Last week I went away to spend time with family and just relax. No social media, completely unplugged, by a body of water, with a few days of meditation, yoga, journaling, and family time. While there, synchronicity led me to an intuition development workshop with...a psychic! It was my first experience meeting with a psychic and I decided to schedule a reading with her. As we met, she gave me messages from people in my life that have since passed on to another dimension, and it was SO eye opening. Here are some things I took away from that meeting that I hope resonate with you as well.
1. Grief is a unique and individual process. Grief can be related to the death of a loved one, a miscarriage, abortion, or stillborn, the absence of a parent that is still alive, the incarceration of a loved one, or even a break up or end of a friendship. If we look at the origin of the word grief, it allows space for all of these different experiences we may have: the latin word gravar means weighty, heavy, burdensome, a "hardship, suffering, pain, bodily affliction". When we think of grief in black and white terms (it can ONLY be experienced when someone dies), or when we think of healing while grieving in black and white terms ("it has been 10 years, I should not still feel this way") we rob ourselves of our personal unique ability to feel and heal our way through loss. I am learning to allow grief to show up when it shows up, and to acknowledge that there are so many different ways to experience and identify loss and that this may change for me depending on what stage of life I am in, or even moment to moment.
2. Grief is not linear: there are losses/events that I felt I had come to terms with. That I had done "the work" about; talk therapy, EMDR trauma work, cries and shares with friends, being able to talk about events without my voice wavering; but when I met with that psychic, BAM! The floodgate of feels was opened. Time doesn't always feel linear. Sometimes a loss can be so powerful that at a certain time of day for whatever reason, it knocks the wind out of you and feels like a freshly opened wound, even years/decades later. And you know what I realized? That's not a bad thing, it just is. Which brings me to #3.
3. Energy and impact doesn't die. However strong that emotional pain is from the loss? That is a reminder of what a strong impact that person has had on your life. And what a gift to have been impacted in that way, to have the ability to love and to maybe have even been loved so much that the absence of that causes pain. If it is indeed a death that is the loss, every time you miss that person you are acknowledging the impact their life has had and still has on yours. Every person you connect to or have had time with leaves an imprint, and that doesn't die.
4. We are all kaleidoscopes. We take in light and reflect out possibilities, beauty, pain, prisms of color, and always have the ability to change and expand. At the end of the psychic reading, she looked at me and said "this spirit wants me to tell you, she's holding a kaleidoscope in her hand, and telling me that this is you; she needs you to understand that". That moment reminded me of the light and expansiveness that is always within me, and that it's not in spite of my losses, but rather because of my many experiences (including grief!) that I have the space to hold and reflect out so much light.
Love and light to all you other kaleidoscopes out there,
Chelle
For support around grieving and loss, here are some resources:
The Community Hospice's Grief Services provides free support to anyone who has experienced the death of a friend or family member; they're located in upstate NY and their number is (518) 285-8116
CARES is a Perinatal Bereavement resource for pregnancy and infant loss support for those in upstate NY, their number is (518) 525-1388