Healing from Loss
Coping with the loss of a loved one is a universal experience, whether loss comes through death or separation. Awareness that some of our loved ones will likely die before us does not shield us from the pain of our loss, or the grief that typically results. Nor does knowing that many loving relationships are not permanent. Regardless of the circumstances of the loss, the experience is dreaded by most of us.
The cycle of life, birth, and death almost guarantees that each of us will face the loss of a loved one, relative, or friend and the grief that follows. Tragic and unexpected deaths are painful and difficult to cope with. So too is the loss that results from separation, divorce, abandonment, and other circumstances that permanently end a loving or nurturing relationship. If you have had to cope with the loss of a loved one, you may be familiar with the range of emotions that people experience.
The recent loss of a loved one may have set you on the path that has led you to read this book. Perhaps a friend gave you this book to help ease your grief. Or like those who search for understanding in a Life Between Lives session, you may be seeking higher wisdom about a loss that you have endured.
When you are grieving the loss of a loved one, you are affirming your capacity for love and your ability to connect with the essence of another. No human experience is more essential to happiness and well-being than loving another. And no human experience is more important to your soul’s growth. Loss offers the soul a richer environment to learn, to heal, to balance, or to serve. Love is so valuable and coveted that people who have failed to connect and to love also experience profound grief. Understandably, the death of a loved one or the end of a loving relationship is an intensely emotional time.
Responses to the loss of a loved one may include denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and, if the grieving process is completed effectively, acceptance. The path through these emotions is not linear, although acceptance usually signals the end of the grieving process. No two people will experience loss in the exact same way. Loss of a loved one is personal. And each of us copes with it in our own way.
You or someone you know may have initially reacted to the death of a loved one by saying, “I just can’t believe she died.” This is not a literal disbelief, but an indication that the grieving process is not complete, and the loss has not been emotionally integrated. The person is not yet ready to move on beyond the loss. Someone else may react angrily: “I will never forgive him for leaving me behind.” You may know someone who responded to the imminent loss of a loved one by bargaining with God: “Please spare them, I will do anything you ask,” or in the case of a parent facing the death of a child, “Please God, she is too young to die, please take me instead.”
If you have lost a loved one, you may be intimately aware of the overwhelming sadness that seems like it will never lift. The profound grief renders you at least temporarily unable to consider how you will live on without your loved one. You withdraw, pulling back from the people and activities that filled a typical day. For some, this depression is so all-encompassing that they lose their own desire to continue living or begin to question the point of life. This is a question that often inspires someone to schedule a Life Between Lives session.
As you move toward acceptance of the loss, the emotional numbness begins to wear off. You reach the point when you realize that life must go on without your loved one, that you must finally accept that she or he will not return. What it takes to reach the point of acceptance is highly individual. Grief recovery entails discovering and completing what is unfinished for us in the relationship. Time alone does not heal; it is what you do within time that will help you heal the pain caused by loss.
Lack of Closure
With seventy-three-year-old Mayumi, we see the role that understanding and growing acceptance plays in coping with the loss of loved ones. She is an accomplished and well-known writer, herself on a spiritual path. Her popular metaphysical books have been translated into many languages. Through them she has induced readers around the world to look beyond their everyday, physical world. The death of two sons, Mathew and Tom, twelve years apart, left Mayumi emotionally devastated. Both situations were deeply wounding. The cause of their deaths and the fact that she had no opportunity to say goodbye intensified her grief. Mayumi has two other children—another son, Chris, and a daughter, Liz—but that fact did little to mitigate her sense of loss.
Recognizing the deep emotional scars left by the loss of her sons, Mayumi scheduled a Life Between Lives session. She hoped to gain an understanding of the higher purposes served by the untimely death of two of her sons.
During the Life Between Lives process, the practitioner first conducts a past-life regression in which Mayumi learns of her own early death at forty-two in a prior life. Mayumi identifies herself as Leonora Brewer Cuddahy. Born into high society, she lives within the constraints and social mores of her social class. She is stifled. She describes being surrounded constantly by servants who leave her feeling as if she cannot freely live her own life. She is trapped in an emotionally unsatisfying relationship with her husband, who is having an affair with another woman. His coldness and detachment are a constant contributor to her misery.
