Today I am going to talk about navigating through loss and grief. The first reaction to this topic from those I have told what I am going to talk about is, “That’s not a very cheerful topic.” The assumption is that everything surrounding the holiday season, whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Divali, Kwanzaa, or Winter Solstice has to be about happiness and joy. But the reality is that, according to a Harris Poll survey, around 36% of people reported not looking forward to the holiday season due to feelings of grief and loss, meaning a significant portion of the population experiences grief during the holidays. My family and I are some of those people this year. My beloved husband of 52 years, Rev Mark Stuefloten, made his transition to the other side on October 1st of this year. It has been our first Thanksgiving and our first Christmas without him. Our wedding anniversary was December 9th, my first without him by my side. It’s hard to feel like celebrating when you have the sadness of loss and grief.
There are many kinds of losses and reasons for grief: death of a loved one, the end of a relationship, divorce, loss of a friend, loss of a pet, loss of a pregnancy, loss of a home through a disaster or financial loss, loss of a job, loss of a career, loss of a dream, loss of a physical ability, loss of a body part, loss of dignity, loss of reputation or respect, and more.
Our American culture is not comfortable with grief and tries to limit and stifle grief. There is an idea that there is a timeline for grief and we should move through grief quickly and get on with life. There is judgment around grief that lingers, as if there is something wrong with fully feeling our grief and working through those feelings. But in reality, there is no timeline for grief. Everyone moves through grief in their own time and their own way, and that’s okay. There are two books on grieving with the same title, Conscious Grieving, both written by therapists. One book is from Canada and was gifted to me by my son-in-law’s mother. The author is Taraneh Erfan King, and is subtitled The Path of Awakening Through Loss. The other book, Conscious Grieving, with the subtitle, A Transformative Approach to Healing from Loss, I found on Audible and is by Claire Bidwell Smith, LCPC. Claire says in her book that, “Grief isn’t something we are supposed to be good at.” I like that. Grief is not a subject taught in school. We have no information on how to grieve, yet grief is a very real, normal, and natural reaction to loss of any kind.
Claire says it’s ok and normal to feel sad, scared, numb, angry, to laugh, to cry, or not to cry, or to feel like you will never stop crying, to want it all to go away, to want the world to stop, to feel conflicting emotions, to feel forgetful, to want to be alone or to want to be with people, to feel irritable, vulnerable, tired, overwhelmed, resentful, remorseful, jealous, to worry, to feel alone, to feel relief, to not feel like yourself, to replay memories or images, to question your beliefs, to cling to, or to avoid, objects and places that are connected to your loss. It’s ok to grieve differently from other people who have the same loss. It’s ok to need to take time off work and to ask for help It’s okay to grieve longer than you thought you would, and to grieve longer than other people thought you would. It’s ok to want to be around people who understand your grief and to avoid people who don’t get what you’re going through. It’s ok to wonder if you’re okay, and to think you might never be okay.
“It’s ok to fall apart…. Falling apart is how we come back together… Grief often requires a departure from your usual way of being in the world. Conscious grieving almost always requires a shift in priorities…Making time to cry or taking extra time to rest. Letting yourself fall apart means surrendering to the emotions of grief, giving yourself the release your body and soul need, and allowing time for space and reflection. What do you need to allow yourself the space to fall apart?” (Bidwell Smith)
Disbelief or numbness is common. I understand this. I look at my husband’s empty chair and think, “You were just sitting in that chair. I was bringing you something to eat. How can you be gone? You were just here.” I am taking my vitamins and I think, “I was just giving these to you, and you loved the gummy ones, your candy pills we called them! You were just here. How can you be gone?”
