Grief is itself a medicine. - John Cowper
Embrace your grief, for there your soul will grow. - Carl Jung
Before Christmas you may have noticed an update I posted in social about flow, grief & my takeaways. I’m finally building upon that post, and sharing a little deeper in case it is helpful to you, dear reader.
I’m always paying attention to patterns & grief has been a big recurring theme in sessions lately, so I’m inspired to write this blog to help you shift the energy you may have with grief.
For the brief back-story, I had enrolled in some intensive business training back in September. Between this new training, seeing clients, & all the energetic training I dedicate myself to & immerse myself in year after year, I was busy! And loving it!
I was in the beautiful flow of life, loving learning & progressing, sharing my new skillsets with clients and enjoying having impact in purposeful & fulfilling ways. Then my dad suddenly passed away exactly 1 month after his 80th bday.
Grief hit with the force of freight train. And that surprised me. I didn’t expect grief for an absent parent who wasn’t at all a positive force in my life.
What I’ve learned through it all, and what I’m called to share with you, is that grief is layered. It helps to understand the layering as you move through grief, or else it can hold you hostage & stagnant. We tend to be hard on ourselves telling ourselves we should be through this, or doing this, that or the other, but once you understand the layering involved with grief, you understand to be more gentle with yourself & allow yourself time to move through the layers. These layers may extend further back than you’ve ever entertained or imagined before.
My intention & my hope is that by sharing my story, you’ll find ways to care for yourself through your grief journey like your very soul depends on it, because it does. Your purpose, joy, serenity & freedom are worth continually moving through it. You are worth it.
My Takeaways For You
The death of my dad did not really impact my life in any noteworthy way. If anything, it brought peace to decades of harm and closed the book on managing everything that a Power of Attorney & Executor does.
But I still experienced grief. For the childhood I had, for the childhood I never had, for the relationship I had, for the relationship I never had, for the effect it has had on family & how I view family, to witness what became normal life for him in his last years, for the Mount Everest of never-ending things he made me endure time & time again, and for never coming to any kind of closure. I had no contact with my dad for nearly 5 years before he died. I don’t regret that – he left me no choice. I instead chose to be the best damn POA I could be, despite it all. But it is still a sad story.
At some level I even had grief for the entire health care system, how so much of it is crisis-management, and so little of it sees the full picture, the full story. And then even further, at some level I had grief for general society and all that goes on & is just accepted in this world.
This is my example of layering. Grief is not a single unit – it is multifaceted. So while a current life situation may trigger grief to come forward, it is worth diving deep to understand all of the facets of grief that are being pulled to the forefront now & coming to the surface for you to process & get more free of.
My Inspiration For You
We are remade in times of grief, broken apart & reassembled… It was through the dark waters of grief that I came to touch my unlived life.
Where there is sorrow, there is holy ground. When we approach with reverence, great things decide to approach us.
Grief offers a wild alchemy that transmutes suffering into fertile ground… wearing away whatever masks we attempt to present to the world.
These are excerpts by Francis Weller from The Wild Edge Of Sorrow that really resonated with me. It’s not lost on me the fact that I’ve worked through so much grief & layering, and am now just days away from launching the I Want It All™ program. It’d be fair to say this program has been years in the making – ever since I closed Within Physical Therapy (which also had layering of grief).
Through my experience, both personal & professional, I highly recommend you give yourself permission to feel grief, to explore the layers, to take the time you need in a society that is unrelenting in its pushing for doing & progressing. Sometimes you need to slow right down to then speed right up. If you avoid feeling grief, it will haunt you in the forms of depression, anxiety, despair, sleeplessness. Take your time & feel. Like everything, you cannot get free of it by thinking. You must feel.
But also – super important – keep in mind your vision of where you want to go. What’s the wish you’d make upon a shooting star? How is your destiny calling to you? What does your soul need to be lit afire? Yes, feel all the nuances of loss & grief, but in doing so, frame it all as fuel for the grand step you’re about to take on your journey. What do you desire most to bring into this world? What’s your something new & fresh?
Grief is part of being human. So is joy. You cannot fully embrace one without the other. What joy do you desire your grief to fuel?
And for God’s sake, be kind to yourself through the process. It takes a rare soul to feel deeply. It’s a condition of society to just be so busy we have no time to feel.
You are rare & so needed here. Keep fighting your way through. On the other side is your dream life awaiting you.
Need some help?
In your patience, is your soul. – James Hillman
Love & Light,