She sees herself at home standing in front of the fireplace in the front room of her Chicago apartment. She is alone, having just returned from a doctor’s appointment in which she received news that she has cancer. When asked by the practitioner how she feels knowing that her cancer is terminal, she gives the following answer.
I’m relieved to know that I can get out of here. On the one hand I’m facing the reality of it, that I’m going to die, but the feeling that I’m going to get out of here is bigger than the other feeling. I don’t know how long it will take me or if it will be horrible. But I’m happy. I’m happy to know that it’s actually coming to an end. I have four children and a husband and I’m still happy it’s coming to an end. I’m okay with that, and even then, for me, death is not an issue at all. And everybody else, I know they’re all going to be freaked out and do some things about it, but not me. I don’t care.
Her husband’s behavior and treatment of her has been so horrible that it has left Mayumi believing that escaping the situation is the best outcome that can be expected.
I do have a feeling about my cancer. I do feel that I created it on some level, which again is okay, but the most important thing is the conclusion I come to on that day. If I just surrender and let everything be the way it’s going to be, then it won’t be so bad. Whereas, if I fight it, if I try to do something to fight it, it will be a terrible experience. So, I just decide. I don’t care what anybody else has to say about it. I decide that I’m not going to fight this. And so, it’s not so bad. It’s a mess for everyone else. One of the reasons I want to get out of here is that the atmosphere in the house is just awful, and it’s because of my husband. He’s so bad that it’s worth dying to just get out of here. I do feel a little bit of a tug because of the kids, but it’s just so bad that I’ve got to get out of here.
Mayumi’s reflections suggest a realistic acceptance of the actuality of her imminent death, while hinting that she is suppressing true feelings about the sadness of leaving her children behind. Perhaps indicating the maturity of her soul, she explains further.
The interesting thing is, now I know that what I know in this lifetime as Leonora, and what I know in my current lifetime as Mayumi are connected. That’s interesting. At this point in my life as Leonora, when I would have really started to transform myself and grow and develop as a person, but in that environment with my husband, it was going to just be a trap. So, since it was going to be a trap, why not get out of it? Even with the children, I still conclude that it’s better to get out, and the reason is because I needed to transform. I could feel the midlife crisis thing, but there was no way I was going to be able to do it, except for basically to blow the place up. There’s no way I was going to be able to do that.
Mayumi gleans insight into Leonora’s emotional detachment when she describes being prevented from deep connection with her children. Given the family’s social status, the children are sent to boarding schools, and even when they are home, they are in the care of their governess.
I wanted to spend a lot of time with them, but it wasn’t allowed, so with each of the children it became more and more sad. And they also wanted to spend time with me, but it wasn’t allowed.
Mayumi’s desire for a deeper connection with her children is palpable. Her life has lacked this deeply satisfying connection with her children. Denied it, she sees no reason to carry on. Lacking it, she does not have the will to live.
Mayumi describes the last day of her life as Leonora. She is pleased and grateful that the nurse caring for her honors her wishes and brings the children to visit Leonora one by one. With amazement, Mayumi explains that normally, given their time away at school, the children would not even know what had happened to her.
But because of the nurse’s compassion, she can visit with each one, one more time, and say goodbye. This, she adds, is the problem she must come to terms with. In the current lifetime, she was not able to say goodbye to either of her boys.
During her Life Between Lives session, we learn that Mayumi has included in her soul’s plan for this lifetime the opportunity for a deeply loving and satisfying relationship with her two sons. She considers her life enriched by the years they shared. This joy is matched with the incredible pain of their deaths. Not being able to say goodbye has prolonged her suffering and delayed her acceptance.
Early in her session, Mayumi encounters her spiritual guide.
He’s got a big job, boy oh boy, an immense job. He is the one that is monitoring all these situations where people are ready to pass on, and he is making sure that the things that really need to happen regarding these situations do happen.
Mayumi wants to know why she has lost two children, whom she dearly loved. The guide first focuses her attention on her son Mathew, and she is surprised to learn that at an intuitive level he knew that he would die.
