Blog — The healing power of words

Saying No to the Pity Party

25 November, 2015 — Posted in: Conscious Grieving Leave a Comment

For those of us who are grieving the death of a loved one, this season of merriment and celebration can be a difficult time. This month I’m sharing with you some ways that I’ve found to cope with grief during the holiday season. In this excerpt from Walking in Grace with Grief Meditations for Healing After Loss, I talk about being mindful of how the feelings of other people can affect your ability to grieve your own way.

Keeping Pity Energy at Bay

There are no “shoulds” about how to behave during times of loss. If you feel like laughing, then laugh. If you feel like crying, then cry. Forget what “they” say. You are in charge of your feelings. Use the Golden Sun Meditation (see chapter 3) to fill you with peace and comfort. If that means that you fill your golden sun with happiness, then do so. Do what is best for you. Be mindful of how you want this period of sorrow to unfold.

In addition, be mindful of when well-meaning friends and family inadvertently try to dump their grief in your lap. Yes, unfortunately it happens. As two people relate, they unconsciously exchange energy with one another. Underneath your friend’s encouraging words of love and support may be some suppressed feelings of guilt, abandonment, or pity. Of course your friend is not consciously aware of sending you these mixed messages—in fact, she or he would be horrified to discover they had! But it does happen. Part of being a conscious griever is understanding how to prevent these twinges of unresolved grief from encompassing you.

One of the most effective ways of doing this is to visualize your body surrounded by a protective coating of glass, Teflon, or some other impervious material. The purpose of this covering is to deflect these unintentionally distressing thoughts before they affect your ability to grieve your own way.

Healing Meditation: Keeping Pity Energy at Bay

Sit in meditation with your eyes closed and your feet flat on the floor. Feel your grounding cord connect you to the earth and your surrounding space fill with the energies of peace and stillness.
Breathe in and center, bringing all of your awareness into your body. Be in the center of your head, your peaceful meditative space. Breathe out and ground, releasing all tensions from your body as you allow them to move down the grounding cord to the center of the earth. Breathe in and center; breathe out and ground.
Now let’s design the protective coating for the energy space surrounding your body. You can change the coating every day during your daily meditation, so don’t worry that it has to be perfect. Experiment; that’s the joy. See what works for you.
Think about how you would like to prevent stray thoughts and feelings from affecting your ability to grieve your way. Sometimes I see a fine wire mesh surrounding my body. This permeable membrane allows my own scattered energies to come in but keeps out others. Other times I envision a platinum coating sealing my energy body from all outside influences. You might try out a bubble of glass or a protective coating of Teflon today, and pick something different tomorrow. You get to choose.
Now imagine this protective coating extending all the way around your body, above your head, and below your feet. Visualize it out in front of your closed eyes and allow yourself to feel safe and nurtured while encased in this protective coating. When someone thinks of you, his or her energy is coming your way, even from a long distance. Notice what happens to your protection bubble as it encounters outside energy. It may change color as it absorbs this energy, or the energy might just slide off the surface. Notice what you notice.
Set the intention that the protective coating will work for you all day, deflecting any well-meaning but unconsciously transferred pity, guilt, or grief from friends and family. Acknowledge that we all have issues that we are dealing with and that the only person you can heal is yourself. When you have the protection bubble set in place, open your eyes and come out of meditation.

Every day as part of your morning meditation, put a new protection bubble around your body. Know that it will work for you all day long by deflecting unwanted energy before it enters your space.

There are many more tools and meditations that I talk about in Walking in Grace with Grief Meditations for Healing After Loss. If you have a friend that is going through a tough time right now, you might consider sharing this blog post with them.

Filling in with Life Force Energy

20 November, 2015 — Posted in: Conscious Grieving Leave a Comment

For anyone grieving the death of a loved one, this season of merriment and celebration can be a difficult time. This month I’d like to share some ways that I’ve found to cope with grief during the holiday season.

The following meditation is designed to offer you a chance to renew your own depleted stores of life-force energy. It is important that we keep our gas tank full, so to speak, as we journey through this transition. We are becoming something new. And as with any stress-filled period, it’s important to treat our bodies and our spirits with care and respect. I’ve also included the elements of centering and grounding to offer you a simple, easy meditation you can do every day.

