Dealing With The Loss Of A Family Member /loved One- The Enlightened Perspective

[Peace and Love]

On 12/4/2016 at 4:02 AM, Leo Gura said:

@Peace and Love Sorry for your loss.

The solution is to turn into the emotions and feel them fully. But not unconsciously.

See my video: How To Deal With Strong Negative Emotions

There is a conscious way to feel emotions. You can suffer greatly, but as long as you're not running away from it, or distracting yourself, you can let the suffering grow and mature you.

There are also many lessons and insights to have about life from experience of great suffering. Here are a couple to jog your mind:

• Notice that everything is impermanent
• Notice that people who don't actively develop themselves and don't cultivate spiritual connection don't cope well with suffering
• Notice that your life too is short. Use this to clarify your top values and priorities.
• Notice how and why you create suffering or resist certain emotions
• Notice how material attachments create suffering (yes, people are material)
• Notice how great suffering can make you more compassionate for others' suffering
• Etc.

Drawing out such lessons is difficult when you've got a lot on your plate, so don't overwhelm yourself too much. If you're having a crappy day, sometimes you just gotta give yourself some comfort and forget about personal development.

But it's a good idea to keep your meditation habit going every day no matter what, so you've at least got that one period in the day where you can re-ground yourself.

@Leo Gura

Leo, you're the best coach EVER!!!   This gives me a lot to work with.  You probably have enough information here to make another video! lol 

Notice that everything is impermanent   -  Definitely was not feeling sad today.  Especially after doing all that art work.  My feelings come and go.  I know I won't be mourning his loss forever.

Notice that people who don't actively develop themselves and don't cultivate spiritual connection don't cope well with suffering -  So very true.  Ever since I've become more spiritual I've noticed a big difference in my spiritual well being.  Once I got involved in Reiki, I noticed a huge shift in my spirituality.

Notice that your life too is short. Use this to clarify your top values and priorities. -  The body dies, but the spirit lasts all of absolute infinity.  I think I need to go back over your life purpose videos again.  But seriously....after watching your SAGE video, I am definitely all about TRUTH since I was a kid too!!  Get Sage-lized!! lol That could be your new upcoming website...sagelized.org. 

Notice how and why you create suffering or resist certain emotions -  I created and perceived my own sadness.  Just a few weeks ago I was celebrating his life, and laughing about all the good memories my mom and I had with him at the hospital right before he passed away.   I played on my thoughts and fed into them.  I should have just observed my emotions and let them pass over.  If I needed to cry, I should have cried.  I went to see my guidance counselor today and she was telling me how important it is for me to cry and not hold it in.  She said crying is a form of emotional release. The tears allow the adrenal glands to release the hormone cortisol into the body helping us to feel good. 

Notice how material attachments create suffering (yes, people are material)  -    We can have addictions to anything even people.  That's why we have celebrities that have stalkers....addiction in human form!   From doing my hypnosis work I can say from my experiences .... the majority of the addictions are pretty much the same ...I see the same patterns over and over again...it's just what did you choose as your poison?  alcohol? drugs? food? facebook? porn? your ex (having obsessive thoughts of the person)  You can feel the same way if you have a divorce or a break up. I totally have this concept down.

Notice how great suffering can make you more compassionate for others' suffering   -  Just within the last few weeks I started feeling more compassionate for other people. At my new temporary job, I work in a stressful setting where I work with staff that would  yell at me or snapped at me for no apparent reason.  It was a lot of emotional work to do this but I started to feel what the other person was going through.  I tried to understand why they were upset.  This is what I've discovered so far.....

One of my managers has a mom that is in the hospital suffering from a serious cancer in her jaw area.  She has to drive over and hour after work just to see her in the hospital.  The state that her mother is in, she probably has care givers fatigue making her more likely to snap at other people. 

There was another manager I worked with that had a lot of anger issues, and likes to be in control of everything.  After observing I could see that he had insecurity issues and probably doesn't feel a lot of personal control of his life.  He told me once that he regretted taking this job because it was longer harder hours and commute.  If he had done it all over again, he wouldn't have taken his job and kept the old one.  When he shifted from assistant manager to a main manager in the store, you could see a HUGE personality shift.  He started having a sense of humor, and he felt balance in his life and was a pleasure to work with.   He got the balance he needed for control.

