Sparks in Wisdom's Fire: grief

Showing posts with label grief. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 19, 2022

It's Within You

Are you aware? Did you know? The world is a wild, wonderful, magical place. Sometimes I forget. Maybe you do, too. If you are like me, you get stuck in the chaos, the drudgery, the unexpected. You forget to see what is just beyond the surface.

As the uncertainty angels into us, we become imprisoned in an illusion of futility. I know, you don’t want to hear that. Neither do I. But, within us is the power of awareness, the ability to meet the uncertainty. In the meeting we dissolve the tangles.

I am not saying calling upon our awareness and abilities is easy. What I am saying is that we need not stay in this place of despair. It may not even be as hard to climb out of it as we think.

Like everything in our life, meeting this challenge is an inside job. Within each of us is a kernel of curious, of daring, that calls us into the wild, the wonder, the magic. But, how do we get there? We begin to nurture that kernel with our breath.

Inhale. Exhale. Feel your breath flowing through your body. Ride the stream to your heart. Sync your breath with your heartbeat. Be in the rhythm. Feel the calm permeate your being. Feel the curiosity, the promise twining into your awareness. Ask, “What promise is resting in between the heart beats? How do I need the promise to manifest?” Hold the answers gently in the palm of your heart.

With the promise tucked into the heart of your spirit, re-enter the stream of your breath. Ride the flow to your soul spark — that which connects you to all. If you dare, dive into the darkest depths, enter your place of wonder, of mystery, of magic. Listen to the mystery. Breath in the magic. Feel the wonder twine with the vibration of your promise.

Connect to your internal GPS — that which can make your promise real. Ask yourself, “What one thing can I do to realize my promise?” Start small, go big, land someone in between. It doesn’t matter where you start…just begin the process of making your promise REAL. Connect to your Velveteen Rabbit power!

Maybe you know how to channel your inner Velveteen Rabbit. Maybe you are without a clue how to make the promise real. Breathe deep. Breathe wide. Travel to your core — that place that shines within you. Trust in your innate wisdom. Know that the way is forged step-by-step. Listen with all of your senses. They call you into an incredible lightness of being.

It matters not how far we go on the journey. What matters is that we walk the path step-by-step and meet our challenges along the way.

Van Hurst, ms, is an intuitive-coach-catalyst. As a contemplative coach, she uses mindfulness practices and intuition tools to create strategies for navigating the mundane and extraordinary. The result of time with Van? Being the change you want to see in the world by creating a blueprint for your life through a deeper connection to your intuition and contemplative nature.

Van is a professional speaker & author who weaves inner wisdom into all she touches. Her books are available @ www.wildefyrpress.com. Her most recent book, As Natural As Breathing: Being Intuitive, is available on Amazon. Contact Vanessa for life coaching, intuitive consultations, keynotes, and programs.

Tuesday, July 12, 2022

Grieving Into Hope: Communal Hope

We are a couple of weeks past the longest day of the year, yet it feels like we are in the darkest of nights. I am not even thinking any more, “What else?” We all know what happens when we anticipate a question like that.

Instead, I am reminding myself to be in the moment and to take life as it comes. Not as an act of complacency, but as an act of defiance, an act of hope, an act of transformation.

I take life as it is so that I can be the light wherever I find myself. To remind myself that in the dark, grief can festers. I don’t want to be part of the festering…as my mother would remind me: no good can come of that.

Last week I wrote about grief as a personal act. This week I am writing about grief as a communal act. Want to learn more about personal grief? Check out last week’s blog.

Communal grief ricochets off each of us and burrows deeply into the collective consciousness. This is the grief that becomes a living palatable, gritty thing. Untethered, it takes on a life of its own. It festers until we are overwhelmed. Lost in the dark, we cannot articulate the question, “if not now,” much less answer it.

How do we grieve into hope as a community? Within each of us is a kernel, no matter how small, of hope. Each of us has the potential to be the change even if it means moving through the quagmire of grief. That is the energy each of us brings — the energy that will sustain us through the grief into a new way of life.

Surrendering through the collective grief. So, how do we start? It begins by being with one another. Talking. Lamenting over what is lost. Purging grief through your tears. Being present to grief.

When those tears fall upon the ground of our collective soul, magic happens. Those tears compost for the collective garden. Within them is possibility. Drop by drop they change the landscape of our collective soul.

They feed our hope until collective hope pushes its fragile stems through that composted soil. If we pay attention, we discover how hope manifests in the words, actions of our self and others.

Because each of us in community are in different phases of grief, we share different energy with one another. Through our differences, we raise each other up. We move through our grief into hope.

I am not going to kid you. This doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time. It takes community. It takes each of us. The African proverb says that it takes a Village to Raise a Child. It takes each of us, together to grieve into hope and in doing so, change the world.

This is an invitation to join in collectively grieving through hope.

Watch Grieving into Hope through personal and communal grief.

