Thoughts on Resistance

The world's great spiritual traditions offer many paths to healing wisdom. Sometimes it is helpful to step outside of your normal mode of response and experience and look at your situation from a different perspective.  Carolyn Myss and Peter Occhiogrosso have created a deck of Healing Cards that highlight important insights from these healing traditions (http://www.hayhouse.com/).  Here is an example:

Resisting change leads to illness.  Accepting change brings about peace.
Embrace the changes in your life.  Release what you no longer need, and welcome the seed of new experience.

In your grief journey you have experienced many changes. Perhaps you have fought these changes.  Perhaps you are angry or scared or lonely. This is all part of the healing process, but sometimes it is difficult to break away from these feelings even after they no longer serve us.  If you see yourself caught by reactions, thoughts, and feelings that no longer serve you, how can you create the intention to release what you no longer need?  Is there a seed of new experience you choose to plant and nurture for your new and changed self?

Keeping Loss in Perspective

It's impossible to turn on the TV news these days and not be overwhelmed by the stories related to loss.  Millions of people we don't know are dying of natural disasters, homes are continuing to be foreclosed, jobs are continuing to be difficult to keep and find, children are being murdered...

In addition to that we have our own lives with our own fears.  Is my job safe? Will my salary sustain me and my family? What about my future? Are we safe in our home? Then we have the ever present reality that  sickness or even death might affect our family and friends with  profound changes and the grief and loss which that brings.

Breathe.  Calm yourself.

The reality is if we fill ourselves up with "what ifs..." it is all too easy to work ourselves up into a panic mode.
So, take another deep breath and ....

Lead with love and not fear.

With everything that is going on in the world, it is important to follow through on our responsibilities-to ourselves, our family, our work.  But aside from that, most things are out of our control.  If we lose our perspective, we can become fear based, we become tight and scared and try to control the people and situations around us.  If we lead with love-both to give love and to allow ourselves to receive love from others, even in small and subtle ways-we trust that all will work out OK, regardless of the outcome.

We have the opportunity to choose to lead with love everyday.

Believe in abundance, not scarcity. We need to focus on what we do have, not on what we don't have.  To have a spirit of gratitude for what is, instead of the way we wish it was.  Often the abundance is in the things money can't buy-love, family, friends, work, health.

Cherish the moment and the people in it.

When we are with our loved ones who are dying or with our family in grief, we are fortunate to be with them at these sacred times when what is most important is treating them with respect and dignity.  All that matters is loving and being loved.

In our world we see so much loss, yet what is most enduring? What do you remember most when someone you love dies? What do you remember most when someone has been kind to you? What is the legacy you want to leave?

In caring for others, we have the privilege to  learn wisdom-to learn what to say to each other when not many words are necessary.  We are reminded by Dr. Ira Byock in his book, The Four Things That Matter Most, the most important words are:

• Please forgive me
• I forgive you
• Thank you
• I love you

So, take a deep breath, center yourself, ground yourself in hope and love, and don't lose perspective.

Adapted from an essay by Jane Dubois, MS, MDiv., Vice President, Bereavement and Spiritual Care at Beacon Hospice.

Embracing Grief

Grief is Important

Giving ourselves permission to be with sadness actually creates space for us to begin the healing process.
Change is something that happens each and every moment in our lives. Since nothing is constant, it may sometimes seem as if we are losing something whenever things do change. Understanding that this is part of our daily existence and that there will not only be gains but also losses in our lives can help us more readily accept and deal with whatever happens.
Whenever we lose something or somebody we love, it is important for us to take time out for ourselves and truly feel the weight of what we are experiencing. Although it may seem that doing so will push us into a deeper state of sadness, truly giving ourselves permission to be with whatever arises actually creates space for us to begin the healing process. This is because the act of grieving is a natural process, allowing us to sort through the range of emotions that are present in our everyday existence. Even though it may sometimes seem easier to involve ourselves in activities that take our minds off of our sadness, this will only make the route to healing more difficult. Unless we listen to where we are in the moment, the emotions we experience will only grow in intensity, and our feelings will manifest themselves in more powerful and less comfortable ways. Once we consciously acknowledge that these emotions are present, however, we are more able to soothe the sorrow of t! he moment. In so doing, we become more open to our natural ability to heal ourselves.
Grieving doesn’t have to be a process that keeps us rooted in our thoughts of fear and sadness. For the moment we might feel despondent, but by expressing and coping with our true feelings, we face the sadness head-on. When we allow ourselves to accept and deal with our loss fully, we will then be able to continue our life’s journey with a much more positive and accepting outlook. This will make it easier for us to see that our grief is ephemeral and, just like our moments of happiness, it will also come to pass.



Reprinted from DailyOM- Inspirational thoughts for a happy, healthy and fulfilling day. Register for free at www.dailyom.com.



















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Change =Loss=Grief

What is it about grief that causes us such pain?

It is the immensity of the familiar relationship lost that defines grief and loss that invokes intense emotions.  Terror, overwhelming sadness, longing, anger, frustration-These are just a few of the feelings assaulting the survivors.  These feelings, although within the range of normal reactions, constitute change.  Ultimately grief is about change, and change can be the most difficult reality to face.

There are some fundamental attributes common to those who manage change well.  These skills and mindsets can be learned and practiced (over and over again) and can lead to a sense of competency in the world. For a person who is grieving, having a sense of mastery and understanding about change and one's idiosyncratic response to it can lead to unexpected growth and personal development.

There are five areas that contribute to being good at coping with change. They are resource management, rich relationships, information sharing, empowerment, and a mutual narrative.

• Resource Management: This is reflected best in not over extending yourself (energetically, financially and otherwise) and staying in good physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and financial health. It means keeping your relationships strong and fulfilling long before a crisis arrives.
• Rich Relationships:  Cultivating an expansive network of friends can pay off in useful and unpredictable ways.  Leadership consultant Robin Sharma suggests you need friends who will come get you if you are jailed in a foreign country and you need the type of friends who say "let's have a party when you get out".  This richness in relationship needs to be nurtured inside and outside of the family, extending into the community.
• Information Sharing: Sometimes it is necessary to withhold details or knowledge (in cases of keeping confidentiality for example), but often we don't share because we feel it would put us in a vulnerable position with others. Letting people know how we feel and what we need or would like goes a long way toward building our relationships and managing our resources.  The more people know and understand the more empowered they are to help. Sometimes, the person we need to be most transparent with is ourselves.  Letting go of our comfort zone, confronting denial, and "telling our truths" are all courageous acts that have the capacity to lead us to different place in our lives.
• Empowerment:  Comfort with making decisions for an individual or a family is critical to successful adaptation to change.  This comfort may range from  listening to intuition and "trusting your gut or instincts" through allowing friends and family autonomy in making choices, which in turn creates a sense of camaraderie and accountability to one another.
• Mutual Narrative:  A narrative is a story. All families have one and each member is a piece of the story. The history is held in common as well as the future- as yet unwritten pieces of the story. Healthy, flexible individuals and groups have a sense of where that story is leading and its potential.

How prepared do you feel to handle change? What will you start to do differently to ensure you are building on these five fundamentals to help you with not only surviving change, but perhaps even thriving with it? What can you do to conserve or generate more energy and resources? How will you strengthen and grow relationships? Will you create avenues for information to be shared and discussed? Will you be empowered and lead those around you to feel so, too? What will you do to nurture, (co-)create and share your history and your dreams and hopes for the future?

Begin it today.