Our loved ones of this world are eventually taken from us or we from them.
In that moment a huge surge of energy in the emotional system is felt and realised – grief, a natural human response to loss. Being physically connected to someone through familiarity and for a long time can be hard in separation.
Likewise, we are also attached to those who have hurt us. That grief is often accompanied with anger and injustice as well. It can be just as hard to lose someone that committed terrible acts of injustice, harm, indifference, emotional absence or even abuse. Whether someone showed us deep love and kindness or cruelty and abuse, the heart strings of those human needs of validation and love are struck regardless.
Whether grief is characterised by love or abuse both are connected by attachment.
The greater the attachment the greater the grief…we come to be so connected to one another that we become so emotionally activated when they are there and then when they are gone.
How to resolve the emotional ties of attachment?
With a higher sense of understanding and being…
Exploring the nature of the relationship and being heard one can release the emotional energy over time. Guilt, shame, relationship dynamics, justice, the core teachings that were passed between you and the deceased, the lessons and experiences are explored and integrated. Strategies for managing overwhelming and sometimes debilitating feelings and thoughts, understanding the aspects of anger, acceptance, loss, integration. Validating the repositioning of the family members in the group system of the family is essential. Sometimes family members do not process the grief but repress it and this can lead to stress and not being able to talk about things the way you can in therapy. Repositioning of the deceased in one’s life is also helpful to explore but taking the good qualities and how they have been preserved in the family and in the self. Using ritual and celebration to validate the meaning of the deceased’s life. Knowing that different people will process grief in their own way and sometimes not at all is part of this process of grieving.
For some people we may realise that we are human physically but we are also eternal metaphysically…in this enquiry of our essential nature is there really a loss of connection when someone leaves this realm for the next? This may be a hard article to read for some because some of us want to hold onto this material realm like an object because without it our whole individual identity collapses physically, psychologically and emotionally. Without our material identity there is nothing left, but not for all who are reading this…
For on a spiritual or metaphysical level a physical person who we are attached to passes to a higher level of being and is therefore never really gone…the body may drop but the spirit continues only from this higher dimension of being.
When my grandad was dying my gran (his wife) sat with him. He had no understanding, awareness or belief in spirit yet she was shocked when he told her there were people standing at the end of his bed one afternoon. She explained she could see no one but he said they were standing there…a moment later the last breath left him marked with the death rattle. A moment of relief and peace filled the room…
Why do we get so attached to things and people? When clients explore their grief the subject often comes up where they initiate an exploration of this other world beyond this one. They often explain how they sense the presence of their loved ones after they pass, that actually there is no real loss only a separation of awareness between these two realms of being – the physical and the astral.
Some clients who come for grief work express an understanding that there is no world beyond this one and life ceases to exist with the death rattle…yet a wonderful process of realisation, peace and acceptance comes with that anyway…
In all processes of grief one realises one’s emotions, thoughts, memories, joy and trials, anger, injustice, hurts and pain. It is a process of realising how rich one’s experiences of life actually is. It is a process of realising the richness of these past experiences and emotions that make us human.
The core emotion around grief is always love…even when the deceased has been so difficult, abusive, narcissistic, even hateful and cruel. Behind hate is love…behind guilt and shame is love…behind anger is love…where someone did or did not love us is the lesson of self-love and the need to pass on that love to those who are around you in the here-and-now.
Love binds us as a human family even when we don’t think we have one. Each person is characterised by their own distorted perceptions and perspectives, their past loves and traumas. Even the most hateful and insensitive person is driven by their lack of love in their own childhood and experiences in life. They become the victim of their own trauma, ignorance and extreme defence mechanisms. Those who are hurt and dejected only protect themselves from more of the same by insulating themselves from love and bonding. Someone hurt them a long time ago and so they hurt others out of self-protectionism. We are seeing that in international political and economic policies of protectionism. Therefore, what we see now in the world is the manifestation of distorted perceptions of life and death, grief and loss; many people have experienced a loss of loving and kind relationships…loss of bonding…loss of collaboration and cooperation…loss of security…loss of rule of law…loss of purpose and meaning…
In the therapy room clients find the importance of loving kindness, relationships, how much better they are parenting their own children compared to how they were parented…they realise how well they were actually parented but maybe never acknowledged it to their parents…they realise they are kinder in their communities and workplaces…they realise how important the world and environment are and how much better we need to take care of our own bodies, the environment and each other. They realise the lessons the deceased taught them are now internalised in their personality – loving and kind beliefs and actions – and when they are lacking the client begins to adjust their beliefs and actions and review their value system.
We care more for our human needs and realise how we must make good on our responsibilities to one another and not subconsciously punish the world and others for what we think we didn’t get that we should have. Grief transforms to love, love of self, love of one another in this world and if you can realise a bit more, one another in the next realm from where spirit, our ancestors and ascended masters and the cosmic consciousness loves us so much, and is only hoping we can have the wisdom and perception to know we are never alone…that we are never alone…we are all loved by something far greater than we can ever imagine…just know that you are loved so very very much…
If you would like to talk to someone about grief and loss, contact me at
or 07864 029868
…for a free one hour consultation.
Alternatively you may like to explore some organisations that provide more knowledge and awareness of grief like:
The National Bereavement Alliance
Image: Melancholy, a sculpture representing the emotional experience of grief by Albert Gyorgy, Geneva, Switzerland.
