The Art of Conscious Grieving by Lily Dawn Robertson
in a new and deeper way. Death is a transition—and not only for the person who has left the physical plane.
How do we turn death into new life? We become sculptors. Sculptors study the stone or slab to see what lies within. They chisel and scrape, until slowly the mass of stone takes shape and a new object emerges. Challenges in life can be like that. We are changed by death. No doubt about it. We have lost something dear to us. But we can be changed for the better and find something new as well. We can look for what is within us, then scrape and mould ourselves until a new self emerges. Joseph Campbell said it best, “Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging.” How do we do that? Here are some guideposts for this most personal of journeys.
MOVING THROUGH YOUR HEART
• Foster Awareness—Cultivating awareness moves us from unconscious and conditioned behaviour toward conscious and purposeful creation. It is not a head trip, but a journey through your heart. Awareness starts by taking ownership of your feelings. “I am feeling this.” Simply observe what is happening within. Pay attention. Notice who is noticing. Drop your expectations. When we move through grief in awareness, we can create new frames consciously and not by default or conditioning. Be a witness, not a judge, for there are no rules. Simply be present to who you are and what you feel. By doing so, you can find that even in the midst of the pain and grief, you can simultaneously foster a sense of curiosity about yourself and your new circumstances. You are getting to know another part of yourself—your grieving self. That self is as okay as all other parts of yourself.
• Write Down Your Beliefs about Death—You may be surprised by what you learn. When you have your list, go over it noting where or how you got that belief. For example: you might write that you believe healthy grieving means crying. As you explore that belief, you may note that you got it as a child, when you felt “separation” anxiety from a parent, or when you saw a parent cry when a friend died, or even that you saw crying as a sign of grief in movies and on TV. When you do this exercise, you may find that your beliefs are learned behaviours and are not really your beliefs at all.
• Be Childlike—Children are immediate in their emotions. They go with the flow. They can go from red-faced, clenched- fist, belly-bulging crying fits to snorkles of laughter at the snap of the fingers. They do not base their emotions on what they are told, but on what they feel, even when that feeling is raw and uncensored. Why should adults be any different? Why should
24 CHOICE POINT MAGAZINE
we be expected to “hold up” or “hold it together” when we are reeling and hurting? While “negative emotions” may run high, they do not need to rule you. They are emotions nonetheless and deserve to be expressed just as positive emotions do. Being childlike means realizing that you may be on your knees in despair at your loss at one moment and the next moment smiling with joy at happy memories. Surrender to the process. Allow. Be willing to ride the mysterious waves of yourself and your feelings.
KEEPING YOUR HEART OPEN
• Allow Energy to Flow—If you fill your heart with love, pain is transformed. You actually protect your heart by keeping it open. Energy that is stuck is trouble. So, no matter what comes up, ask yourself: Is this closing my heart? Sometimes loss brings up bitterness, regret, blame, and other “not so nice” emotions. Feel them. Allow them. Your heart can process them better than your head, and keep you healthy in the process. The choice to keep an open heart—or to allow it to close—is your choice. You can’t force the process of being open-hearted, but there are ways to nurture that process.
• Meditate—Meditation helps bring our unconscious material to the surface. It can help release disturbed energies that pull us away from peace and openness. Meditation takes many forms, from repeating a mantra, to extended prayer time, to sitting quietly out in nature, to following your breathing, so experiment until you find the style that best suits you.
• Breathing—Conscious breathing is an especially useful “tool” to help move through grief and keep your heart open, as when we grieve or cry we clutch in our arms, hunch over, constrict our chests, and so we become shallow breathers. Remembering to breathe and expand your chest makes space for the energy in your heart centre to move and flow.
• Monitor Your Questions—There are some kinds of questions that keep us shut down because they have no answers. Why? What if? These two are truly unanswerable queries, and they tend to keep us stuck. No matter how badly we yearn to, we cannot change what happened. Forward- looking questions can better serve our journey forward and give us the “heart” to want to embrace life again. Who am I now? What next? How?
• Get Active—When we feel knocked down, it’s easy to stay down. Sometimes we have to force ourselves to get going again. The first step to reconnecting to life is often through your body, even if your heart isn’t really in the activity. Soon it will be. Walk, run, golf, do yoga, go boating—whatever it takes
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