I have an associate that I work with has given me a hard time whenever I asked for help.  I found out that she was learning disabled, and she is verbally abused by her parents at home.

I can go on and on and on.  But once I figured that out...that we are all human...and no one is out to get my ass....we are pretty much selfish and just out for ourselves, I realized that no one was the bad guy.  We all had our own stress to deal with, and I was just seeing a by product of their emotional handling. 

From my dad's passing and this job specifically....even though it is definitely not my life purpose, I can say hands down I have started to grasp the concept of compassion.

See my video: How To Deal With Strong Negative Emotions  - I will definitely take a look at this video when I get the chance. 

But it's a good idea to keep your meditation habit going every day no matter what, so you've at least got that one period in the day where you can re-ground yourself.-   The meditation by far, was the best thing I did while I was dealing with my dad in the hospital.  The emotional stress I experienced was over bearing and there were times I had to physically leave the hospital because I couldn't handle it anymore.  But once I went home and meditated, and I coupled that with my reiki stuff and some of my meditation music, etc. I would feel so rejuvenated and could go back to the hospital for round two. During the time I was meditating I reflected on all the good things about my dad.  The good things I wanted to remember about him.  And how selfless he was for me and my mother.  He literally worked up until he died.  He went on disability for work, and three days later he went to the hospital and two weeks later he was gone.  If he had not worked my mom and I would not have a place to live nor any kind of financial backing at all.  He worked to pay off his chemo with his health insurance he got through work.  I could go on and on about what my dad did, and even the way he died was very selfless.  He didn't want my mom and I to suffer  anymore since we were completely exhausted from being at the hospital.  The hospice people told us his stay in the hospital needed to come to an end.....he needed to go home on hospice or be placed in facility in a very far location to keep his oxygen going to help sustain him...however long he had left.....he decided to take the mask off and end all of our suffering...it makes me cry as I write this...I don't know anyone in my life that was so selfless...even though my dad and I were never that close. In the end after I reflected I was so thankful that he was MY DAD, and not someone else!

I can not thank you enough how much this has really helped me. 

[Emerald]

On 12/3/2016 at 10:09 PM, Peace and Love said:

Hey Actualized.org Family!!

I was wondering if anyone of you had any information on how to deal with the loss of a loved one or a family member from an enlightenment perspective?  Any advice , books, reading material,  youtube videos,etc. would be great right now!   Experiences they would like to share??

On October 13th of this year I lost my dad to stage 4 colon cancer.  It's been really hard for my mother and I to deal with, especially since I live with my parents. I've had a lot of people pass away in my family before but I wasn't really close to them at all, since I grew up out of state away from the majority of my immediate family. I usually would be like "oh it's ok they're going to a better place, they are no longer in pain any more....lets celebrate the life they lived.....   This way of thinking hasn't worked so well for my dad as much as I wanted it to.  My dad and I never really had the best or close relationship.  After around the age of 6 or 7 years old my dad distanced himself from me and was the primary disciplinarian. He was very harsh and at times down right verbally abusive.   A lot of the things he said to me were very hurtful and drastically effected my depression during childhood and adolescence.  I didn't get to make amends with my dad right before he passed away.  I felt at the time that nothing needed to be said, and I felt that because my dad was dyeing in the hospital it would only aggravate the situation. I spoke with my mom about it before he passed away and she said that she thought that he didn't feel like there was anything wrong, or that anything needed to be said....it was like it was over, the past in the past kind of deal.  Now that he's gone and it's been several weeks I've had my moments where I've had mixed emotions. .... anger, sadness, happy he's in a better place.  I was surprised I was angry because I thought I had let all of this go.  Is this normal to feel this way? ???

I'm also depressed because of both of my parents ill health (My mom had a stress related seizure in August, and my dad being in and out of the hospital every few weeks) made it very hard to focus on my life purpose...helping other people with my hypnosis and reiki business....I was afraid to leave my parents alone. I wanted to make sure I was there to take care of them.  In August I literally found my mother slouched over on a couch and had to call 911.  I don't think I could recall ever being that scared in my life....I thought about the fact that I could be alone soon...I could lose both my parents so quickly......It made me very scared for my future and my well being.

