Every winter there is the cycle of death and every spring holds the promise of new life, an awakening from apparent death and growing into the ripeness of summer. Going through the process of accepting, letting go and forgiving allows us to lead to a full life and to the unfolding of our own inner strength.
Since the death of Raico on April 12, my whole life seems to be dominated by these words. I’m not the only one; it’s inherent to the existence and growth process of every human being.
Life is like the waves: people, events and things come and people, events and things go. You can’t stop it, you can’t change it and you can only go with the flow, because holding back takes (too) much energy and sooner or later you will go under because of that one big, heavy wave.
When you can accept great sadness, the pain decreases but it does take a long time before you can (possibly) climb out of such a deep valley. You miss your loved one in the morning, afternoon and evening and when you go to bed. All day long your thoughts are with them, you cannot listen to music and you cannot read a book without bursting into tears remembering them. However you will slowly learn to put that grief and those memories into a special place in your mind.
You begin to realize that you can be very grateful for the happy years and beautiful memories you shared together! Those special memories give you the courage to accept the loss and sadness and turn those feelings into a feeling of immense gratitude. It is important to be self-empathetic throughout this process. Self-empathy is the biggest key to your own healing process.
Be kind to yourself. You don’t always have to be able to cope with everything. You don’t have to be ashamed of being disappointed, angry or sad. You don’t have to be superhuman. Allow yourself to grieve! Only when you can deal kindly with your own anger, your disappointments, and your sadness, do you get the chance to let go. The pressure then eases and even seems to dissolve. Repressed emotions will keep resurfacing. They won’t let you go, they will destroy you. They will literally make you sick. Being kind to yourself and dealing kindly with your own emotions is a positive way to deal with conflict. It is liberating.
Letting go and saying goodbye is part of life whether we like it or not. It is not always about death, but also about favourite clothes that no longer fit, shoes that are worn out but still comfortable. That reminds me of an episode from a movie: a man and a woman sitting on a bench by the water. The man gives his girlfriend a ring. She throws it into the lake and gently says to the astonished man, “Now I will never lose the ring because I know it is here”.
Letting things run their course and letting life come to you… Letting go. How do you do that?
Sadness is a natural emotion. Crying is a spontaneous and natural reaction when things go against us. However, in our culture, crying is often labelled as childish or weak. In this way we quickly learn to suppress or hide our sadness. Resistance to grief or delayed grief is the main obstacle to any healing process. We are meant to get back in touch with the feeling that is responsible for the sadness. Only when sadness is allowed can we learn to move on. It is mainly a matter of being able to experience the sadness .
That is why, when Raico passed away, I took time to process the loss. I didn’t hide it; I allowed the sadness to enter my life and even, after a while, I managed to start talking about it. I was consciously aware of the whole process. I didn’t bottle it up but bit by bit, I processed it. You shouldn’t allow grief to damage yourself, otherwise it will always be ballast that you keep dragging along throughout your life and no one deserves that. In this way I am open to the beautiful memories and the gratitude of my earthly relationship with Raico.
I went through the whole process of death, burial and grieving. For 40 days I was alive and present in the here and now and yet at the same time I wasn’t. I was unable to work; to write, to read, to cry, to laugh, to meditate and just to be me. I was in a sort of isolation. Then I slowly came out of my shell; back into society. I’m still grieving but I can function now.
The first messages, after his death and cremation, came quickly. That’s normal if you’re not sedated and if you’re open to it. I was aware and receptive and I always got the symbol of a butterfly.
Through Raico I discovered that everything in life is “celebrating and mourning”. Celebrate again and again and be grateful for what you have and mourn for what you have to leave behind or didn’t get etc… You can come across this process when in interaction with people and also in conflicts and conflict mediation either with yourself or with others. If you take the time you can learn from the experience of losing people and animals. Despite the sadness, problems and the grief you can learn…
You go through all the stages of grief and maybe become somewhat harder. You go through these stages of grief with all the problems life throws at you. Not just dealing with deaths, but also, for example, if you lose your job. Believe me, all misery, all losses are actually gifts. They are opportunities to grow and personal growth is the only purpose of existence on this earth, besides enjoyment.
You will grow when you are sick, when you are in pain and when you experience sadness. Then accept this pain and sorrow as a gift and not as a curse or punishment! Look at the other side of the coin and throw all the nonsense of your life overboard by doing what you love to do. If you did not do things to please others during your lifetime but you listened to your own inner voice and wisdom you will be happy and fulfilled when your time comes to leave.