“Sadness is the most expected and accepted emotion. Some take time to find their way to sadness. Others fear they will drown in a sea of sorrow.” (Bidwell Smith)
Understanding how our body responds to our emotions is important in supporting ourself, with digestive issues, sleep interruption and brain fog being common bodily responses. The stress of grief causes a fight or flight response in our body, where the heart races, blood pressure rises, and respiration increases. Adequate rest and nutrition are important, as well as practices such as meditation to calm the nervous system. Massage, yoga and body work can be helpful, and it may be necessary to see a doctor. (Bidwell Smith)
I know from personal experience that getting enough sleep can be challenging because it can be difficult to sleep with so many emotions running through your mind. I’m kind of a natural night owl, so grief has only reinforced this tendency in me and I know I need to practice some self-care to nurture myself into sleep mode. I can take a shower with the shower steamers gifted to me this holiday season. I can put on relaxing music, turn off the TV, and put the computer away. It’s easy to lose myself in Facebook, attempting to numb the pain of grief, but the light of the computer screen is known to cause sleep difficulty. A friend got me a massage gift certificate, so I need to make an appointment to have that rejuvenating experience that will help me to deal with grief.
“Yearning for what we had before the loss is normal and natural. We feel like we would do anything to be able to go back. We may also fear what lies in the future. It takes time to adjust to the changes in our life due to the loss, and to gain new tools in order to adapt.”(Bidwell Smith) I have experienced this. I look at my husband’s photo, I look him right in the eyes, and I tell him, “I want you back.” And I really mean it! Our spiritual life offers us tools to cope with loss. Understanding that we are spiritual beings having a temporary human experience is helpful. We will not always have a physical body in a physical world. At some point all of us will release the physical body and return to the world of Spirit, rejoining those we love who have already moved on. We are always connected to those we love because we are one in God. God is our Source and we are always supplied with what we need, when we need it, on time and in abundance.
Panic reactions to grief are common. Recommended practices to calm panic are, breathing exercises to calm the nervous system, affirmations (such as, “I am safely in God’s care,” or “I am okay in the present moment.”), reaching out to a friend or loved one, sensory actions like taking a shower, drinking a glass of water, taking a walk outside, or listening to a guided meditation. (Bidwell Smith) Try a breathing exercise with me now: Close your eyes and focus on your breath, feeling the sense of the coolness of your in-breath and the warmth of your out-breath… Just breath naturally, not trying to change your breath, just feeling the coolness of your in-breath and the warmth of your out-breath, the coolness of your in-breath and the warmth of your out-breath… Now add the feeling of the rising of your belly on each in-breath, and the falling of your belly on each out-breath, the rising of your belly on each in-breath, and the falling of your belly on each out-breath… Continue to breathe consciously, bringing yourself into the present moment with the rising and falling of the belly…. Allow your body to relax… Everything is okay. Everything is in perfect order, in the present moment… Continue to breathe with awareness…
Bidwell Smith says only you know what your grief should feel like. This is important to remember. Each person and each situation is unique. I imagine how it would feel for a person who has lost their home to fire, flood, tornado, hurricane, earthquake or war. I have seen footage of people sorting through the rubble, everything they owned is gone, destroyed. I can imagine how painful that must feel. I think it would be natural to feel vulnerable and unsafe, fearful that disaster could strike unexpectedly at any moment. I have never experienced this, but I can put myself in these shoes and imagine that the grief of this loss could last for many years. It is not up to me or anyone else to decide how much grieving is enough for someone who has lost their home to circumstances beyond their control. We are vulnerable in our human state. Turning within in prayer and meditation can help us to feel our support and security in our relationship with the Divine, understanding that, no matter what we experience in the physical realm, we are never separate from God.
My husband and I used to meditate together every morning. Now, when I meditate, I ask him to join me in meditation, and I do feel that he is present. I feel his energy. I sing the spiritual songs I used to sing to us together. I call forth the saints and sages. I say my husband’s name out loud, or sometimes in my heart in the silence. I feel like we are connected by invisible waves of energy. I state my desire to awaken fully in this physical lifetime, and if there is something he knows now that he is in the non-physical realm, I ask that he will assist in lifting me up in consciousness. We had the same goal in our physical life together, to awaken spiritually. Why would we not continue to be connected together in this endeavor, just because he is no longer in a physical body? I recommend this practice of connecting with a loved one who has passed to the other side through prayer and meditation. Even if you did not have a spiritual practice with this person, there is no reason that you cannot connect spiritually now. We are, in Truth, Spirit Being, truly one with one another. Think of God, however God is real to you. Ask God to assist you in connecting with the person you are missing through prayer and meditation. Feel in your heart the sense of the vibration of the person’s presence. Know that you are truly connected. Don’t expect words, though that could happen, just feel the joy of the energetic connection.
