Tag: grief

after death communication · being sensitive · Misc. Psychic

The Real Stages of Grief and Spirit Contact

designingfairy5 Comments

5stages

I just lost another family member, this time very unexpectedly and in a strange, almost “was meant to happen because it makes no sense” kind of experience. There were too many bizarre variables in this loss equation. I am in the What the Heck? stage. All this loss has me looking at the different stages of grief and realizing I need to rewrite them for myself. This will also help me explain to my friends when they ask how I am doing. If you ever lost an animal or person, you will relate. (And yes, this pretty much applies to all kinds of losses). Here it goes.

STAGE ONE.

Shock or “I am half in and half out.” “Half in and half out” is a really nice place to be. If you are able, you can communicate with the departed loved one. You can hear your Guides, helpers, God as if they are next to you, because you are half in. It’s not a good stage to be driving or using heavy equipment, or even utensils. It feels really good to be numb, but someone needs to remind you to eat and bathe.

STAGE TWO.

Shock starts to wear off. It’s the “remembering.” You realize your animal or loved one is not here and you are searching. I hate that feeling. It feels like LOSS in capital letters. It’s a loss you can’t fix, change or do something about. You can’t put them back into their bodies, but if you could, you sure would.

This is also the “WTF?” stage. Why? Why? Why? You think about what you should have done or could have done. There’s a lot of pissed off-ness to this stage. You could probably kill an army if you weren’t so tired all the time. Hearing “it was their time” makes you want to pull heads off Barbie dolls (sorry, Barbie). The spirit of the loved one is hanging around and you may have dream or physical spirit contact, but the spirit is probably too afraid to approach seeing your incredible pissed off-ness from the Other Side. They aren’t stupid. There’s a lot of crying in this stage that comes and goes and makes you look either crazed, menopausal or unmedicated. It’s difficult to resume your every day life. Plus, gotta admit, there’s a bitterness there sometimes too–how can life around you continue when your life pretty much just stopped?

STAGE THREE. 

When stage three comes it’s usually good to find some kind of communication with the departed in order to get over the “the sadness” and still feel connection. You are swimming around in the grief. The healthy thing to do is just dive into it and FEEL so later on you don’t experience a loss and then all the losses you have ever had come crashing into your face at once and you feel bulldozed and catatonic. Keeping really busy helps not feel “the sadness.” Any kind of distraction helps avoid feeling “the sadness.” I’ve been there many times and there’s no way around but through it. Sadness comes along with spontaneous bursting out crying at the weirdest things like walking down the frozen aisle of Walmart, or seeing a dog bed in a commercial, or for me yesterday, realizing I don’t have  to buy red lettuce anymore while shopping in the supermarket. It feels like a giant hole in your tummy–something is definitely missing, hopefully not a major organ in there. Oh by the way, this is an excellent time to watch every past episode of the Ghost Whisperer. That show is so darn comforting.

sketchbook-speedy

STAGE FOUR.

Stage Four isn’t so much a stage, but a mix-up of stages. Like after realizing I didn’t have to buy red lettuce anymore I was catapulted into the “pissed off stage” and I could visit there for awhile. Then I bounced into “the sadness.” Then back into the “pissed off-ness.” Having a creative outlet to express all the stages is also good. For example, like writing a blog post. 🙂

STAGE FIVE.

Acceptance. Like I read in a post on FB the other day, you just learn to adapt to living without the physical soul there. You might have peace. When Bun Bun my parakeet passed in February, I knew she really wanted to be with my other parakeet in spirit. She missed him so bad after he crossed over. He would pop over and visit in spirit a lot and taunt her with his freedom and wild birdness, so how could she not want to hang out in the light too? So I understood. The loss I am having now I am not there yet. When I do hit acceptance, I will have a greater understanding, I suppose. In this stage you might have even established a constant, clear connection with your departed. (I think how now when I go through big stuff it feels like Grand Central Station of spirits visiting, all checking on me. There’s lots of lights, ear ringing, messages, and thoughts. It’s kinda cool if I wasn’t so pissed and didn’t have Giant Hole Feeling.) Acceptance just means you are able to put away the dog bed or blanket, clean out the cage, put away the belongings. You have to move on with them in spirit, and you in body, but you are ready for a different kind of connection now.

