Strengthen Your Spiritual Link As You Mourn The Death Of Your Loved One

Many grief counselors and therapists believe that grief is essentially a spiritual journey. This journey involves beliefs, values, and the way we relate to mystery, nature, and the unknown. Since grief transforms the mourner through discovery, new experiences, and successes, their responses are highly individual. So too with our spiritual growth. Each one of us has a spiritual side which yearns for the transcendent, the good, and the beautiful.

However, for many who are grieving, their spiritual life may be challenged by death. In other instances, they grow through the death of a loved one to see the world in a different light. Now you do not have to be a regular church goer to develop your spiritual power. Yet, this is an asset that will pay huge dividends in adapting to your great loss. So what can you do? Here are some starters.

1. Plan a 15-20 minute period each day where you put yourself in a safe and silent place. Meditate on the spiritual link you will always have with your loved one as he/she is only a thought away. Speak or pray to the beloved according to your belief system. Using your creative imagination (a powerful faculty we all possess), see yourself, your beloved, and your Higher Power as a unity of one. Realize the insights and information that can flow from this loving triune union. Ask questions and learn to become a good listener in your solitude. Start a new spiritual practice.

2. Since visual imagery is very easy to do, practice the following. Go back in your life to a time when you have felt loved. Image in detail the scene and surround it with a bright light. Feel the love pouring through you and the feeling of belonging that it brings. Now send that bright love to your loved one and know that he/she can receive it and can also send it back to you. There will always be love between the two of you. It always lives on.

3. Also practice sending your love and good wishes to those who are in your social circle as well as other family members. Always surround them with light. Do the same with yourself and send the light to every part of your body. See it go through the top of your head, through shoulders and arms, and on into the lower body. As it exits the soles of your feet, see it taking some of the dark pain with it. Where you direct your attention you can direct loving energy. Know that your Higher Power is always with you, loves you, and listens to you. You only need to be open to connecting.

4. Put yourself in touch with a moment this day where you felt belonging. This belonging represents a nurturing connection with something greater than the self, with others, and with the universe. Focus on the circumstances of this feeling, who was there with you, and what transpired. Immerse yourself in the feeling that you are one with others, that you are caring and cared about. Whenever in doubt or feeling especially low, go back to your feeling of belonging and be open to the spiritual insights it conjures up.

5. Begin to feel appreciation for all you have been able to do up to this point in your grief journey. Appreciate the people, places, learning from the beloved you have received, and experiences that have been beneficial in dealing with your pain. Take time daily to focus in detail on what you appreciate and are thankful for in your time of great need. Become especially aware of little things that are blessings taken for granted (for example, you have hearing to listen to soothing music). Work on staying in the moment of peace when it is found. Dwell on the fact that you focus on expands. Finally, at some point direct you attention to how you might give back to others, what purpose and meaning you can give to your new life. This is all a part of spirituality.

6. Print out inspirational quotes or paragraphs from spiritually oriented books that have meaning for you. Place one in your car and one somewhere in your home where you will see it regularly. Or purchase a daily book of inspirational sayings that you can read from to start your day or during the day. Bottom line: you will be bombarded with many negative thoughts and feelings throughout the day and you need a source to refocus and give your thought processes a much needed change.

7. Read about the extraordinary events and experiences (sometimes called after-death communication) of other bereaved persons who have received a sign or message from their loved ones. Stay sensitive to the possibility that the very same could happen to you. Ask for a specific sign. There is a whole side of us that operates outside of space and time that science refuses to recognize because to do so would destroy their long held materialistic paradigm.

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