Taraneh Erfan King says “When we understand ourselves as spiritual beings having a human experience, we start to comprehend the lives we experience as human beings in deeper, more meaningful ways. The human part of us is connected to our body, mind, emotions - the components which form our ego identity - all critical elements of how we experience life. We are born into bodies in order to experience what it means to live through this expression of being human. If it were not the point for us to experience life in human form, we would have been born into a different form altogether: an oak, a poodle, a hummingbird… The spirit living through this human body must have human experiences associated with the body and mind, with the ego, including big sweeping emotions that knock us sideways during times of grief. The being component of the human being comprises the conscious part of our experience, connecting us to all other beings and allowing us to feel at one with others on this planet, along with the natural world and the universe at large. When we feel grief for people, creatures and other manifestations on Earth, we are connecting with our human experience - but our healing and transcendence come from the experience of being.”
One kind of grief that a lot of us are feeling these days is the grief of what is happening in our world. The war in Ukraine has been going on for several years now and we feel compassion for the Ukrainian people whose country, their homes, hospitals, stores, everything has been destroyed, and all of the people they have lost, many tortured as well. We feel compassion for the Russian soldiers who are made to fight a war they do not want to fight, and the Russian mothers who have lost their sons. And the war between Gaza and Israel, goes on and on, for more than a year, people bombed and killed, hostages still not released, and the fear that they are dead. And now the violence has spread to other middle eastern countries, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, in pursuit of defeat of Hamas and Hezbollah. And to add to this, there is fear of what will happen with the new administration in the US in 2025. It feels like huge grief that we have no control over.
Of this type of grief, Taraneh says,” Another instance of experiencing grief outside of the occurrence of death is when we grieve for and with people we do not know personally who are experiencing tremendous hardship… we might find ourselves completely struck by pain upon hearing of a global crisis, pandemic, war, famine, injustice or natural disaster. In these instances there is deeper undercurrent of grief happening on a larger scale. Our connectedness to the global family (and not just humans, either) brings us to the precipice of deep sorrow for collective or large-scale experiences of loss bereavement, and grief.
These collective experiences of grief can be quite profound and shattering, particularly for empaths, healers, and other members of the conscious community. When we live with the understanding that we are connected to all beings and all things, the resonance of deep pain can be quite profound and even personally debilitating. This type of grief may feel surprisingly strong because it is moving through a large group of people and being felt on a personal level simultaneously. Processing such grief may feel impossible…. This element of collective grief can be grounds for big spiritual crises and big spiritual awakenings. When we doubt that the pain and sorrow of this collective grief can be soothed, we can take a moment to pause - connecting to our breath and the center of our being. We can begin to notice the outward expression of our thoughts and emotions as they take shape in words, actions, or reactions… To ensure that we are not spiritually bypassing an injustice or becoming numb and stagnant in the face of collective pain, it’s important to connect to our Essence and the expression of the highest good in all beings; we must remember that our oneness and connection can be fuel for our collective healing. From a place of connectivity and genuine care for our global family, we must take powerful, purposeful and conscious action in order to be an agent of positive change.”
In Divine Science, one of the actions we know we can take is to see the greater good unfolding in consciousness and to keep our consciousness high. We can see beyond appearances to the divinity of all beings, acknowledging the Truth of the Soul in each one, even the ones who seem to be perpetrating what we would consider to be evil. This can be challenging, as our tendency as humans is to label good and bad. It is challenging to see that the one playing the role of perpetrator of evil is. at the core. a Divine Expression. But working with this challenge can be part of our spiritual awakening to the oneness of all that is.
