I want you to know something really important. You may be feeling stuck in your grief and wondering why you can’t seem to heal. I felt the same way until I realized we do not heal from grief. we aren’t sick. There is no cure and we can’t medicate it away. Grief is a state of being that carries energy that you can tap into to create a new life. Just as we use the energy of other newly acquired states of being like marriage or parenthood to transform our lives, we can likewise use the energy of grieving to transform.
Whether you have lost a child, as I did, or a wife, husband, partner, mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle or dear friend or someone else special to you, you can use the energy of grieving to transform your life.
We don’t see the possibilities in our grieving state because grief feels different. Unlike the emotions of wonder, joy and excitement surrounding marriage and birth, grief is often associated with pain, sadness and despair. We hear about and look forward to the wonders of marriage and the joys of parenthood but no one talks about the grief.
So instead of embracing our grieving state and exploring its deep transformational wisdom, we just want to find a way to make the pain go away. And rather than being supported, we often are pressured from our loved ones and the medical community to get over it and move on. We are encouraged to seek therapy or take a pill to dull our senses. Grief is different because our pain makes those around us uncomfortable. The sooner we can get over it, the sooner things can get back to normal for everyone.
Death has issued a challenge to us—we can seize the opportunity for growth or stagnate in despair. Our departed loved ones do not want to see us stagnate. They gave us the ultimate gift so that we can create new and better lives. This is our destiny.