Mayumi’s difficulty accepting Mathew’s death is exacerbated by the uncertainty around his death. The coroner could not conclude whether he died of a heart attack in a boat or whether he just fell out of the boat and drowned. This uncertainty would evaporate as her guide offered important details about Mathew’s death that would help her find closure.
Mayumi learns from him that three weeks before he died, Mathew went to the emergency room for what presented as a severe digestive disturbance, noteworthy given his high pain tolerance developed as a mountain climber. The emergency room staff examined Mathew but sent him home without doing an electrocardiogram (EKG). The possibility that Mathew’s death could have been prevented had an EKG been done made accepting his death more difficult. With her guide’s help, she now sees that Mathew died of a heart attack.
As the session continues, Mayumi is reminded by her guide about a conversation that she had with Mathew a month before he died, an exchange made even more significant given its history. Despite Mayumi’s prolific writing and publications, Mathew had never read any of Mayumi’s work, telling her some years before that if he read her books, he would never be able to function on a logical level to complete his Ph.D. During this last conversation with Mathew, he shared that he had just finished reading her most successful metaphysical publication. Mayumi now came to see that Mathew’s validation of her works and writings were his way of saying goodbye.
“Mom, you really do know what you’re doing. I got it, and you do know what you’re talking about.”
Knowing how Mathew died provided Mayumi with solace. She hoped it would free her to move through her grief and reach acceptance about his death. Would she be so fortunate in her effort to come to terms with the death of her second son, Tom, at forty-one, twelve years earlier? Would her guide once again be able to lead her successfully to understanding and acceptance?
Despite being healthy, Tom’s transition to independence had been difficult. He needed family support to find housing and employment. Despite his age, the family only learned that he was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome right before he died. Despite Mayumi’s repeated efforts from the time he was born, and over the next four decades, she was not able to fully connect with him. Her determination to make eye contact with him was based on her understanding that doing so was essential to engaging with and connecting to him emotionally.
Four months before he died, Tom looked at Mayumi with his beautiful, sapphire eyes for the very first time. With the gentle and loving assurance common to all spiritual helpers, her guide confirmed that this had been Tom’s way of saying goodbye.
Mayumi and her family were horrified about the circumstances surrounding Tom’s death. The pain of their loss was intensified by the many questions that remained unanswered. He was found hung in a tree, and it was believed by some that he had committed suicide. Because they were so distraught after hearing of his death, no one in the family went to identify the body. This added to their lingering uncertainty and disbelief.
Mayumi’s guide shows her what happened.
Tom didn’t hang himself. He was killed by three people who thought that he might have had some money in his backpack. Tom just let the three kill him. Despite being strong and tough enough to have defended himself, Tom chose not to. He wanted to die. Tom didn’t believe he was getting anywhere in life while struggling with his limitations.
This insight enables Mayumi to acknowledge that, in his own way, Tom basically did commit suicide, even though he didn’t die at his own hand. The impact of the information Mayumi gleans about the loss of both of her sons is immediate and profound. While still hypnotized, she muses.
I’m in touch with them both, and as much as I’d like them to still be here with us, I now don’t feel out of touch. I know that Tommy is still guarding us to some degree. I feel him in ways I did when he was alive and it’s very comforting. Both Mathew and Tommy had simply finished what they came here to do.
With this understanding, Mayumi acknowledges an attitude shift with her surviving son and daughter, Chris and Liz. She now feels able to give them her full attention.
The first thing I did when Mathew and Tommy died was feel grateful for the time I had with them. It doesn’t feel that way with Chris and Liz. It doesn’t feel like I need to be grateful for the time I have left with them. Perhaps it is because intuitively I know that we will have many more years together. And that I feel like I’ll be able to say goodbye to them.
Like for many others, the Life Between Lives experience continued to offer Mayumi insight and comfort well beyond the session’s end. She shares her relief in a letter sent to her practitioner.
Good news! I think our work with Tom has freed him in some way. Suddenly he is coming to my husband and our daughter in dreams. Good work, his spirit is more untethered.
I am so pleased I was able to see that both the boys had said goodbye to me a few weeks before their deaths because their souls knew they were soon going. Recovering this memory of my last time with them is very healing, and knowing more about the circumstances of their deaths makes it easier to live with the pain.
