Grief and Awakening to Love

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awakening through grief eleora han

It has been four years since I went through a time of loss, four years since everything I knew and loved disappeared from my life. It is difficult to describe that kind of loss and the grief that comes with it. There is sadness. There is guilt. There is shame. Hopelessness. Discouragement. Emptiness. Futility. Fear, and above all, darkness — the type where death felt as if it would be the only reprieve. Some days, I would stand outside and watch leaves rustle in the wind and feel the beauty and pain of life all at once — how ephemeral life is and how blind we can be to its sweetness. How time only moves forward. How all things come to an end. Amidst all of this, underneath all the layers, there is hope — the faintest, smallest glimmer of it. It turns out that this is all that is needed.

Follow this hope. Learn to lead your life with it, and it will lead you to places you never imagined. Keep your heart open to the pain, and it will be your greatest teacher. Allow yourself to feel broken by the loss. It is through this type of surrender, this type of openness, that light enters you and you are there to receive it, to let yourself to be led by it rather than your ego which seeks to control and revert to old ways, to close off and tighten. However, when light enters, you expand, and when you expand, you grow in love, wisdom, truth, and peace. Grief teaches us that love is the only thing that is real in our lifetimes. Everything else is an illusion. When you become awakened to this truth, it feels like a recognition of something from long ago, but which has always been there. It feels like coming home.

To my readers — thank you for reading this post. it means so much to me. If you enjoyed it, I invite you to connect with me through the comments below and to share the post with someone who you think might also find it helpful in living with grief. You might also find my book, Grieving the Loss of a Love: How to Embrace Grief to Find True Hope and Healing After a Divorce, Breakup, or Death helpful to read or to pass along to others. Thank you again.

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