Surviving Life’s Low Points

Today is my fourth wedding anniversary.   I am here but my husband isn’t.  We actually only got to commemorate our first wedding anniversary.  Chris passed away nine days before our second.

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A Love Letter To My Husband – 2

I wrote this letter to my husband late last night.  All the emotions in the words came pouring out and I was reminded how complex we all are.

That I can miss my husband but have the love and respect for life to keep investing and looking forward to the future.  That I can love him with all my heart but be open to give and receive love.  There is no limitation in life or in feelings.  When we feel there is one, it is us building the wall.

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Breaking The Strong Grip Of Loss And Fear In Love

At some point in our lives we become aware of some inevitable big themes; loss and death.  Even the lucky ones, who will only experience the loss of others from old age, will have to come face to face with grief.

I don’t want to talk about the pain loss causes but do want to talk about fear.

Once we have experienced our first life changing loss, how do we continue to live life with courage and commitment, fully knowing that more loss will take place including that of our own selves?

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Life Sometimes Can Be Truly Strange

I received an animation file from a director I’m working with and after playing it on my computer another file came up that I clicked to play.  It was of my late husband in a trip he had taken to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  He was by beach being taught how to prepare a Caipirinha (our national drink).  I saw his face, I heard his voice and I again wondered “what happened?”

Most of us go on after losing someone who was very close and who we loved very much.   We make new friends, have new experiences, and maybe even fall in love again, but the space within us that a picture, or a recording can bring us back to, I believe never gets filled up with something else.

We are a thinking species and we want to understand life.  We write books, we research, we dialogue, but certain questions continue to go answered.   Death? Soul? Spirit? Consciousness?  Religion and science try to come up with explanations but so far nothing has really quenched our thirst for an absolute certainty.

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Learning To Go With The Flow

One of the keys to life is adaptability.  It’s the old go with the flow.

We all have plans and ideas on a daily basis on what our lives should be and look like.  But on a daily basis those thoughts have to be adjusted.  How well we can let go and adapt is the difference between stress/loss and forward movement.

Of course we should have a direction that reflects that ultimate goal we have in life.  Let’s say if you want to have a family of your own, that is an ultimate goal.  But maybe you don’t have a partner or maybe you can’t have children.  So adoption or some other kind of way to have children becomes your alternate route.  Getting stuck on, “I want to get pregnant like many other women”, represents a lack of adaptability which prevents your ultimate goal.

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Steps To Dealing With Guilt

What is guilt?

I previously have written about guilt (http://theloveprojectinc.com/?p=3173) but have recently have some additional thoughts on the subject so I have decided to write this post.  Let me start with  Wikipedia’s definition of guilt.

Guilt is a cognitive or an emotional experience that occurs when a person realizes or believes—accurately or not—that they have violated a moral standard, and bears significant responsibility for that violation.

Live Strong (http://www.livestrong.com/article/14689-handling-guilt) says guilt is:

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Viktor Frankl – Meaning Of Life

If you never read Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, I highly recommend.  Dr. Frankl was a concentration camp survivor who credits his search for meaning under any circumstances as the key factor in surviving hunger, loss, violence and despair.  In the video below he says we have limited freedom in what happens in our lives but unlimited freedom in how we deal with pain.  He says so beautifully that if we can find meaning in all aspects of life we can turn even our loss and suffering into our personal success.  Watch the video.

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Why Is It So Hard To Change?

I think one of the reasons it is so hard, it’s because in most cases that would mean we would have to come to terms with having been, having done or having acted in the “wrong” way.

And so because we are so attached to the concepts of right and wrong the intermediary step of recognizing that we and life could have been different if only we had known what we know now, a difficult one to take.

Let me be specific:

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Jealousy

“A Buddhist Perspective on Grieving”

The below is an excerpt from a book by Roshi Joan Halifax.  It is one of the most insightful and delicate pieces on death and dying I’ve ever read.  So I wanted to share with you.

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by Roshi Joan Halifax

The ultimate relationship we can have is with someone who is dying. Here we are often brought to grief, whether we know it or not. Grief can seem like an unbearable experience. But for those of us who have entered the broken world of loss and sorrow, we realize that in the fractured landscape of grief we can find the pieces of our life that we ourselves have forgotten.

Grief may push us into the hard question of Why? Why do I have to suffer like this? Why can’t I get over it? Why did this one have to die? Why… . In the tangled web of “Why,” we cannot find the reasons or words to make sense of our sadness.

Dying people also can grieve before they die. They can grieve in anticipation of their death for all they will seem to lose and what they have lost by being ill. Caregivers will grieve before those they care for have died. They are often saddened by the loss of freedom and options of those that are ill and the knowledge that death will rob them of one more relationship. Those that have been left behind by the dying are often broken apart by the knowledge that they cannot bring back that which has been lost. The irrevocability of it all often leaves them helpless and sad. And then there is the taste of grief in Western culture which is conditioned to possess and not let go.

We all face loss, and perhaps can accept it as a gift, albeit for most us, a terrible one. Maybe we can let loss work us. To deny grief is to rob ourselves of the heavy stones that will eventually be the ballast for the two great accumulations of wisdom and compassion. Grief is often not addressed in contemporary Buddhism. Perhaps it is looked on as a weakness of character or as a failure of practice. But from the point of view of this practitioner, it is a vital part of our very human life, an experience that can open compassion, and an important phase of maturation, giving our lives and practice depth and humility.

To begin, it is important for us to remember that the experience of being with dying for many does not stop at the moment of death. As a caregiver of a dying person or family member who has been at the death of a relative, we may attend the body after death and offer our presence to the community as they and we grieve. When the details of dying and death are settled, then what arises from the depths of the human heart is the many expressions of sorrow when the presence of loss is finally give the room to be seen and felt.

Sometimes grieving lasts not for weeks or months but for years. Frequently the reason why grief is not resolved is that it has not been sufficiently attended to just after the loss of a loved one. Family and friends of the deceased can become consumed by the busyness of the business that happens right after someone dies.

This is one of the great problems that we face in the Western way of dying, that business is so much a part of the experience of dying and death. Survivors often face a complex situation on the material level in the after-death phase. They find themselves looking for a funeral home, letting friends and family know that a death has happened, and creating a funeral service. Unraveling health insurance, taxes, and the last will and testament also take time and energy at this stage. Later there is cleaning up, dividing and giving away the deceased’s property, and other seemingly endless chores of closure. Resorting to the business of death can be a way for survivors to avoid the depth of their own loss.

Like dying, grieving has its phases, and it is important to pass through them.
Similar to the phases of dying, grief can be characterized by numbness and denial, anger, great sorrow, depression, despair and confusion. Finally, there can be acceptance and even transcendence as sorrow has opened the door of appreciation and compassion. These phases are similar to those experienced in a rite of passage: separation, transition, return.

Grief can also arise as a person is dying. Family and friends as well as the one who is dying can experience what is called “anticipatory grief,” the bones of loss already showing. Working with that grief is an important part of what one can do in the care of the dying. In fact, most caregivers have to cross and recross this territory of grief in being with living and dying many times in the course of just one person dying…Continued

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