Emotional times and hope

August has always been a difficult time for me emotionally for various reasons. Grief is foremost at that time even though those I grieve for may have passed over twenty years ago. There is also a deep sadness at their loss knowing what they could have achieved if still here. But these things are meant to be and you learn to live with their loss. It does get easier generally but there are times when I feel as if it was yesterday and the emotions run high.

As an empath, world events affect me daily and again I feel a deep sadness over recent events. I don’t feel anger as that would lead nowhere but I do feel this sadness at what has been happening all over the world. However I do have hope.

I have done a lot of reading and a lot of listening and I understand, and this is my point of view, that we all need to find our spiritual connection to the earth. We need to feel the earth beneath our feet, listen to what she is saying to us, listen to the trees and the animals that live on our planet. If we listen carefully then we can hear them and learn to do what they ask of us. It is quite simple really. Find that connection and the understanding that everything on our planet is connected in one way or another. You only have to think about what I was taught at school about the food chain and see how each species is connected to another species. We are the human species and we are connected to all the other species in some way or another. Find that deep contentment that comes from being in nature. Let your emotions flow into the earth to be healed and find joy amongst the trees and plants and the many insects some of whom have wonderful colours.

There is joy out there if you go outside and search. I find joy in the simple things like sitting on a seat overlooking a local lake and watching the birds on the water and seeing the dragonflies flitting about. Being by water is good for the emotions especially flowing water or the sea. It cleanses and heals too. So forget your anger and hate and go and find the joy outside in our wonderful natural world.

Closure

There are many words in the English language that have added to or changed their meanings over the years. Closure is one of those words. It meant and still means the closure of coal mines and department stores for example. But it has now got another meaning, closure after an unpleasant time or experience. I suppose it still means the act or process of closing something even with its extra definition.

So closure is the feeling or act of bringing an unpleasant time or experience to an end so that you can start again. Closure could refer then to ending one job which was not pleasant and starting a new job. Once you got into the new job you could forget about all the bad bits of the previous job. But is it that easy?

What about separation or divorce? How easy is it to start again and forget the bad bits? If children are involved then this can make it even harder to let go of the past and move on. Letting go of the pain is hard but it needs to be done if you want to move on. You can make a conscious decision to let the pain and anger go but if this doesn’t work you can try to express your pain and anger. You can write letters to the other person but not send them. Instead you can burn them with the intent that the pain and anger has gone so you can move forward again.

You also need to ‘be’ in the present. Focus on what you are doing now and enjoy your life as it happens. The final thing you have to do is to forgive the other person and that is possibly the hardest bit of all. But if you keep the pain and anger inside you, it will make you ill later on.

But how do you have closure when someone dear to you dies? Our emotions at that time run deep and as the grieving process takes its course we think of closure. Personally I find that with a death of a loved one, there is never what you could call a proper closure. We learn to live with the fact that our loved ones are no longer with us. Our love does not die so we have to learn to accept that they are no longer here but closure, I don’t think so. You can move on and even find another partner but your life has changed from what it was before the death occurred so you look at everything and everybody through different eyes. Also grieving can take several years as you adjust to the fact that your loved one has gone.

Is closure something that we deal with and achieve, or is it a myth?

Dealing with loss

Loss is something that most of us see at least once a week. We lose our belongings for example. Sometimes we lose precious belongings, items which mean a lot to us. There is a big difference between losing a pencil for example,  a twenty pound note and a watch that belonged to a member of your family that has long gone. Losing something precious like the watch makes us feel sad and even if we get a new watch it does not replace the old one in our hearts.

Losing a pet is even harder to deal with and the grief can last for many months. You never forget them or the joy they brought you but they keep a piece of your heart for ever. Many people have pets instead of children so when a pet dies, the loss to them is greater. Losing someone close to you is even harder than losing a pet. My father died in 1981, my husband in 1995 and my mother in 2003 so you would think I know how to grieve by now. What I have found is that each time someone close to me dies, it brings back all the memories of the previous deaths. So this week I have been feeling a deep sadness at the loss of a very dear friend.

If you search the internet you will find lots of help and suggestions  to help you deal with your grief. Some of these I have found helpful, like keeping to your daily routine as much as you can. You may not feel like doing anything but it is good to actually do the housework or go shopping however painful it seems. There will be bad days but I found that the gap between the bad days and the good ones got longer and there became more of the good days. It takes time to come to terms with losing someone close to you. Anniversaries are the worst days but after the first year of grief you have got through most of those. It is important to try to do joyful things even though you feel sad. I have found that sitting in the garden watching the bees and butterflies helps me

Talking to others or writing a journal can also help. But I need to say that losing loved ones does not always happen through death. There is divorce and separation for other reasons and there are those family members who decide to shun the rest of the family and deliberately lose contact. Grieving also happens in these cases.

One thing to remember that whoever you have lost, they have a small space in your heart where you will remember them for ever and you will remember the good times not just the bad ones.

The Rainbow bridge and loss

Living where I do in a complex of bungalows for old people, there are always many who pass on to the next world. Over the last couple of weeks there have been three of these plus a couple of others I know so a sad time for many.

Loss of a loved one is often very hard to deal with although life does go on in some form or other. You never forget the loved ones but your life does change. I am old enough to have lost both my parents and my husband so I do know how it feels. The hardest parts are the daily living when there is no one else there with you but you do get used to it although that feeling of being alone never goes away however much friends and other family are around.

But loss is not just about those passing over as we lose friends for unknown reasons. They may decide they don’t want to be friends any more and more on to other pastures. This can happen in partnerships too as one partner decides to move on and away from their partner of sometimes, many years. I’ve also been divorced and this form of loss is also when grieving is needed. We have to learn to cherish the good memories and let the bad ones go.

I try even now to take each day as it comes and I am trying very hard to be positive about each day and in turn, not exactly ignoring the bad stuff, but letting it go so only the good stuff stays in my mind. I am finding this a very useful way of ‘working’ and it is changing my outlook on life when the days are dark. I now see them as a short passage in a longer brighter time. This positive outlook is helping me with my mobility problems and I am starting to feel better about my life. There are still bad days as there always were but I am coping with them better. Remember the good things not the bad ones.