Healing Meditation: The Golden Sun

Sit in a chair with your feet flat on the floor and your eyes closed. Take a couple of deep breaths. Relax and just be.
Bring all of your awareness into the center of your head. This is your special meditative space. Between your ears, behind your eyes—this is your space. It is for you alone. If you feel that all the thoughts of things to do and places to be start to encroach on this space, just tell those thoughts that you will be with them in a moment or two. Watch them leave your space.
From this space in the center of your head, start to count each breath. On the inhale count one, and on the exhale count two. Inhale again and count three; exhale and count four. That’s all. Inhale and count, exhale and count. Breathe. Count each breath.
Now imagine that your body is surrounded by a cocoon of energy. It stretches out about eighteen inches around you in all directions. Put your arms out to your sides and imagine this bubble of protective energy reaching out from your body to your fingertips. See this bubble all around you: above your head and below your feet. Know that this cocoon of protective energy is your space. You are safe here.
On each inhale, continue to center, and on each exhale ground to the earth. Imagine your grounding cord attaching to your hips and dropping to the center of the earth. See this hollow tube of energy reach all the way down through the earth’s crust, attaching solidly into the core of the earth. Feel it draw you deeper in your chair as your body begins to relax.
Intend for your body to be at peace. Feel your jaw relax and your shoulders fall away from your ears. Ask for any tension you hold in your body to be released down the grounding cord. Feel yourself sink deeper in your chair as you allow yourself to be at peace.
Breathe in and center, bringing all your awareness to the center of your head. Breathe out and ground, allowing all tension and tightness to ease.
Breathe in and center, breathe out and ground. Be in stillness and peace.
Now imagine a giant golden sun above your head. See the sun filled with golden light. Imagine that this sun is about three times the size of your body. Place a giant magnet in this sun and ask this magnet to call back your own scattered energy. Let all your life force energy return from your dream space, from your family and friends. Feel all that energy zoom back into the golden sun.
Imagine the golden sun bringing your scattered energies back to a vibration that will be just right for your own body.
Fill this golden sun with relaxation, peace, abundance, and gentleness—or whatever quality would be most beneficial to you today. See those qualities permeate the sun, vibrating in a wonderful harmonic, which will be perfectly attuned to what your physical body needs most right now.
Pop the golden sun and let all your own energy and all those qualities flow into your body, filling every cell and membrane. Allow the excess to move from your body out into the space around you.
Feel yourself refreshed and vibrating at your optimal frequency, enveloped in a cocoon of energies that are just right for you. The world around you can be full of sadness and turmoil, but you, in the center of your aura, filled up with your own energy, can be at peace—free from stress and unease.
Sit in this wonderfully peaceful place of fullness for a moment or two. When you are ready, open your eyes. As you come out of meditation, intend for this stillness—this sense of peace and knowingness—to carry forward with you into your day.

Every day for the year or two after Rick’s accident, I reminded myself that I was in charge of my body and my emotions. I could accept or not accept energies into my space. I could be with people and feel their love and support surrounding me, but I didn’t need to let that penetrate into my personal space. This awareness allowed me to be in charge of my healing. I liked that. I liked being in control of at least one small aspect of my day-to-day life. I meditated every day, and I remained consciously aware of my grounding cord connecting me to Mother Earth. I filled in with golden suns health, vitality, peace, serenity, and love. And I talked with my loved one, often.

Staying Away from the Stories of What Might Have Been

15 November, 2015 — Posted in: Conscious Grieving Leave a Comment

As we enter the end-of-year holiday season I’d like to share some ways that I’ve found to cope with grief during this season of merriment and celebration.

Below is an excerpt and meditation from Walking in Grace with Grief Meditations for Healing After Loss. I’ve chosen a passage from the chapter Learning to Ride the Wave where I speak about how I used the energy tool of Blowing up a Rose to ride that wave of grief without allowing it to encompass me.

Defusing the power of the story allows you to return to the present, the now, the current situation without the baggage of what could have been, should have been, or wasn’t meant to be. Releasing my old stories allowed me to look at my son’s death from a new perspective. It was not about what could have been. It’s about what is—right here, right now. I still felt the pain, but it was a pain of missing Rick right here, right now. It was not about all the future things that would not be.

Walking in Grace with Grief Meditations for Healing After Loss is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or have your local bookstore order it for you. There are many more energy tools featured in the book, all designed to help you grieve a different way – one full of grace and awareness.

Listening in Stillness

10 November, 2015 — Posted in: Conscious Grieving Leave a Comment

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Often, we are so caught up in the emotions of sorrow, sadness, grief, anger, rebellion, and outright rage that we fail to hear our loved ones’ voices. But they are here. They constantly surround us with their love and support. We just have to open ourselves up to be able to receive their messages. One way of doing this is by sitting in meditation. Daily meditation offers us an opportunity to quiet the outside voices—the noises of other peoples’ thoughts and feelings—and tune into our inner knowingness, our inner wisdom. When we meditate, our bodies relax and our minds quiet. Listening in stillness, we come to know peace.