Healing in the Aftermath of Suicide
In extreme cases, some people suffer for years or even decades before their grief is resolved. Such instances offer clues to possible unresolved emotional issues that prevent a person from reaching acceptance after the death of their loved one. The case of Evelyn is illustrative.
Evelyn, fifty-eight, comes for a Life Between Lives session seeking relief for chronic depression that she has suffered for more than forty years after the suicide of her sixteen-year-old twin brother, Sven. Unable to save Sven from their mother’s abuse or from committing suicide, Evelyn fell into a profound depression. Their years of suffering childhood abuse played a major role in the strong emotional bond that prevents Evelyn from full acceptance of the loss. Despite her years of depression, Evelyn and her husband raised four children who, like their parents, have successful professional careers.
Over the four decades, Evelyn has reached a place of understanding and compassion about her mother’s mistreatment of her brother and herself. What remains are her feelings about Sven. She has visions of his soul being stuck in a desperate, lost state. These visions trigger feelings of deep guilt.
During her session, Evelyn is released from death after an unspectacular past life. While crossing over into the afterlife, she experiences only darkness at first, almost blackness. Gradually, her surroundings begin to lighten.
Evelyn senses safety and warmth before her guide approaches. He tells her he has been with her forever and infuses her with strength and love.
He answers the questions Evelyn prepared for her session. She discovers her life purpose is giving and receiving as much love as possible, and that she is already fulfilling this purpose well. She learns that the pain she has experienced in this life has been for a purpose. In her past lives, Evelyn tended to be proud and stubborn. Her soul planned a life to overcome these tendencies, along with her propensity to see herself apart from others. Her guide congratulates her on dissolving her pride and developing humility and advises that she can heal further.
You can become joyful and happy in your life if you stop taking on problems, work, and responsibility for others; focus on friendliness, benevolence, approval, acknowledgment. Your children can take over their own responsibilities as adults.
The focus within the Life Between Lives session shifts to the questions Evelyn has regarding Sven’s suicide. When her guide affirms that the possibility of suicide was understood before Sven and she incarnated, Evelyn collapses into heartbroken crying. For her, this idea is intolerable, and she angrily starts defying her guide.
Evelyn angrily shouts the following.
He was pried from me abruptly without any forewarning. Why? Our soul connection was ruptured! I want him back!
Within minutes, Evelyn senses Sven holding her in his arms. Begging, she cries out to him.
Stay with me now, don’t leave me! We are united again. Together we are whole and now I am going to swallow him, so he will stay with me. We are now joined in a beautiful round circle. He shall stay with me.
He says it was too terrible down here. He couldn’t stand it any longer. I was not the cause and I was not involved. I have nothing to do with his suicide.
Evelyn is bereft upon learning that Sven has incarnated again in another location on earth, far from her. He is fine, married with two daughters.
Evelyn is angered by the practitioner’s suggestion that she ask Sven to visit with her from time to time.
No, I won’t ask that. He shall stay with me. He shall stay, please stay! He asks me now why he is so important for me. What a stupid question!
Cowering together under their mother’s lash, Evelyn formed a tight bond with Sven. When he died, she was shocked and isolated, harboring a simmering anger. Unresolved, it has prevented her from reaching acceptance despite the long passage of time. Even now, hearing from him, she cannot accept that he had his way of coping with their mother’s mistreatment and that in choosing to kill himself he was exercising his free will.
He doesn’t want to stay. He wants to go his own way. We only had each other. Wasn’t I important to him?
Sven tells Evelyn that she will have to wait until they are reunited on the spiritual plane to reconnect with him on a regular basis.
He says that it’s not possible for him to stay, but that he is leaving a tiny bit of himself with me. He asks why I cry so much for him. You dimwit! You know that. Dimwit! How can one be so dumb? He knows how much I miss him! He denies this and doesn’t want me to miss him so much.
Evelyn is not willing to immediately relinquish her need for Sven and let him pursue his own desires, which is evident as she tries to assert her wishes over his. It seems she retains some remnants of stubbornness. Having an abusive mother who was unable to express love and kindness bound her to Sven emotionally. Her soul set up the difficult circumstances of her childhood to test her. At this stage, she is still using Sven to fill her childhood need for love.