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

Grieving Into Hope: Personal Grief

It feels like life has given us a barrage of one thing after another. Each of us can reflect upon our life, and I invite you to do that to pinpoint when you began in earnest to grieve a loss. The loss can be something personal. The loss of a loved one, a joy, a pet, something that was uniquely yours.

Recall a grief — it can be one tempered by time or one that is still poignantly fresh. Sit with the grief. Breathe into it. Which of the stages of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross calls to you? Are you in denial? Are you angry? Do you need to bargain? Are you depressed? Are you accepting the loss?

It doesn’t matter where you are. What is important is that you identify the grief and where you are in your relationship with the grief.

Sit with the grief and how you named it. I am going to ask you to use your five senses to create a multi-sensory image of your grief:

What does your grief look like?

What does it sound like?

What does it feel like?

What does it taste like? (yes, grief can have a taste!)

What does it smell like?

Create a multi-sense image of your grief. Hold it gently in the palm of your heart. Ask it, “Grief, what would you tell me?” Listen to the response. Tuck the message gently into your heart knowing you can return to it over and over again.

Grief has always has a message. When we converse with Grief, we are given a kernel of hope. Always.

How do we move through grief? Grief in all of its grittiness has a companion. That companion’s name is Self-Compassion. Self-compassion is the gentle reminder that we cannot have life without loss. It is not here to erase the suffering. No, it calls us to find ways to alleviate suffering. Compassion, like grief, is an inside job.

ISelf-compassion is caring for you. Self-Compassion says, “I may not change the trajectory of your actions, but I can minimize your suffering.” Open yourself to me and watch what happens.

And, that is important. Because as individuals, we grieve. Self-Compassion asks us to surrender into the messiness of our life instead of ignoring the grief. Compassion asks us to face the grittiness with courage. When we get to the final stage of grief, acceptance, we accept the loss not because we want to, but because any other action would not have us being true to our core.

This acceptance is not an act of complacency but an act of power. Only when we listen to the voice of loss do we discover the possibility of hope. Within grief, within loss, is hope.

Tuesday, September 15, 2020

Catapulting from Grief to Your Message

Lately a great welling of grief has flooded into an unsuspecting world. Who would have realized on January 1, 2020, that the world would experience so many challenges and face so much loss in less than a year? We often have to remind ourself of the many avalanches that have happened this year. Through the fatigue we are challenged to recognize our grief, stand in our power, and do everything we can to alleviate the suffering that percolates around us.

All is not dire. We as individuals and as community have an opportunity that cannot be missed. That opportunity is to grow into our message. Gandhi, when asked by a reporter what his message was, simply said, “my life is my message.” Do you know what your message is? How do you discern your message when you are bombarded by the grief that overwhelms both you and the world?

Grief is a powerful shaper of the articulation of our message. Let’s use the five stages of grief — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance — as defined by Elizabeth Kübler-Ross in this discernment. What follows is my take on using grief as a discernment spring board.

As you go through each step use full-body listening to get a detailed image of how your grief is expressed. As you answer each question, use your primary senses: sight, hearing, sensing (feeling), smell, and taste to formulate your response. Notice how your body, your mind, your spirit, and your emotions are impacted by the questions.

Let’s begin:

Denial: What in your life are you not accepting of? What do you avoid, minimize, or misinterpret? What, in this moment, would you name as the most important denial? How is it stopping you from sharing your truth with the world?

Anger: Reflect upon those things that tangle you in denial. How does your anger stem from each? Dig beneath the anger to its roots; discover what triggers the anger inside of you. How is that root impacting your internal monologue, your emotions, your physical body?

Bargaining: How often do you make the “if this, then that” deal? What do you bargain for? How is your anger a bargaining chip? What is the impact of this bartering on your body, mind, spirit, and heart? What triggers are you willing to neutralize by not bartering?

Depression: Let’s look at depression as feelings of hopelessness that result from reactive anger. Name what you are particularly hopeless about. How can you use the power of your anger to share your message with the world? How is your anger a nonviolent power that triggers transformation?

Acceptance: Look at the answers to the questions regarding the first four stages. Create a panoramic view of what you discovered. Recognize that while you cannot change the situation, you can shift from reaction to response. How are your reactions and responses to grief impacting your message? What is uplifting in the lessons you are learning? How might you use this knowledge as the foundation of your message?

Past. Present. Future. It is not just 2020 that catches us in grief. 2020 has stripped away the veneer of normalcy and asked us to peer deeply into our suffering and that of others. This exercise is not one that is meant to trap you in despair. It is meant to give you the power to catapult from the depths of your grief into your message. It is meant to clear the path of hope and compassion in an uncertain world.

Here’s to realizing your life as your message!

Vanessa F. Hurst, ms, is an Intuitive-Coach-Catalyst, who uses mindfulness practices and intuition tools to create strategies for personal and relationship transformation. She is a professional speaker & author who weaves inner wisdom into all she touches. Her books are available @ www.wildefyrpress.com. Contact Vanessa (vanessa@intentandaction.com) for life coaching, intuitive consultations, keynotes, and programs.

