Official blog for the book "Just Behind the Door"

Posts tagged ‘grief’

Loss – Responsibility – Life Lessons

Healing yourself after a loss – whether it is a death, divorce, or other type of separation is difficult and can be life changing. I have described in my book, Just Behind the Door, the many losses in my life, so I know from experience that healing takes time. I have read that after a loss, the average person expects us to ‘move on with life’ after a few weeks. Really? I don’t know what planet they are from but I do know that moving on with grace and dignity takes much more time than a few weeks. Your love was real, your grief is real. You do not need to try to hide the fact that you have been deeply affected. Honor your feelings and be good to yourself in the meantime. Try to find others who will listen with a caring heart as you relive the life experiences involved in your loss. Everyone has a story to tell and it deserves to be heard. There are people out there that care enough about you to take the time to focus while you mend your broken heart, regardless of the time it takes.

I do believe that we experience losses for the lessons they can teach us. What have you learned from this journey so far? Has it changed anything about you or your perspective? This is an important question. I have found that life has a way of repeating itself when we don’t learn the first time a challenge is presented.

I heard a speaker recently who talked about how to achieve a greater sense of healing. She said we must examine our life path and accept the responsibility that nothing happens by accident. We were part of our initial life planning – including the loss that we experienced. She feels that people who get stuck in grief do so because of one of two possible reasons. Either they believe that God or some other power did this TO them or that they just seem to continually attract random acts of negatives and catastrophes in their lives. In other words, they feel helpless and, at times, even hopeless, because they refuse to accept any responsibility.

I know that trying to wrap our heads around any possible role involved in a death or any other type of life changing loss is incredibly difficult. You just want to say, “Are you kidding, you think I wanted this to happen!” Of course not, at least not on a conscious level. However, as hard as it is to think that we had some part in the planning of our loss, I do believe it to be true. Why? Because my son, on the other side, has told me so. There was something that I needed to learn from it.

Regardless of what happens, I do not feel that some entity out there does this TO us or that we just experienced dumb luck. No, I believe it is much deeper and more spiritual that those beliefs.

I would love to hear how you feel about this perspective.

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Positive Thinking is a Work in Progress

Everything in the Universe is energy. We are each an individual universe of energy. You know certain people who make you feel energized and others who seem to drain your energy. Well, emotions, experiences, even colors and words also have energy. When you are positive, upbeat, and happy you DRAW even more positive energy from people and events INTO your life. Sadly, the reverse is also true. When you are negative, whining or blaming others about your life circumstances, you will experience even more negative energy coming back to you. It’s like a boomerang – you get back what you throw out. Remember the phrase, ‘Like attracts like?” Well, it really does. Right now, you may be experiencing loss, grief, hurt, rejection, lack of funds or any one of a million other life challenges. You don’t have to like them but remember you signed up for this curriculum in this huge classroom called, ‘Life on Planet Earth.’ Have you ever stopped to ask yourself what lessons you are learning from the circumstance you are in? Once you learn the lessons – really learn them, the circumstances resolve themselves.

An important question to think about is, what are you saying to yourself and others about your situation? Remember, the more you repeat the thought or voice the negative emotion, the more negatives will be drawn into your environment. Recently, I heard someone say, negatives are like being unplugged from the Universal Energy source/God. Think of an electrical appliance in your home. If it is unplugged it simply won’t work. Well, when we allow ourselves to get unplugged through negative thinking we stop fully functioning and life looses its luster. Everything seems to be a greater chore than usual. The burdens keep adding up until you can’t see, much less think about, the possibilities of tomorrow.

The beauty of all this is that you can recharge – replug yourself into the energy source many different ways. A few examples are: meditation, prayer, listing all of the things for which you are grateful, exercise, doing something to help others (even a phone call or email) to brighten their day. Basically, any activity that gets you back into a positive energy flow will stop the negativity from magnifying itself and its’ effect on you.

The challenge to you is to recognize that YOU are responsible and in control of how you feel, act and respond. The second challenge is to realize that, as humans, we need to WORK at staying positive, it is a constant, perpetual ‘work in progress.’ No one can do it for you, but I promise you, it is worth the effort.

Let me know if this makes sense to you! I would love to hear your thoughts.

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Synchronicity – God/Universal Energy is at Work!

Today is the 13th anniversary of my son, Ronnie’s death. So many friends and family remembered (including my grandboys) that caused me to feel both grateful and overwhelmed. If you have gotten the chance to read the book, Just Behind the Door, you won’t be surprised by the next few sentences. The publishing house emailed me and verified that my copies (40 softcover and 20 hardcovers) would be delivered soon for upcoming book talks. Synchronicity, as defined by Carl Jung means the simultaneous occurrence of events that are meaningfully related. In other words, things happening that seem rather coincidental but have a certain common theme or effect and time. Well, once again, the synchronicity in my life continues. The books were delivered to my door TODAY, on the anniversary of his death. Thank you to God/Universal Energy and Ronnie for reiterating to me the message that unconditional love is forever.

For those of you who remember the artist, Carly Simon, she produced a song in the ’70’s entitled, “Haven’t Got Time For the Pain.” Although we would all like to believe it to be true, the reality is that certain days trigger memories of unconditional love and unconditional loss. The pain, once again, comes flooding into our consciousness. It is important to honor and hold both the pain and love in our hearts during these times. Denial of the feelings involved in loss or grief forces the hurt to bury itself deeper into our psyche. It is both mentally and physically unhealthy to keep it buried. A loss, as painful as it is, can be an opportunity for us to connect to the real truth in our lives. Our loved ones are always around us and ready to help and offer encouragement from the other side. Just remember they have 20/20 hindsight and foresight. The lyrics of Carly’s song, “I haven’t got time… room.. or need for the pain” sounds rather cold. But if you listen further to the song, it is a confirmation of everything I write about in the book. “You showed me how.. to leave myself behind …and turn down the noise in my mind… Suffering was the only thing that made me feel I was alive…’Til you showed me how, to fill my heart with love and to open up and drink in all that white love pouring down from heaven.” When you hear songs that resonate with you, there is a reason.

I again say thank you to all of you who have been emailing and calling me after reading the book. Some of you have even written while you were still in the middle of reading it! I am humbled and thankful that it is helping so many people think about the loss of a loved in a larger context. One of the quotes from Ronnie in the book is so fitting, “Everyone needs to know that nothing dies. The spirit, the soul lives on. Love and communication continues, forever, if people will open themselves up to it.”

Let that last sentence roll around in your mind for awhile. The truth will present itself to you.

Until next time, have a loving and joyful week.

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