Grief and Awakening to the Soul

/
grief awakening to the soul.jpg

For most of my life, I believed the soul to be a hypothetical abstraction. It was something religious people believed in, something separate and nothing to do with me.

But after experiencing loss and going through a time of grief, I know the soul to be a reality. When something such as grief comes along, and strips away all aspects of who you are and everything you think life is about, all that can possibly remain is your soul.

Grief not only involves the death or loss of your loved ones, but also the loss of your dreams, hopes, identity, fears. The weight of this pain is crushing. It is natural to run away from it, to stuff it down and avoid it, but this would only prolong the pain. Let yourself feel it, to be broken, to let everything you have ever known to fall away. This is how you make contact with your soul.

When you make contact with your soul, it is as if you are able to live life from a different space inside you. Suddenly, you realize there is nothing to fear — in fact, there never was. You begin to build your life from the truest part of you. The loving part of you. The part of you that has suffered so greatly and yet is still here, hoping, struggling, believing.

When you live life from this space, every day miracles happen. Fear no longer blocks or limits you. You are free to send out love and to receive it in return. A rose is no longer simply a rose but a beautiful and simple gift from the universe. You sense the light inside you and life is no longer a competition, a record of comparison but a pilgrimage you find yourself on as you greet other pilgrims from this lifetime to the next. You are filled with a sense of compassion.

Life was never about all the things that we thought it to be — the houses, the cars, the neighborhood, the degrees, the kids and what they did. It was about so much more, the contact and refinement with our truest nature and who we each are at the core. This pain and all that you feel, let it bring you to the energy of your soul and align your life with it, let it lead you to places you could never imagine.

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.

Featured
Loss
Grief and Love
Grief and Faith
Grief and Faith

This year, I am experimenting with an aspect of my life, which is faith. I’ve always felt a strong calling to write but been very afraid to really pursue it. When I examine this fear, I’m not sure what it’s really about. Perhaps it’s that I’m afraid my writing won’t result in anything, that it wouldn’t actually mean anything, or perhaps I’m afraid of facing myself.

Running, Walking, Hiding, and Finally, Facing Grief
Running, Walking, Hiding, and Finally, Facing Grief

A depression came on very suddenly. Perhaps it is this time of year with the holidays and constant travel — the grayness and limited sunlight of it all. Or perhaps it is that this time of year reminds me so much of Brian.

Thank you + Happy New Year + New Project
Writing, light, and hope
Writing, light, and hope

I remember why I first started to write. I was around 14 or so. It helped me make sense of myself back then. It was lonely growing up in that house. I was kind of a black sheep. Moody, depressed, and irritable. Back then emotions were felt and difficult to put into words. Over time I’ve found the words, but the original emotion sometimes becomes harder to find — lost, forgotten.

Grief and Lucid Dreaming
Grief and Lucid Dreaming

A few months ago, I became interested in lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming is essentially where you ‘wake up’ in your dreams and become aware that you are dreaming. With this awareness, you gain the ability to affect what happens within your dreams. The more you practice this ability, the more you are able to shape the nature of your dreams.

Grief and Difficult Days
Grief and Difficult Days

Some days are really hard.

This is one of those days.

Today came out of the blue, unexpectedly, for no reason really.

Letting Go of Grief
Letting Go of Grief

Something strange happened to my grief, something that has been difficult to write about.

It faded.

I feel it much less these days.

I know it is a natural course of the grieving process, but it feels strange nonetheless.

Grief and Fear
Grief and Fear

n the beginning of my journey with grief, it was like a thick fog that went with me everywhere. It felt like I was a world away, living in a different realm, barely hanging on to this one.

However over time, the grief has lessened. My feelings about this have been mixed. On one hand, it is healthy and natural for grief to lessen. On the other, it feels a bit odd to live without feeling grief so intensely. Some days it feels as if a new person has emerged. And I must admit that I miss the grief that I once felt so deeply, as it was also so much tied with memories of the person I lost.