The Many Faces of Grief: E

Emotional wounds, Ending of relationships

On emotional wounds:

Finally on my way to yes

I bump into

All the places

Where I said no

To my life

All the untended wounds

The red and purple scars

Where hieroglyphs of pain

Carved into my skin and bones,

Those coded messages

That send me down

The wrong street

Again and again

The old wounds

The old mis-directions

And I lift them

One by one

Close to my heart

And I say holy, holy.

~ Pesha Gertler

On the end of a relationship:

Dear Friends, here’s the truth: We fear loss more than anything else.

That’s why endings are so sad, so difficult for us. Endings feel like loss, torn away with a serrated edge, walking the earth as ghosts.

Is there anyone among us who hasn’t suffered the grief of an ending? Oh, my goodness……………the pain.

“Real love hurts; real love makes you totally vulnerable and open; real love will take you far beyond yourself; and therefore, real love will devastate you.”

~ Ken Wilbur, Grace and Grit

Let’s take a look at all the ways we deal with endings. It would be very normal for you to feel resistance to endings – to change in general. We have a tendency to hang on, right? To cling, to grasp to all things and people that we love. We want to stay in “positivity”, to live the dream and hold on to it forever. And in doing so, we create an identity of ourselves – who we are in the dream.

In your deep knowingness, however, you absolutely know that this cannot be. We can’t sustain a dream, and we can’t stop the cycles of time and change. We know that the only constant is change. As spring gives way to summer, we, too, give way to the next cycle of our lives. And this brings great suffering, deep grief.

Michael Singer, author of The Untethered Soul, suggests that it comes down to making a decision not to suffer.

Really? How does that feel to you? It does make sense – to a point. I’ve given this a lot of thought. A decision comes from the mind; it’s logical! But alas! Grief cannot and will not be healed in the mind. Grief lives in the heart, too…………and in the gut.

Your brain may make the decision not to suffer, but this is only a delay tactic. Suppressing grief is not the answer. She will come back to bite you. Hard! And, meanwhile, you are projecting it out into the world without even knowing it.

Yes, making a decision not to suffer is one way of dealing with endings, and then we have our beloved Dolly Parton who wrote this song, The Grass is Blue. I love Dolly, and I love her song. Pretending is another way of dealing with the grief of endings.

Well, I've had to think up a way to survive Since you said it's over, told me, "Goodbye" And I just can't make it one day without you Unless I pretend that the opposite's true

There's snow in the tropics There's ice on the sun It's hot in the Arctic And crying is fun

Oh, but I'm happy now And I'm glad we're through And the sky is green And the grass is blue

Rivers flow backwards and my tears are dry Swans hate the water and eagles can't fly Oh, but I'm alright now, now that I'm over you And the sky is green And the grass is blue Oh, and I... I don't love you And the grass is... blue

~ Dolly Parton

A very gifted teacher that I adore is Elizabeth Wood, Seer and Scientist. She offers these excellent resources for healing: Body Oracle; Using the Body and Cultural Change as Guidance for Discernment AND Healing the Three Minds

I highly recommend that you visit her website and check out her many beautiful resources. Elizabeth suggests that we actually have three brains: the mind, the heart, and the gut, and we need to learn how to communicate with all three brains. I love this suggestion, because grief is a whole-body experience and we can communicate with it and learn from it! I mean it, really. I have found it to be so powerful. Stay with me.

Coping with the grief of endings by making a decision not to suffer, or by pretending isn’t going to work for long. On the other hand, feeling into what’s arising within allows you full connection to grief. Inquiring into the three minds invites wisdom and insight. The gift lies herein. Creating a whole-body awareness – mind, heart and gut, opens up space and dissolves our resistance to change and suffering. Try it, Dear Readers, and you will find the treasure. You will find your peace and well-being. Indeed, quantum healing is available!

Elizabeth suggests that we be still and inquire – ask good questions of the three minds, one at a time, and then pay attention to feelings, intuition, and images that come up for you. This begins the process of dissolving the pain. Just trust it.

Self-Inquiry is so powerful! I’m offering some questions to help you get started with healing the pain of endings; you can alter and adapt them as you take greater responsibility in discovering more about yourself and becoming the creator of your well-being. You see, this IS about becoming; and it’s about claiming personal power.

• Has this ending triggered an old wound?

• How did I draw this experience to me?

• How did I contribute to this outcome?

• What part of this situation is mine?

• Is there a pattern here?

• Am I holding a belief that caused this to happen?

• Am I a victim here?

Once you feel complete with this part of the inquiry, you will want to shift gears out of “discovery” and into creating peace and harmony.

Once again, go into the three minds, asking for new directions, guidance, new understanding about yourself. Yes, this is an inner home-coming. Well-being is within you. When it comes to the grief of endings, only your willingness is required. I invite you to make yourself available.

Here are some questions to ask in creating and becoming:

• What is the deepest truth in this situation?

• What is the gift in this experience?

• What was the lesson that I needed to learn?

• What have I learned about myself?

• How can I best navigate through this situation?

I’m reminded here of the Buddhist philosophy that we can “thrive in the face of suffering.” Give that some thought. It is possible; I’ve witnessed it; I’ve experienced it. Indeed, another ancient teaching invites us to love the endings as much as the beginnings. I can hear your gasp. I hear my own. It’s so counter-intuitive! But remember this: Pain is Powerful! It is huge energy that offers you wings to fly!

Beginnings + Endings = Becoming

In this you will be in harmony and rhythm with all the natural cycles of life. You will experience a greater sense of “lightness of being”. That might be called freedom!

The way of love is not a subtle argument;

The door there is devastation.

Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom.

How do they learn it?

They fall, and falling,

They’re given wings.

-Rumi

Dear Readers, I have learned – through great suffering – that what feels like loss is an invitation to expand who we thought ourselves to be. The whole cycle of destruction and creation is within each of us, and we grow and evolve into literal Be-Coming. Blessings in this, Dear Readers, with enormous compassion for your journey.