The Thing About Grief....
Having recently danced several of my own dances with grief, I want to keep finding ways to support my community through their own dance with grief.
(If you like a little ambiance:
Oil I was called to: Valor Oil - Young Living
Incense: Nag Champa
Music I was listening to as I wrote this blog: https://youtu.be/JuIUJNnf9GU?si=l5ATLbr6MfJjpUvG ).
Today I feel called to share a few thoughts about grief.
The thing about grief is that it never really goes away...
Life is forever changed. In the moment of loss, we are catapulted into an entirely new world, new frequency, and what feels like a new dimension.
We somehow have to find a way to understand and learn this new life. This new version of self.
The other thing about grief is that no one really knows the true severity and intensity of your pain...
They can imagine, they can empathize, and they can commiserate.
But just like you won't fully know the pain they might endure from their own loss, they won't ever know your full level of pain either.
This can make a person feel so alone.
It's something we all have to face multiple times in our life, yet when it's your turn, you must take the walk alone. Even when surrounded by people that love you, it sometimes still feels quite lonely.
When you lose someone you love, you walk into a suffocating unknown world of grief, pain, loss, anger, heart break, confusion- and every other emotion under the sun.
My family has experienced quite a bit of loss in the past few years. We all lost the same parents and so we all understand what the other is going through. But at the same time, each of us also experiences our own version of grief, a version that the other can't fully understand.
It doesn't mean their pain is more, or our pain is less.
It just means we each have to go through our own individual experience.
Your grief journey may look very different than anyone else's.
So, I really want you to know- yes you are alone, but you also aren't alone at the same time.
If we go into the journey knowing there will be loneliness to dance with, then maybe we can give it just a little more grace and space to be what it needs to be.
If I had to share a few things I've learned about handling grief, it would be this....
Let your grief journey be yours. Let it be individualized.
Let the journey take you in. Let it spend some time alone with you (this doesn't mean to always seclude yourself, as tempting at that may be).
Let it be a natural process.
Sometimes it will consume you.
Sometimes you won't be able to breathe.
Sometimes you won't understand your feelings. Or why you can't 'get over it'.
Or why people around you can go on like everything is ok.
Sometimes you find yourself laughing or smiling about something and then you feel instantly guilty.
Sometimes you may feel like you are unraveling and like you can't grasp control of your runaway emotions.
Sometimes you may have silent wishes in the dark of the night, believing you can't go on.
Sometimes you will feel like a part of you died too....that's because it did. Honor that.
Honor yourself to go through your grief journey the way you need to.
Do everything you can to make healthy, supportive choices. But sometimes you might not. Give yourself grace during those times too.
Keep the company of those that help to lift you up when you feel on the verge of collapse.
Don't discount your feelings.
Don't hang out in regret for TOO long. Go there to gather information and learn lessons, but do NOT stay there. (Spirit has showed me time and again that regret has no use, aside from using it to learn a lesson and move on. But it's not a lesson unless you do the moving on part too.)
Give yourself permission to laugh and to have moments of happiness. You are going to need them.
Give yourself permission to be someone new, even if other people don't understand it.
Give yourself permission to learn lessons and find wisdom in what you learned from your loved one.
Don't stop talking to your loved one on the other side. They CAN hear you and see you. And they DO orchestrate ways to support you, and show you they are there.
Don't avoid your grief, but don't rush it either.
Many of you in my space may have watched me lose both my Step Father and my Father (recently) in a matter of two years. Two years and two weeks a part to the day to be exact.
(My Grandma's on each side of the family also did the same thing, to the day.)
My Step Dad was one of my ride or die's. He would have (and was) there for anything.
My Dad was MY DAD- what more can you say? He brought me into this world, he raised me as a child, he would have done anything he could for me had I ever asked, and more recently he became interested in my mediumship abilities. It was heartwarming to watch him start wrapping his head around quantum energy. I will deeply miss his voice saying "I'm proud of you baby."
I learned a lot from my relationships with both of them.
And unfortunately some of those lessons came after they departed. But it is what it is. That's how the journey often goes. I have regrets, but I can't hang out with those regrets forever. I have to actively choose to learn from them, integrate the things learned and make any adjustments where needed.
I am no stranger to grief. I walk through it, and I help walk others walk through their own journey with grief.
And I've talked to a lot of dead people with a lot of corroborated information over the past few years.
You will see your loved ones again.
You can still communicate and share love with them now, it just looks a lot different than before.
And they do want you to forgive them and forgive yourself.
Grief is a beast that you can never fully put into words.
Honor the journey that it is. Be willing to grow, be stretched, learn, feel, transform, and forgive.
It never goes away, but at some point you will transform into this new life you got thrown into, like the butterflies you all are.
Always holding space, energy, and love for your journey.
~Jenn
Mediumship Readings can be booked here: https://www.waywardwitchco.com/offers/6DEVTBni/checkout
