave the person feeling invalidated. Such statements have been known to deepen the sadness, as this is the natural rebellion against such ignorant displays of insensitivity. It's a vicious cycle: the hurting expresses pain→ someone responds without empathy, usually without meaning to→ the pain is increased for both parties, and round and round we go.

Instead of making matters worse, we can ask for more information and agree that what is occurring is, in fact, very difficult. We can point to the good—both in them and in the possibilities for a better day. Hope is always present, but we mustn't rush the processing of pain.

And so here is a basic map for you—a little acronym you can think of the next time you come across a friend in pain. Remember it when you attend your next funeral. Use it when a colleague shares her devastating news. Memorize it for times when your spouse comes home feeling angry or depleted.

M. is for More—say something that will encourage the other person to keep talking. A thoughtful question will usually do the trick. Just make sure your inquiries aren't loaded with your own opinions, and you will have made a huge stride in being there for the one you care about. In short, find a way to get them to open up about their story.

A. is for Agree—As I sat on a four hour flight to speak on this very topic, I found it a challenge to find common ground with the atheist sitting next to me; however, it wasn't that hard once I made a concerted effort to find general themes we could agree upon. No matter how crazy the idea might seem to you, there is some aspect of the story you can identify with. If nothing else, you can say, "Yep. That is a problem. I have no idea what needs to be done about that, but I'm glad you are thinking it over," or "I agree that should not have happened."

M. is for More—repeat trying to get more information.

A. is for Agree—find another aspect of their experience that you can validate.

G. is for Good—point to something good about how the hurting person is handling the situation or a possible positive outcome that might be yet to come. Try "This must be so hard. I can't believe how well you are coping," or "I don't understand why this happened, but I'm looking forward to seeing the good that is in your future." I liked it when a friend said to me, "I can only imagine how you feel. I know I don't know if I could make it through this, but you obviously are." After you have heard your loved one out and have validated their experience and feelings, you will have earned the right to speak hope into their situation. Try this before doing the leg work, and they'll likely tune you out. The hurting person simply MUST be heard.

I call this little map that leads to empathy and healing "MAMA G," and I'm going to guess that the Brost household isn't the only one in need of her wisdom. Perhaps you would like to make a bed for MAMA G and let her move in with you. She might not do the dishes but she will extinguish blazing tempers and heal old wounds.

One thing's for sure, whoever you are, wherever you've been, wherever you will go, as long as you walk this earth hard times will come and hard times will go. For some of us, it feels as though the hardship never lets up. And yet, if we offer love to others and do it in such a way that they can feel secure in our presence, we might just heal together.