Taraneh, in her chapter titled “Do we ever fully heal from grief?” says, “Grieving is a process of letting go. As human beings, the aspect of ourselves that is connected to the body & mind is also tethered to the human aspects of other people…The being part of our human being-ness recognizes the spirit of another person. The soul is timeless and formless, existing in a dimension that does not dissipate at our time of death, which is why so many people state that when a loved one passes away, we continue to feel their presence and Essence in our lives, provided we are open to it. This does not mean that we see or interact with ghosts per se, or go around saying “I see dead people!” Rather, it is a recognition of the inner Essence of that human being- their being-ness- that moves on and rejoins the Spirit of all things once they leave this world of form.”
“Grief is not a linear experience nor a singular one. A mother grieving the death of her child is likely to have a very different journey… than a (person) who loses their elderly parent. A person grieving a death following an accident has a different journey than than someone grieving a death following a long battle with disease… There is no one path and no one healing. Just as there is no correct length of time to feel our feelings.”(Erfan King)
I know of a couple who has experienced a miscarriage recently and is grieving the loss of the child they were to add to their family. This type of grief is misunderstood by many who have not experienced it personally. The thought of many is that they can have another child, but that does not resolve the grief of losing this child, this hope, this dream.
“When a person grieves consciously, they are present and aware in their human experience, feeling their feelings in connection with the Spirit that resides behind the veil of the world of form. So, no matter what the grieving process looks like from the outside, there is an inner spaciousness holding the light of awareness.” (Erfan King)
“Conscious grieving does not mean we process grief more quickly or “get over” the death of a loved one with more speed and ease. That said, there may be more ease and peace available to those grieving consciously because they remain present in their rising emotions without denial or attachment. Ease and peace are inner states of being that contain no judgment, no story, no should or musts. In this state of awareness, feelings come and go. They are felt and released with intention. This is a tremendous act of self-love, bringing with it profound healing, so it connects us to our spirit and the Spirit of all things. From this conscious state, we no longer feel alone in our experience; quite often, we learn to connect to the great Source energy running through all things. In this process, we feel the Essence of our loved one by our side.” (Erfan King)
“We cannot heal from projected negativity associated with grief until we surrender to the inevitability of the ultimate loss: our own death… Those who understand themselves as something greater than and beyond the body and mind alone, can find solace in the belief that at the moment of death we experience release and complete realization of our expansiveness beyond form….We are all made of energy, whether this energy takes physical form or remains invisible to the naked eye, never forgetting its vibrational form….
Ultimately, true healing must occur at the level of the Spirit… We begin to witness the emotions that arise through grief without attachment, from a loving and conscious space within the centre of our being… Without ego attachments, our emotions can flow through the human experience and then dissolve. In this instance, we have the opportunity to heal on the level of the Spirit…. But healing is not a milestone to reach and be done with…We must understand that just as grief is not a linear path, neither is healing. The emotions associated with grief are likely more pronounced in the earlier days, weeks and months following a person’s death, or on certain dates, milestones and special occasions…Healing can be accessed at any time, through the state of awareness and joyful mindfulness. When we become attuned to pure Presence, we have constant access to healing, no matter what the emotional journey presents for us.” (Erfan King)
I will end with a “Prayer for Longing” by Taraneh Erfan King,
Creator,
Be with me now
In this moment
In this place of stillness and aloneness.
Remind me of your power and your presence.
Remind me that I am never alone.
Be with me now
As you are with all of us, always
With an unending love
That permeates the spaces between flesh and bone
Between thought and speech
Between salt and soul.
As the tears come down my face
I shall look up to the sky
Lean into your energetic touch
Of light and rain and breeze
Of breath and moonbeams.
I feel you with me
And I am not alone.
If you are experiencing grief and might find a book helpful, I really like the spiritual focus of the book Conscious Grieving by Taraneh Erfan King and I found that it is available to order on Amazon.
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