Healthy Grieving

Over the past few weeks I have been finding death to be a theme in my conversations with friends and family. Each one of the people I have spoken with has been touched so deeply by the relationships they had and with the knowledge that the person they love has died and is not going to be here anymore. I felt inspired to write this based on my own death experiences and hope that this helps you somehow and in some way within your life.

Grieving is an emotional way to release and find balance in life about a situation of loss. If you do not grieve you will hold on to a person that has passed by not letting yourself go into that place inside you where healing can actually take place. If you do grieve you can unwind your pain and suffering around a person that has passed, simply by letting yourself go into that place inside.  

In my own experiences, I have been in both places with people that I loved who have passed. I’ve allowed the grieving to occur, and I’ve stifled it, subconsciously trying to hold on by not fully experiencing the loss. One example which is appropriate for this blog because of who this man was to me is the loss of my best friend, my hero and my grandfather, whose birthday is March 13^th and who has been gone from this plane for over 20 years. 

In the immediate time period following his death, there was a lot of grief that took place for me. But the grief was a holding on to, a resistance of reality, and a resentment of his absence. I experienced anger, pain, frustration, irritation and other lower vibrational emotions. I did not want to believe that my hero in life was not with me anymore, and I tried very hard not to accept it. For years I held on to this pain because I thought it was keeping him alive, when really it only was the illusion of keeping him alive.

As time moved on from my grandfather’s passing, I began to get healing work done and read some great books that helped me understand the process of grieving. I found that grieving in my body allowed for the tears and the sadness to flow through me like a river into an ocean. I sometimes grieved for over an hour with uncontrollable crying. What an intense process that was for me, because honestly I remember wondering if it would ever stop. 

But when I started to truly grieve, I realized that to be balanced with this loss, I had so many grieving’s to go, and there is no shortcut. I believe that we get a certain amount of grieving’s for each person that dies and it can be 10 or 50 or 500. And you just can’t cut it short, go around it, or avoid it. You must experience the sadness; you must cry every tear that needs to be cried, in order to fully process the loss and eventually to move on.

Another realization for me was that I began to understand that my grieving, in large part, was for the physical loss of who my grandfather was to me. I was grieving over the loss of his physical presence; the love I had for his physicality was a result of my beliefs that equated him with his body. I so loved the physical representation of him, because to me that was him, and I missed him terribly. Over the years I have continued to deepen my understanding that ‘he’ was not his body, and so even though his body is gone, his spirit and love are still present in my life.  

With my openness to feeling the pain I found peace in my heart and soul. I feel calm, balanced and alive remembering him and all of my angst, anger and pain have finally lifted. That’s not to say it doesn’t still hurt sometimes. I will always miss my grandfather…his body, his voice, his personality… and I wish I had another moment with him to share my life and what has evolved within it. For him to meet my beautiful wife whom I know he would have loved and for him to know my precious daughter who he would have went bananas for. Much of who I am today is a tribute to who he was for me. 

I have many clients that I work with to help them unwind and find peace with the deceased in their lives. The process of going into the grieving is not easy but it is doable, and it’s healthy. Each grieving is one step closer to peace and balance. You will never forget that person that touched your heart and soul, and nor would you want to. But when the pain is intense, you will be able to find a sacred place inside you… a well of love, peace and joy, that you can draw comfort from. You can feel grateful, knowing that they helped create this place because of who they were, for you, in this lifetime.

If you have someone that has touched your life that has passed, please give them a shout out and type their name in the comment section.

Thomas Monzo, my grandfather.  I miss you and love you very much.

www.healingguy.com

todd@healingguy.com