Everyone Needs to Know How to Overcome Loss, Grief and Thrive (Ebook)

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Introduction

Unlock the secrets to triumph over loss and grief, and embrace a life of thriving. Unfortunately most of us grow up not understanding the mechanics of loss and grief, so when we experience it we suffer.

In order to effectively overcome loss and grief we need to understand three crucial insights.

• Firstly, the nature of Life and how it works.
• Secondly, the mind-body connection and how the mind and body interact and profoundly influence each other.
• Thirdly, our core essential needs and how to fulfil them.

If you’re grappling with profound loss and grief, my heart goes out to you. It can be intense. These emotions are universal, but they need not define your journey. This guide is your beacon, illuminating the path to understanding loss, grief, and the art of healing.

One of the most important principles to honour in helping you heal is to be super kind to your body and mind. You will discover extraordinary benefits in this.

Grief and loss can come in so many forms. For most people it is a huge part of their human experience. It doesn’t just arise with the death of a loved one or someone we were close to. It is very common in relationships and other areas of Life.

• The loss of a special relationship, which could be a boyfriend, girlfriend, partner, friend, family member or a special pet.
• The loss of good health or capacity whether it is our own or a loved one’s.
• The loss of a job, money, a precious object, a great opportunity, a cherished dream or one’s reputation.

Most of us will have heard the saying “what we resist persists”. It is credited to Carl Jung. An even more profoundly insightful expression is “what we resist intensifies and persists.”

As we humans grow and evolve, we resist less what comes to us. Those who are very fortunate get to the place in their lives where they don’t resist anything. They are fully open to Life in all its forms.

The relationship with someone close does not stop when they die, it is transformed. As Mitch Albom from the classic popular book and movie Tuesdays with Morrie said, “Death ends a Life, not a relationship.”

In any relationship what you focus on is enlivened. In the best relationships the focus is much more on the beautiful, positive and supportive qualities of the other person. This is how connection and love grow, and we want love to grow in our hearts. When we focus on what we don’t like about the other person it creates disconnection.

Choose to commit to focusing on all the gifts the person who passed away brought into your Life and everything you valued and appreciated about them.

Urgent action—focus on everything that helps you love and feel grateful for the one who has passed. If you feel guilty about anything you did or didn’t do, take any appropriate action to bring balance. For example, if you wanted to repay something, you could do so for a friend or family member of the one who has passed. Then, trust that the one who has passed would be at peace with this. You can choose to move on.

Loss and grief can manifest in a myriad of ways. There is a huge variety of experiences that can activate it. The most obvious one is the death of a loved one. When it is sudden and unexpected it can be much more intense. This can include the loss of anyone from pregnancy through to childhood and old age. I have experienced many losses in my life, including the loss of so many family members and friends.

I was very blessed to be able to share much love and gratitude to my father and mother in their preparation for death. I was also able to dedicate special spiritual practices for both of them in their preparation for death. My mother passed on five and a half years after my father. Rather than suffering from any loss or grief I strongly felt profound love and the extraordinary gift of their lives.

For me, the most dramatic deaths have been the sudden and unexpected passing of my beloved brother, a much-loved uncle, and my adored young son. My son was a fit and healthy eight-and-a-half-year-old when he fell from a height of around three metres, suffering a brain injury. I was blessed to spend the last 22 hours of his life by his side, connecting deeply with his inner essence and loving him as he transitioned. Through that experience, I learned that suffering isn’t inevitable after the sudden loss of a loved one. When love and connection take the lead, they can free you from suffering.

Many people suffer the loss of someone who hasn’t died but has played a significant role in their Life—whether a partner, friend or family member. Others deeply feel the loss of good health or physical ability, whether their own or a loved one’s. This can also extend to struggles with mental health.

At the heart of trauma, depression and anxiety lies loss—the loss of connection to Life and the ability to be present.

People can also often feel great pain when they lose a dear pet, a job, money, a precious object, a great opportunity, their reputation, or experience the loss of a cherished dream. In our family, community or nation we can feel different types of loss. Community and national loss and grief can be very strong around war and other natural disasters. There are so many ways we can experience loss and grief.

