Bereavement – Fighting Your Way Out of the Dark

It’s that moment when your whole life changes and there’s nothing you can do about it. Your mind, body and soul tries to clutch you and hold you in the space before the change… a bit like bracing yourself before a fall…it takes time for the truth of what you’ve lost to sink in.

Sometimes we can't go there at all – denial occupies the space where our loved one once was. Eventually there'll be a trigger; a place, a memory, a feeling…a moment when you would turn to them… but they're not there.

It feels so final. You have no say in it and no control over it. You have to let go, though you want with all your heart to hold on forever. It’s often the greatest gift we can give to someone to genuinely let go and let them pass with our blessing. In return their great gift is a lesson on the infinity of love. Gone but not forgotten. Still here, but unseen un-held and unknown….

They gain freedom and rest – bliss. We gain evolution – the ability to hurt but survive and recognise that. It can be the cruellest kindest lesson as we don't want to survive – we want to go with them.

Everything goes too fast as each moment takes you further away from The One Who Got Away. You still wish life would hurry up so you can get away from the intense pain resonating through you. Such is the trap. Time goes both too fast and too slow.

The world around you carries on as normal. You no longer feel part of it. You want to scream. Don't they know of The Loss? It’s real and it’s fake.

In your bereaved head you try to bargain with The Universe. You'd do anything to be with them again. Make it so.

You turn a corner as you realise they're not coming back.  Life won’t be the same, it won't stop and it won’t slow down or speed up. You're choice less again.

You reluctantly choose to go on. The pain of separation and defeat sears through you. The tears come and go. Another thing you have no control over.

My mum always taught me “don't be sad because it’s over; be happy because it happened”. Easier said than done? The void is still there – it can’t be filled – but we can move past it. It can be done. Thoughts charge our emotions so when we have a sad thought, we need to try to turn it around. An example would be ‘we used to go for a coffee every Sunday morning and now my Sunday morning is empty, I miss them and it hurts’ change to ‘wasn't it great that I had someone to share my Sunday with. I enjoyed getting a coffee and I'm going to get one today in honour of them’. Different thought - different emotion - different outcome.

People judge based on their own experience. Who and what’s important to one won’t be to another. If all things are relative, why do we try to hurry people through grief? Perhaps it is too painful even to witness, let alone go through?

Grief is grief. To belittle one person’s, belittles our own. We all have different ways of coping with it and experiencing it. No-one’s grief is greater or lesser. This is just our human way of trying to ‘verify’ the ‘losses’ and label everything. If we learn to accept where people are on their own journey, it would make all our journeys easier.

As always, it’s all about balance. We must allow ourselves time to grieve properly and to let the hurt out. If we don't do this, it will bury itself deep within our energetic layers and could manifest as an illness. Likewise, it’s not healthy to be in a constant state of misery, so when we've allowed proper time for grief, we must be brave and move on with our lives. This can be especially hard as often our grief feels like our last attachment to our loved one.

It helps me to know that their energy is still around, though it can often be their physical presence that’s missed the most.

Whoever you’re missing, remember you are their legacy – you carry with you some of their energy imprint and because of this they're really always with you (just in an unfamiliar form). We're lucky to have had someone so special; many people never get to experience that in their lives. Some search for it forever. So - don't be sad it’s over; be happy because it happened.

Sending waves of love and light to all those who are bereaved or grieving in any way. Know that it will get better with time, acceptance and healing. Go easy on yourselves.