There are many ways to meditate. Some people sit quietly, repeat a mantra in a rhythmic fashion, and find stillness in the gap—that space between thoughts. Others take long mesmerizing walks and allow their thoughts to drift away as their minds fill with clouds of stillness and peace. Often peace will come in the midst of a hot bath. As the mind quiets and thoughts cease to matter, we come to a place of knowingness. We begin to communicate with our Spirit, our Highest and Best Self. Often our loved ones can reach into this space of soft awareness to let us know they are watching over us.

One of the first steps in any meditation is becoming centered and present. Being centered means to be in present time—right here, right now—not thinking of what happened in the past or about tomorrow’s to-do list. Centering becomes a practice of mindfulness, being fully present, with all your thoughts and feelings in one place, a place of stillness. As you sit in meditation and tune out the outer world, you offer your feelings a chance to be acknowledged and your inner voice, your intuition, a chance to be heard. Especially in the first few weeks after a death, activity takes center stage. People come and people go, services take place; there’s a lot to do. But there’s very little time to simply be with your thoughts and feelings. Some people are afraid to step into this space of stillness, afraid that they will be overwhelmed with emotions they’re unable to cope with. Each person must gauge this for themself. There is no right or wrong answer for when and how to feel. What I found true for me was that I needed this time of aloneness. I craved a chance to be still and to feel. I wanted to check in with my inner guidance system and determine what I needed. Instead of wrapping myself in a mantle of outward activity, I found that if I took small, five-minute breaks throughout the day to sit in stillness, I could cope. I didn’t need to think, I didn’t have to process emotions; I just was. I could close off the noise and listen to my inner voice, my inner wisdom.

The following is a short, guided meditation you might find helpful.

I took many five-minute mindfulness breaks throughout the first very difficult week after my son’s death. I continually felt surrounded by the presence of God and angels. I existed in a bubble of love, support, laugher, tears, and gentleness. Rick was with me, and so were family members and friends. I felt supported and loved.

If this post resonated with you and you would like to read more, Walking in Grace with Grief Meditations for Healing After Loss is available on Amazon or order it from your local bookstore. From my heart to yours.

Staying Grounded in Times of Grief

5 November, 2015 — Posted in: Conscious Grieving Leave a Comment

The end of year holiday season is nearly here. And for those of us grieving the death of a loved one, this season of merriment and celebration can be a difficult time. This month I’d like to share some ways that I’ve found to cope with grief during the holiday season.

In our times of sorrow and grief some our same energy tools are powerful allies. One of the most powerful is what I call “grounding”. Grounding to the earth helps you stay focused and aware by removing the fog and the spaciness that so many of us feel as we deal with the loss of someone we love. It is a process of energetically connecting the body to the planet’s core, allowing us to feel safe, secure, and connected to reality. This is especially helpful as we navigate the first weeks of loss.

Grounding is accomplished by imagining a cord or cable of energy that securely connects your body to the center of the earth. A grounding cord can be visualized as any object. A strong rope with an anchor on the end, a hollow beam of light, or a flowing stretch of silk are all visuals that I use at varying times, depending on my mood. When I start feeling spacey and unable to concentrate, I know to check to see if I’m grounded.

Healing Meditation: Grounding Cord

Sit in a chair with your feet flat on the floor and your eyes closed. Take a couple of deep breaths and visualize a wide, hollow tube of energy connected to your hips. This tube falls below your feet, through the floor, and continues down to the center of the planet. Feel this cord anchoring into the core of the earth. Feel a slight upward tug on the cord as it lets you know that it is completely anchored and secure.
The purpose of this cord is twofold. First the solidness of this connection pulls you back into reality. It also pulls your Spirit back into your body, connecting you to Earth. This frees you from that spacey, out-of-it feeling.
The second purpose is to drain away all the unwanted tension from your body and return it to Mother Earth. Through the force of gravity, this hollow tube of energy acts as a suction cord, draining worry and anxiety from your body and your energy field.
As we deal with our sadness and grief, often our shoulders become tight or our feet cramp. We may feel tension in our head, especially around the temples and eyes. Imagine the suction force of this grounding cord draw some of that anxiety away from your shoulders, your feet, your head, and down to the center of the earth.
Breathe in deeply, and as you exhale, feel the tightness begin to release. You might even notice that you sink a little deeper in your chair as the tension drains out of your body.
As you continue to sit quietly with your feet on the floor and your eyes closed, take a few more deep breaths. Intend for your body to be at peace.
Sit in this serenity and comfort for a few minutes. Just breathe in and out, in and out, allowing the grounding cord to do all the work. Be aware of a solid assurance that you are of this planet with both feet firmly grounded in present time.

As you come out of meditation, your grounding cord will stay in place for the rest of the day, allowing you to be a little more focused, a little more centered and aware.

I’ve written about how I walked the path of grief in my book, Walking in Grace with Grief Meditations for Healing After Loss. There are many more meditations in the book that helped me stay grounded during this difficult time.

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