True healing occurs when my stored grief of unexpressed energy flow is at last fully
released from all parts of my body, my mind and my emotional body. I am now gentle
with myself during the grieving process and allow my system all the time it needs to
become clear of energy blockages that can occur if I deny expression of my feeling
instead of allowing it to be fully felt. True healing allows all of these energies to once
again flow freely throughout every part of my being. My “ah hah was a simple
technique.
RELEASING FINAL GRIEF
It was a terrible telephone call from my ex- husband that brought me news that my eldest
son had been killed in an automobile accident so far away in New York State. Nothing
had prepared me for the grief that overpowered me. I could hardly breathe between each
gut-wrenching cry of pain and anguish that whole first day. My heart ached with pain
and with my struggle to even gasp for breath between cries. It felt as if a part of me had
been wrenched away as indeed, in truth, it had been.
Sudden death is so final. No chance to say good-bye or to say once again how much you
love each other. My youngest son and friends gathered around me and we all cried
together allowing the feelings of our deep loss to be expressed. Friends sent flowers,
which were a surprising comfort to me at that time. My ex-husband, and children with
their husbands and wives and my grandchildren, twelve of us in all, gathered in Calgary,
and flew to Salem, New York for Bill’s funeral and to be with his dear widow and my
two young grandchildren, one just a babe in arms. We allowed our grief to be expressed
and allowed tears to fall when they needed to come to cleanse away the pain of Bill’s loss
felt so deeply by all of us.
Losing a child is very painful. Children are supposed to outlive you, not die in their
prime at thirty six, leaving their young children behind who will never know their
father’s laughter or the comfort of his encircling arms.
Mourning a loved one is not an overnight process. It takes a length of time to release the
feelings of grief from all parts of the body and emotions. That first year was a difficult
time. Many, many times tears would flow as I caught a glimpse of Bill’s photograph, or
thought about him at Christmas or on his birthday. I thought that I, smarter now about
the ways of grief, had given full expression to my emotions of loss. And indeed, I was
recovering well, all told. I thought of a friend who had lost a daughter many years earlier
who even now was still caught in her grief, weeping at mere mention of her daughter’s
name. I had allowed full rein for my grief and was able, at last, to let the past go. I had
cleansed my system of blocked emotions that surrounded Bill’s untimely death. I could
refer to my son without any more pain to stir my feelings, -- or so I thought.
While attending a workshop on the state of “being,” the group gathered together, held a
discussion on the subject of death. I offered, to those assembled at the lodge, that day,
how painful my experience had been on the first day of grief over my son’s death. The
knowing workshop facilitator realized that in the very fact that I had brought up the topic
1
that there were still feelings to be dealt with around my experience that were in need of
expression. She coaxed me to summon the feelings surrounding my memory of that first
day of grief about my son’s death, and to see them as a cloud placed in front of me.
When I had done so, she told me to reach out and pull the cloud of emotion into my
being, into my heart, and to just be present with it, allowing myself to feel it fully. I
reached out and gathered the cloud of feeling memory into myself and for about ten
minutes I was almost overcome as I felt the feelings and the pain, in and around my heart.
At last these remaining feelings, having finally found expression, were released and
disappeared. Now my mourning period was truly finished. I could easily talk about my
son or think of a memory of him without any remaining anguish at all.
August 19, 1996
Nana
2