People can react very differently to the experience of loss and grief. Some can experience intense and ongoing emotions including shock, sadness, feeling overwhelmed, denial, guilt, regret, blame, anger, anxiety, isolation, loneliness, despair, emptiness, numbness, shame, disappointment, and helplessness. Some who are experiencing intense loss can also experience panic attacks, brain fog, sleep disturbance, a weakened immune system, headaches, and gut issues, amongst other things.

When we are caught in strong loss and grief, we are in the dark and not seeing things the way they are. While loss can plunge us into darkness, it’s within our power to open to the light and emerge stronger, more connected to the essence of Life itself. Every experience of loss provides us with an opportunity to learn, grow and evolve, and connect more deeply with Life. If you are religious it provides the chance to connect more deeply with God.

Remember, for the famous, wise, awakened thirteenth century scholar and poet, Rumi, “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”

Imagine a Life where you have fully opened to the light. Then love forms the bedrock of your existence, where fear holds no sway. This means you don’t suffer from loss and grief. You stay open and don’t close down. Unfortunately, we live in a society where we are conditioned to suffer and close down around loss and grief.

Early on I learned how important it is to feel sensations in your body when experiencing strong contracted emotions or feelings. Initially I learned this in meditation. However, I also realised how important it was to feel them at other times.

Unfortunately, very few of us grow up understanding the power of the mind-body connection. When we are having a very loving, joyful moment, we will feel wonderful with the expansive sensations arising in the chest and spreading throughout the body.

However, when we go through a painful emotional moment, our body experiences strong contractions. Unfortunately, very few people are trained to recognise and stay present with these physical sensations. If we allow ourselves to feel them fully they may intensify at first but, with continued awareness, they will begin to soften and dissolve. Using the breath as a tool can be especially helpful in staying present and releasing this contracted energy.

When we first start to feel the sensations, they may appear stronger; however, when you resist these sensations, they intensify. The stronger the contracted sensations, the stronger the disempowering thoughts and feelings. Remember what you resist intensifies and persists. We end up resisting sensations, thoughts and feelings. As a result of these experiences, we create building blocks of unhelpful patterns in our mind.

Anxiety is so common these days. It is created by this resistance. If you are feeling unsettled and start resisting sensations in your body and/or thoughts in your mind you will start creating building blocks for the anxiety pattern to develop.

Whenever we strongly feel loss and grief, it’s important to stay as present as possible with the sensations in our body. At the same time, we don’t want to resist the thoughts and emotions that arise. The breath can be a powerful tool to help us stay grounded, and repeating an affirmation like, “I choose to open and love Life,” can be incredibly supportive.

If we resist the physical sensations, thoughts, and emotions, we only intensify the pain of loss and grief. This also reinforces an unhelpful mental pattern—the fear of loss and grief—which creates more separation and difficulties in Life. When this pattern is triggered, we may find ourselves fearing loss and grief in any situation.

True connection is the cornerstone of joy. Recall beautiful moments in the company of a loved one or when you are on your own enjoying the serenity of nature’s embrace. Conversely, grief stems from disconnection. Yet, through understanding and embracing Life’s mechanics, we can nurture deeper connections and unlock boundless love and fulfillment. When you understand the journey of Life, you realise that for all of us it is a journey from separateness to connectedness.

The wisest, most deeply connected human beings have very different experiences around loss. They draw upon the two primary ways of gaining knowledge. These are knowledge coming through the intellect, and knowledge that comes from intuitive cognition. These have been valued in different cultures through time and have often been referred to as the masculine and feminine ways of gaining knowledge. Ideally, they work together. When our deep feeling feminine intelligence is active and in harmony with our masculine intellect, we are able to maintain the holistic big picture whilst focusing on specific parts.

On its own the masculine intellect can have a belief about the afterlife following death but it cannot experience it. However, the feminine feeling intelligence can continue to feel the energy of someone after they have passed.

When we are focused on learning and growing through any experience we do learn, grow and evolve. A strong experience of loss can be very disempowering for many, but when we choose to open to Life and learn and grow through it, then we evolve. We become more connected to Life and greatly empowered.

Now, imagine reaching a place where you are so anchored in your essence of love that you fear nothing!

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