I am positive in the way in the future I will experience loss again and I can look over this post and be reminded of the stages so I will get through it. The crappy part of life is loss, but if we remember that there is no true death, that we can still connect, even see them again, it helps us get through the process in one piece and with meaning. In the meantime, I am off to watch season four of Ghost Whisperer where even Melinda experiences great loss, and I will definitely avoid the frozen and leafy green aisles in Walmart, for now.

Fairy blessings,

designingfairysig

 

 

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If you want to explore communication together, I am offering Animal Mediumship starting September 26th, a Friday. Enrollment is open now over HERE. 

sensitivity · spiritual lessons

The “Don’t Feel Thats”

designingfairy2 Comments

Screen Shot 2013-02-09 at 8.26.15 PMI grew up with the “don’t feel thats.”

To this day, I can see my mom on her death bed — her frail, ill body and her turbaned head, sitting next to me as we chatted. And it was the memory that still stands out of that one vulnerable moment when I courageously told her, “I don’t want you to die.” In which she answered back very angrily, “Don’t say that. You’re upsetting me,” and the talking stopped. I never did get to discuss those feelings with her, which looking back, would have probably really eased my grief process that lasted a very long time, but she wasn’t able to. Instead, I felt shame that day for bringing up my feelings.

where do they come from?

Whether it’s childhood beliefs, religious upbringing or acquired thoughts the “don’t feel thats” aren’t about you. You’ve hit a nerve with your expression of pain, that someone else doesn’t want to see or maybe isn’t ready to see.

Many “new age” beliefs tout only feeling positive thoughts to attract positive experiences, but where then, do the negative thoughts go? I know where they go.

I had learned the “don’t feel thats” early on in my life way before that day with my mom. It was safer not to feel, so a stomach or a head ache would have to express it for me instead. I was the queen of repression until I was fourteen years old and the wave of tears couldn’t be held back, erupting, when I saw my beagle dog brother collapse on the floor from kidney disease. But don’t worry, after that, I neatly put all those emotional ducks back in a row inside of me again and it wasn’t until early adulthood they reemerged as panic attacks. Those waves of ducks turned into full-blown hurricanes at that point who wanted freedom.

what you need now

Now, I am not an advocate for getting stuck in emotional states and living there. My beloved grandmother loved to live in resentment. If you slighted her, you were crossed off her list for most of eternity. But from my own experience lately, I’ve noticed that traumatic experiences do have leftover symptoms. Those stubborn feelings can’t be neatly packed away, and they reemerge at odd times like a bad case of hiccups. Thought you were over that big loss but here you are standing in Aisle 3 in Walmart crying over the frozen pancakes because they remind you of family morning breakfasts that are now gone. These wounds are still in there like little annoying paper cuts that poke and prod and they hold messages of what you need now.

I’ll be honest, I still hate emotions. I’d rather hang out in my analytic brain where there’s set order. But if I want to feel good and balanced, I need to “FEEL THAT.” Those emotions and expression may come out as petty, selfish, messy, or socially incorrect, but that’s not my problem to solve, as long as I’m not hurting anyone else. They are MINE to experience and to get to know so I CAN get to the other side. The alternative is that panic attack or the stomach ache that grows into something much, much louder, which is very possible, what my mom experienced.

Animal Communication

Anniversaries

designingfairy

You may have had someone who has crossed over-whether animal or person–in the past years. And on that anniversary date, although you may be involved and busy, not thinking at all of what is going on or about that date, a part of you will remember. Last year around this time, our Miss Lucy got very sick. We are slowly approaching the actual date. I found myself crying and angry out of nowhere and then I realized what was occurring only after checking the calendar and looking at old e-mails. And even though our Lucy is back with us in new form, I still feel the trauma of her passing. These are all normal thoughts–what could I have done? I remember how she suffered. It is as if all the little threads of grief that were never healed come up for just that reason. Be kind to yourself and smooth over those rough edges.