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Tuesday, June 2, 2020

The Light that Bears Witness in the Dark

2020 seems decades old instead of a mere five months. So much has happened. Events continue to spiral out of control. As I remind myself that out of chaos comes new, I wonder what that new will be. Then, I realize that within whatever the collective is birthing, I am called to be an active participant-witness in a world increasingly uncertain.

I know that I must be a light that bears witness in the dark. Some will tell you that I have an exaggerated sense of right and wrong. In certain circumstances, for me, there is little or no gray between the two. I used to feel shame, guilt, over how I was wired. I am gradually letting those emotions go as I answer the question, “How can I bear witness if I do not have the courage to stand in my power?” Perhaps you can ask this question of yourself.

Because, really, no matter where we find our self, it is time to survey the land. Now is the time to bear witness on our own imperfections — to stand witness to the collective imperfections that drag us into the abyss of hatred, isolation, and suffering. This witnessing begins by owning our own dark not to excuse our behavior or to justify the behavior of others because, well, we are dark, too. We change our self and demand that others change themselves. Through this transformation we become a welcoming community that stands against the uncertainty of the world.

In my better moments, I own my bodhichitta heart. As a bodhisattva, I share the compassion flowing from that heart. In those moments of compassion, I aspire to alleviate suffering. In other moments, no matter how I react, I find a way back to my bodhichitta heart. I do not give up for I believe the path through this darkness is littered with morsels of compassion. These lure me to a place where my humanity shines anew.

How do I, do you, do we act from a compassionate heart?

Stand up: be compassion — act from not only her soft side but be the sharp edge of her sword that cuts through the illusion and holds bringers of suffering accountable for actions that cause hurt and harm. Love gently. Live fiercely.

Speak out: let compassion flow from your thoughts, your words, your actions. Share your compassionate heart with all. Be the unwavering light that shines so brightly that the suffering explodes into starbursts of healing. Be the spirit wind that heals a suffering world.

Leave your comfort zone: bear witness, dance on the edge of chaos while vowing to be courageously true to who you are. Be compassion no matter how the chaos presents. This is it. No matter what your soul purpose, bearing witness in this time is integral to being exactly who you are meant to be.

*bodhichitta: the desire to be awakened to the suffering of the work and to have empathy and compassion for all sentient beings.

** bodhisattva: a person who desires to share compassion with the world.

Vanessa F. Hurst, ms, is an Intuitive, Coach, Catalyst, who uses mindfulness practices and intuition tools to create strategies for personal and relationship transformation. She is a professional speaker & author who weaves inner wisdom into all she touches. Her books are available @ www.wildefyrpress.com. Contact Vanessa (vanessa@intentandaction.com) for life coaching, intuitive consultations, keynotes, and programs.

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Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Gratitude & The Other G-Word

The hectic pace of this holiday season kicks off in just a few days. It all begins on that day that is centered upon gratitude. On Thanksgiving, we focus on what we are grateful for — those things that we appreciate in our life. But, during any holiday season there is another g-word that creeps in, often when we least expect it. Grief washes over us with a tsunami of emotions.

Grief is a byproduct of many situations. The one commonality is loss. We may lose a person, a belief, a job…the list is endless. What twines within each loss is the knowing that nothing will ever be the same. While death is swift and permanent, all too often when an ending happens, the situation or people involved remain. We yearn to go back and fix whatever went wrong. We want to wave a magic wand and return to another time.

Instead of trying to fixing anything, we choose to wade through the tumble-jumble of grief. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross defines the experience of grief as denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. As someone who has experienced grief, I can tell you that grief is a nonlinear roller coaster ride of these five emotions. Any of these, at many points in the ride, might slip into the seat beside us. We do not begin with denial and end with acceptance — we experience each in whatever order and as many times as we need to to process grief.

How do we celebrate the holidays with grief as our companion? Start by accepting not the loss but whatever stage you find yourself in. Be nonjudgmental and non-defensive about how you are feeling — what you are feeling. Those two stances empower you to be nonattached. Being nonattached means that you no longer ignore the grief nor do you cling to it making it your identity. Distanced from the pain, you listen to what grief is saying.

This listening is feeling what you are feeling. Try this: set a timer for 90-seconds. Allow whatever wells up to cascade over you. Notice without judgment, without defending how it feels. Notice where you are impacted in your body, pay attention to your thoughts, and identify what other emotions are triggered. After 90-seconds, thank your grief for its monologue, roll up the residue, and blow it from your being.

Maybe that g-word is asking you to live consciously through the other g-word. Be grateful for each acknowledgement of your sorrow as you connect with your grief. Remember, it takes strength and courage to welcome grief into your life and befriend it. This holiday season, if you find yourself overwhelmed by grief, well, maybe your acknowledgement of that grief is what you will become most thankful of.

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