 I let my hypnosis business take a complete nose dive and had to get a side job to support myself.    I'm actually down right embarrassed that I've had to take a huge step backwards with a career move and dream job, but I know that I made the right decisions and my values of putting my family first was what needed to be done.  There was just no way I could run a business, when my dad was in the hospital for two weeks straight, sitting at his bedside, the hospital staff telling me he could die at any time, embracing every moment I could cherish, and not knowing when he would pass on.... It was just so emotionally over bearing.  And I'm not even getting into the really gory details of everything that happened.

I want to move on with my life, I want to focus on my life purpose and enlightenment but I feel so stuck.  I feel like my feet are stuck in quick sand and I want to move but I can't.  I feel so emotionally bombarded.  I've tried crying but it's literally trapped in my body....I can literally feel it in my solar plexus.  I've tried to seek other outlets to get answers and I even went as far as attending a Grief Share Class at my mom's church. They were talking that it could take up to 2 YEARS to deal with this....I don't have that kind of time to put my life on hold.  I want so much to move on.  I crave so much to learn and to have spiritual growth. 

From what I can see and have experienced so far dealing with death is tough because everyone seems to deal with it differently and one day can be completely different from the next.  Sometimes the passing of a loved one can stifle your enlightenment and personal development growth, while for others if done correctly it can be a learning and very positive experience.  It also does not help watching my mother cry either, I just feel so sorry for her.  40 years of a loving marriage gone.

My grandfather is also in the hospital planning to get open heart surgery within the next few days  and they don't expect him to make it either. I just don't need anymore of this....I just want to turn all of these emotions off.  ...

Any advice and support would really help right now....thanks! And many blessings!

Peace and Love

 

I am sorry to hear about your loss. I wish you the best.

Here are my thoughts...

I understand wanting to get back on the path to spiritual growth. But this is the path because the path is reality... it's just an unpleasant part of it. To resist, ignore, or skirt these emotions is to avoid the path. The only way past these emotions is through them. To embody them completely and to honor the wisdom of the emotions. To distract yourself with more intellectually based spiritual endeavors, is just an avoidance of reality as it is. It's an attempt to remain inside of the comfort zone of the mind where there is a sense of limitlessness and control and safety. What is more challenging is to be heart-centered and to honor the emotions that come up in your subjective reality in the present moment, instead of bypassing them with spiritual growth endeavors to try to get to some future version of you that is improved. Be with your sadness and anger and lack of motivation, and honor them. Don't try to distract or repress.

Ask yourself, "What are my thoughts telling me that I want?" and "What are the sensations in my body (feelings minus thoughts) telling me that I need?" These will likely be very different answers. Honor this divergence, and don't resist it or invalidate it. Honor the fact that your feelings are telling you that you need time to re-cooperate by giving yourself that time to simply grieve and be with your emotions. But also, recognize and don't invalidate your emotions that inform the thought, "I should be on the spiritual path." This is an emotion too. Be with that emotion, but don't give it what it thinks it wants. As doing this would be a distraction. But recognize that wanting something is a valid emotion and accept it as part of your emotional experience. Be easy on yourself and don't let the intellect override the emotions with shoulds and should nots. 

 

[Peace and Love]

@Ayla  After that long talk we had yesterday......to JUST BE......you reminded me of an old song I used to listen to.  It resonates with me right now.
 

"Just Be"
 

You can travel the world
But you can't run away
From the person you are in your heart
You can be who you want to be
Make us believe in you
Keep all your light in the dark
If you're searching for truth  (Leo's SAGE Video)
You must look in the mirror
And make sense of what you can see
Just be
Just be

They say learning to love yourself
Is the first step
That you take when you want to be real
Flying on planes to exotic locations  (materialism does not bring happiness)
Won't teach you
How you really feel
Face up to the fact
That you are who you are
And nothing can change that belief
Just be
Just be

Cause now I know
It's not so far
To where I go
The hardest part
Is inside me
I need
To just be
Just be

I was lost
And I'm still lost
But I feel so much better   (Leo's Confusion Video!!)