In her interaction with her practitioner, Evelyn reflects on the shock of losing him so abruptly. Understandably, she was furious at the time. Evelyn sees how the anger and guilt that she let fester for four decades has contributed to her depression. She now sees that he had become a substitute for the parental love she did not receive. Losing him, losing his love, left her with a void that no one else could fill, and with unresolved emotions that eventually brought her to her Life Between Lives session. Resolving these emotions is key to Evelyn’s acceptance.
Evelyn acknowledges that if she truly loves Sven, she will let him be free, and that he must do what is best for himself. She is ready to shift from neediness and anger to love and acceptance and to be in touch with her true self, a loving and compassionate woman.
He deserves all his happiness. I am happy that he has such a good life with a loving family and that he is moving forward with his development. Now I can let him go.
The session closes with her guide helping Evelyn immerse into the light, which he tells her is her soul’s ultimate purpose.
Evelyn expresses both gratitude and joy in a note to her practitioner a few days after the session.
The session has helped me incredibly. I can only say that there has been a huge release. I can hardly describe this change. Finally, I am journeying through life with light baggage. I am serene and cheerful, and life is easy. I owe that to you and to your wonderful work.
As the months pass following the Life Between Lives session, Evelyn’s reflections underscore the growing value of her experience.
I now have a completely different sense of life and feel so much better than before. I am often in touch with my guide, receiving signals from him and experiencing our communication as playful. I am getting to know and to love myself as a very special person. Each day, I am finding new aspects of myself, and accepting myself lovingly as the person I am.
Loving After Loss
As difficult and paradoxical as it may seem, losing a loved one creates opportunities for spiritual growth for the soul to accomplish goals set for a lifetime. The death of Barbara’s grandparents in a car accident and her mother later that same year when Barbara was only ten years old shaped her beliefs and expectations regarding the risk of having an open heart. She scheduled her Life Between Lives session with the hope of better understanding her current situation, including her intense feelings of loneliness and emotional detachment despite her marriage to Richard. When asked about her marriage, Barbara said she had one foot out the door.
As Barbara dies in her past life and enters the afterlife, she is met by her guide, who places his hand over her heart. She is stunned by the intense burning in and around her heart as he places his hand over it. His energetic healing is accompanied by an explanation of why she experienced so much loss early in her life.
I chose to have my heart broken early in life. I wanted to understand unconditional love more deeply. A broken heart can open the heart. For hearts to truly be open, there must be compassion. Hearts must be broken on the earth plane.
My mother and grandparents agreed to play these important roles in my life. My grandmother had such a pure heart. She was so loving. She was a role model for loving unconditionally. Losing them broke my heart. This great loss set the stage for me to grow to understand love and compassion.
Barbara tearfully shares what she is learning from her guide.
He is pointing out that there was a risk with this strategy. It was risky because there is a lot of fear that came with it. In fact, there was the possibility that I would become so fearful that I might not get the deep lesson I was wanting.
He says that I am aware that the fear can block me and that I also have an awareness of the fear that was blocking me. I fear more loss. I fear life. After all that loss, I wanted to keep closed.
Although the message is painful, through her guide’s healing and sharing, Barbara has come to understand the tough lesson that she embedded in her life plan.
The fear causes you to want to close yourself off, but you must be open. It’s a tough lesson. But understanding this will help you cope with loss in the future without shutting yourself off from the joy of an open heart.
Intensifying the healing that has already taken place, Barbara’s mother joins her, and she is overwhelmed with emotion.
My mother is so beautiful now! She wants me to look after my brothers. She is concerned that they are not connected. They are not connected with their spiritual souls in the way I am. She is reminding me that although I might get caught up in the busyness of life, she would like me to look out for them. She thinks I am doing fine. She is telling me that it was hard to leave us all, but that it was important.
Prompted by her practitioner’s questions about the impact of her mother’s death on other family members, Barbara conveys what she has come to understand through the session.
