Grief. It is fraught with pain, despair and lack of direction. The process isn’t something to simply be endured, although it can feel like it takes a lifetime before the fog lifts and you are able to breathe once again. We all experience it. No one seems to be absolved of this journey.
The gift
There is something about grief, however, that is typically overlooked. It is the gift it provides. This gift is the last physical gift our loved ones bestow upon us at their point of transformation back to non-physical energy. Yes, I said gift.
The gift is growth and evolution that allows us to become more than we ever thought we could be. It commands that we change and often we go into that change kicking and screaming which is totally justifiable under the circumstances.
The journey
Everyone impacted by the death of someone is being offered that gift of growth and expansion. The person you were before your loved one passed is gone. Truly, it is the OLD you that you are grieving, and the old life. That is where you want to stay. What is waiting for you is a phenomenal, new version of yourself that beckons you forward. Grief is the journey between who you were to who this experience has caused you to become.
There is also a re-invention of Self that occurs. You are trying to figure out who you are and what life looks like without that person in physical form. The gift is always about the power to choose the best Self possible. It is an eternal gift borne of love, given in love and in time, received in love.
In my book, The Other Side of Grief, I explain the following:
Eternal gifts are the soul gifts our loved ones leave behind at their point of transition. They are meant just for us and they contain exactly what we need. In them we find solace, meaning, clarity, peace and ultimately joy. ~ excerpt from The Other Side of Grief, by Ara Parisien
Joy is available to us now. Our loved ones in non-physical now see how it was there for them also when they were here. It is their parting gift to us, in creating the vehicle which allows us to perhaps release our joy and live the best life possible, in spite of what we think we have lost.
