Grief and Personal Transitions

By Heather Nodello

Letting Go has become the standard of advice in our society. But what does it mean and how do you achieve it?

As the world continues to evolve, many (if not most) will have to face the challenges of letting go aka grieving as they transition from one reality to the next. Personal expectations, relationships and work environments are up for review. Add to that the unconscious pressures of life and the increased loss of people, grief is the dominating suppressed energy dominating North American society.

Ghosting, disappearing, holding to ‘self needs only’ is creating mayhem in one’s ability to move forward with a healthy mental and emotional state of being. Reconciliation was a key competent in all healthy healing which has recently been replaced by ‘only my view matters, I have to do what’s best for me’. The magic word being thrown around is boundaries. While self representation is extremely important, so is accounting for the others in your life and reality. 

To grieve means to “to experience deep sorrow, especially that’s caused by someone's death”. Whether physical, emotional, mental or spiritual, the loss of another person or experience are incredibly difficult and both the heart and mind need to process the loss rather than ignore or unconsciously suppress it. Just because you no longer feel it, doesn't mean it isn’t trapped and festering within the heart and mind.

 The more the stuck thoughts and emotions try to surface for clearing, the more the mind has to push them away to avoid the negative sensations in the mind and body. In time, the suppressed truths create physical and spiritual ailments like sickness, disease, and a whole slew of mental ‘disorders’. 

So what do you do? Process (working through the pain and discomfort) the thoughts and feelings so they unite rather than remaining at odds. As the heart and mind come together, letting go becomes a natural process. When you can see and understand yourself and what another person or experience means to you, its easier for the negativity to fall away and create space for honouring what was present before the separation occurred. This allows us to gather the positive memories and honour what was (versus pretending or ignoring it never happened).

Grief counselling is an effective way to work through the pain and discomfort with proper mental and emotional support. Having an ‘outside of the situation’ person present to honour yet recognize the key parts of this journey, creates personal power for the individual. Free of judgement yet keeping an awareness to mental processing, the counsellor ensures that unconscious movement is being made, rather than rumination (repetitive thoughts of negative past experience) from occurring. Setting monthly goals allows the counsellor to help the individual navigate through the thoughts and emotions with the goal of creating space for new and positive experiences to re-enter the life of the person in grief. 

The most important thing to remember is grief has no correlation with how ‘strong’ a person is mentally or emotionally. All humans grieve as a required process of emotional maturity. When we lose something important, the power comes from the recognition and reconciliation- not the denial from the ego or sense of self. If you want to be mentally and emotionally strong, the goal is to process and release (let go) the stuck negativity occurring within.