Each of us has our own lessons. I feel like my twin brother is with me right now. He is showing me his family. His two boys are also twins; they are identical. My brother’s lesson is about family, but it is different than mine. It is something about not having a family and having a family. He is a loner. He likes to be alone a lot. Despite this, he planned to be my twin so that he would not be alone in our family. His life plan includes what seems to be different aspects; being married, having a family, yet being a loner. I don’t really understand what I am being shown. The guide is indicating that the details about my brother’s plan are very private. It is not really for me to understand.
In a somewhat whimsical segue, her guide now appears dressed as a warrior to escort Barbara into an ancient Greek temple. Somewhat bewildered, she relays her experience as she enters the temple on her own.
There are all these rooms. This is crazy! I just keep going and going through the rooms. People keep pointing. I keep meeting different beings. One being after another, and each points in another direction. They just lead me to another room, and there is another being that points me to another room, and then another one points to another room! I finally go up to the roof. There is someone resembling a Native American chief there. He is the one I am supposed to meet.
Barbara begins to cry as she elaborates.
It took forever to reach him because of my tendency to always doubt myself. I am always telling myself “that’s not it, that’s not it, that’s not it.” Self-doubt has held me back.
As they walk together on the beach, the chief sheds light on Barbara’s sense that there is something missing in her marriage and on her indecision about how to resolve this feeling. She finds it uncomfortable to confront these truths but understands that the chief’s admonishments are offered with unconditional love and acceptance.
He says that my focus is off. One of my setbacks is that I focus on what I am lacking more than what I have. The amount of loss I have experienced can have that effect. He is telling me that I am not as lonely as I think I am, that I have a rich life and a rich relationship. I am just seeing it through a sort of filter.
The chief is emphasizing that it is my choice. Every day I make that choice. Each day I decide how I want to see it. He is telling me that I need to look carefully at what is there. He’s repeating this to underscore his point. I need to focus on what is there, rather than what I wish was there. I might be surprised when I do! The chief is reminding me that my soul’s plan included everything I would need.
To anchor the insight Barbara has gained, her practitioner closes with a reminder for her to allow the chief’s words, his wisdom, and his love into the depths of her being, encouraging her to let it redirect her focus and clear up some of her misunderstandings.
If she can overcome her fear of loss, Barbara will find that both her loving relationships and her life are enriched. The wisdom and love that she has experienced in her Life Between Lives session will serve as a guiding light as she works to integrate these lessons into the future choices she makes.
Losing the Love of Your Life
Go-Gi introduces us to another soul plan that includes loss of a loved one. She is a beautiful twenty-eight-year-old who immigrated to another country as a child. Her close-knit family eased the suffering of a debilitating health condition that limited her ability to walk and even move at various points earlier in life.
A self-described deep thinker who is very private, she found Jeffrey, someone she wanted to share everything with. With him by her side, Go-Gi felt she could meet any challenge in life. But their plans for a future together were shattered when Jeffrey died unexpectedly. Go-Gi became so depressed. Losing Jeffrey left Go-Gi with no interest in life. Devastated by the loss of the love of her life, she contemplated suicide. She scheduled her Life Between Lives session with the hope of understanding why her time with Jeffrey was cut short.
Upon entering the afterlife, she encounters her spirit guide who has worked with her over many lifetimes. Go-Gi discovers that she is meant to learn how to give without expecting anything in return.
The love that you and Jeffrey shared was deep and beautiful. Your souls experience that love even more intensely, way more than you were able to in human form.
Like many others who have lost a beloved loved one, Go-Gi hopes to connect with Jeffrey. She learns that with time and patience this could be possible.
I can find him through things that I do selflessly for others, remembering and completing what we have started together. I can do what he did and help people and be there for anybody that I can be of help to. From this flows a connecting cord. I can feel it now. I can learn how to live without his physical presence.
Go-Gi learns that the brevity of her relationship with Jeffrey was built into her soul plan.
We did plan it, but it was not to cause suffering. I volunteered to go through it, to be with him. The lessons and experiences were primarily for him. My lessons were indirect.