Cause now I know
It's not so far
To where I go
There's not this spot
Since this I feel
I need
To just be
Just be

[Peace and Love]

Dance dance in the morning light!
Open your darkened eyes!
Hey, hey, it’s a beautiful day!
It’ll be ok. It’ll be ok!

Dance dance in the morning light!
Open your darkened eyes!
Hey, hey, it’s a beautiful day!
It’ll be ok. It’ll be ok!

Take a look, spin around, this is where I find you… where the roses bloom.
Leave your cares, leave your fears, leave them all behind you… yeayah!
It’s a beautiful day in the city of shining light!
It’s a beautiful day. This is where I find you… yeayah

Oh who will find me?
In your midnight eyes, I see a summer sunrise.
Come and get away.

Roger Shah feat Adrina Thorpe :: Who Will Find Me (Acoustic version)

[Peace and Love]

@Emerald Wilkins

11 hours ago, Emerald Wilkins said:

I am sorry to hear about your loss. I wish you the best.

Here are my thoughts...

I understand wanting to get back on the path to spiritual growth. But this is the path because the path is reality... it's just an unpleasant part of it. To resist, ignore, or skirt these emotions is to avoid the path. The only way past these emotions is through them. To embody them completely and to honor the wisdom of the emotions. To distract yourself with more intellectually based spiritual endeavors, is just an avoidance of reality as it is. It's an attempt to remain inside of the comfort zone of the mind where there is a sense of limitlessness and control and safety. What is more challenging is to be heart-centered and to honor the emotions that come up in your subjective reality in the present moment, instead of bypassing them with spiritual growth endeavors to try to get to some future version of you that is improved. Be with your sadness and anger and lack of motivation, and honor them. Don't try to distract or repress.

Ask yourself, "What are my thoughts telling me that I want?" and "What are the sensations in my body (feelings minus thoughts) telling me that I need?" These will likely be very different answers. Honor this divergence, and don't resist it or invalidate it. Honor the fact that your feelings are telling you that you need time to re-cooperate by giving yourself that time to simply grieve and be with your emotions. But also, recognize and don't invalidate your emotions that inform the thought, "I should be on the spiritual path." This is an emotion too. Be with that emotion, but don't give it what it thinks it wants. As doing this would be a distraction. But recognize that wanting something is a valid emotion and accept it as part of your emotional experience. Be easy on yourself and don't let the intellect override the emotions with shoulds and should nots. 

 

Thanks for the kind words and your advice.  It really means a lot to me. I've taken the time just recently to reflect on my thoughts, emotions and feelings and how they are effecting me right now.  Crying with little that I've done so far has really helped a lot. I realized that there are certain triggers and things people say to me that have really set me off, and I discovered it has to do a lot from my past and what I went through.  That is something I need to work on.  I need to let go.   Doing what feels good, feels right, right now. 

I've been feeling good this morning.  My mom put another two Christmas trees up this morning.  We are up to 7 Christmas trees so far. ....and I know she's going to put up two more....a total of 9 TREES! lol   My dad would never let me get away with this! 

[Peace and Love]

@Prabhaker @Prabhaker @Ayla @Bob84 @Leo Gura @WelcometoReality @AlwaysBeNice

Has anyone ever heard of or read this book???  I bought this over a year ago at a thrift shop.  My intuition guided me to buy this book, and just feels right to read!  It reminds me so much of my dad!  He had the most impeccable sense of humor and he was even cracking jokes up until he passed away.  The humor really lightened the blow of his passing, and my mom, family and I would reminiscence bout all the funny jokes he would tell us.    WE NEED more laughter in our life.  Life is supposed to be enjoyed!

 

[Ayla]

16 hours ago, Peace and Love said:

You reminded me of something though I need to do....I have a phobia of being on camera!!  The best thing to do with getting rid of a phobia, well at least from my experience is to dive right in.

BIG step for Ayla... Most of my adult pictures only have... one eye until a few weeks ago