I helped him to get his life together. I helped him better himself and complete something important with one member of his family. Jeffrey’s turnaround strengthened his connection to his family. They had more respect for him than ever before, and that was what was important. In the end, it was natural for me to suffer, given my deep love for him. But it was a sacrifice I willingly made because of our deep and abiding love.
As the exchange continues, her guide acknowledges with a note of admiration that coping with Jeffrey’s death was a lot harder than Go-Gi imagined when she agreed to assume this vital role in Jeffrey’s soul plan. Expressing both optimism and encouragement, he adds that something on the horizon will help Go-Gi get through it.
While these insights cannot bring Jeffrey back, the joy that she taps into during her Life Between Lives session helps Go-Gi regain emotional balance and calm. Even lacking clarity about what the future holds, Go-Gi finds peace connecting to the depth of her love for Jeffrey, a bond that she now understands transcends time and lifetimes. Realizing that her soul has crafted a plan for this lifetime gives her the resolve to move forward in life, open to undefined potentialities and possibilities. She offers the following understanding.
When we are on earth, we are not meant to suffer pointlessly. We don’t just suffer forever and then it all comes to an end. Good things happen again. Jeffrey and I will be back together again, but there are important things that first need to be accomplished. I need to remain focused on that and complete what I came to accomplish in this lifetime. When I am ready and complete, I can see him again.
Many people respond to the loss of loved ones through coping mechanisms that seem effective, but that ultimately do not serve them well. For example, isolation, overworking, or compulsive spending can be comforting and distracting at first, but do not help us move through our grief. Overcoming grief, for many, includes remembering the simple pleasures and joys of everyday life and seeing the possibilities and promise for joy and happiness that lie ahead. While the loved one is never forgotten, for most people, the searing pain of loss subsides over time and is replaced by the comforting memories of the shared love. For some, the power of a Life Between Lives session helps ease the loss, enabling them to find hope for a more promising future.
The death of a loved one, or the end of a loving relationship, is an intensely emotional time. It is a period of upheaval that is highly personal, and which progresses you through a range of emotions. As you proceed, you may experience temporary relief. But, because the path is not linear, you may find yourself in a spiral of emotions. Feeling good one day and unable to function or control your emotions on the next.
How you cope reflects both your prior experience with loss and the beliefs that you hold. There is no countdown clock on this process. It too is highly personal. You will know you have finished grieving when you have fully accepted the reality of your loss, when you resume your usual day-to-day routines, and when you begin to plan for a future that no longer includes your loved one.
Those who believe that “love never dies” retain a connection to the lost loved one that offers comfort, while someone who believes that the death or separation represents an abandonment is more likely to struggle. Belief shapes your expectation, which in turn influences your reaction.
Mayumi, Evelyn, Barbara, and Go-Gi held different beliefs about their loss, and each coped in their own way. What they all share is the decision to schedule a Life Between Lives session to heal and to bring closure. Perhaps a personal loss has led you to this book or other books from the Michael Newton Institute. Perhaps, like them, you are seeking to put your loss of a loved one into a broader context. Through each of their stories, we have felt the searing pain that accompanies the loss of a loved one.
For both Mayumi and Evelyn, long-festering grief was eased through the wisdom gleaned during Life Between Lives sessions. Both found closure and acceptance in the insight and understanding the sessions provided. Each in their own way and at their own pace eventually moved through the natural phases of grief. Each reached acceptance aided by the higher wisdom they received about the devastating loss they had endured.
In her Life Between Lives session, the lessons Barbara gleaned allowed her to make sense of the losses that she experienced as a young child and to shed light on coping mechanisms that had outlived their usefulness. The experience empowered her to reshape her beliefs and begin to make new choices. With Go-Gi, loss led her to realize that she had agreed to endure the pain of loss to play an important role in her beloved’s soul plan.
Through their losses, all four affirmed their capacity for love and connection with their heart. Each of them experienced love in a way that enriched their lives even though the loss of love robbed them of some of life’s joy.
Through their sessions, each of them learned that loving another affords the soul the opportunity to accomplish its purpose, whether it be to learn, to heal, to balance, or to serve. They were able to open their hearts and to take down the barriers that they had erected to protect themselves from further pain. And each of them came to understand the importance of love for their soul’s growth and understanding.