I am so sorry you are being bounced around from place to place, Amanda. I have hiked in the moors of Scotland and when it looked like you had a home in Scotland, I was happy for you. What a journey you have had and what resilience you have dug out of your deepest essence. I know the universe will be rewarding you with the perfect home for you and your husband. It may take more patience than you want to experience but it will come. I am going to become a paying subscriber to your Substack. Sending you many blessings!
Thank you so much for your kindness, Lauren. I do know a home will come. I just wish it would hurry up! 😊 And it would be so lovely to have you with us if you become a paid subscriber and hopefully we’ll get to meet on Zoom one day at one of the community events. 💙
My heart goes out to you & your husband... what times we live in...never been easy but here we are...grief... ever so very present... I feel the heaviness & possibly will for so much longer but I know I am alive, you are...Reiki found you, which is precious & so needed, Ireland is home & so Europe. Know you are not alone! Keep writing! I know you will.
Sending lots of love & strength ... to hold space for whatever may come...Rising gently... every day... a little more. ❤️
Thank you, DD. Since starting writing on here, I feel much less alone. It’s been a challenging year but I’m definitely rising back up. Love and strength back to you. I know you’ve been through lots too recently. 💙
The other side of the Grief coin is Love. To grieve is to love. even if that love means wishing you were loved by someone who didn't love you the way you wanted or needed to be loved. Love is Love.
My shaman teacher taught me that those who were the most challenging to us in life are the most beneficial to us in death. When we claim ancestors as our spiritual guides, and we claim those ancestors as the ones who were the most difficult to us in life, we claim that emotional charge of that relationship to be the most powerful and potent in spirit. because spiritual energy is activated by emotional energy. It doesn't discriminate between "positive or negative" charge. an emotional charge is an emotional charge. If we look at how someone challenged us in life, and flip it compeltely upside down, using that same charge, they can be our greatest asset in spirit. My teacher put it this way, "when the soul crosses into the ancestor realm, they "get it" and realize all that they had done "wrong" in life...and the desperately want to get it right now...so they become your greatest benefactors."
Perhaps your stepfather was busy traveling from the physical realm to the spirit realm since February, and now as you start to feel the grief for the complexities of his relationship with you, you are starting to claim him as an asset on your spirit celestial team.
I went through this with my grandfather. He was a crotchedty and angry old man that terrified me when I was a kid. He was patriarchal and mean. But now, decades after his death, he is one of my greatest confidantes. His business acumen, his international diversity, his curiosity and voracious reading habits all live inside me.
I’ve learned in recent years that the opposite of love is not anger or rage or hatred or any negative emotion. Those are all actually expressions of a DESIRE for love.
The opposite of love is indifference. apathy. lack of emotion. that’s scary.
and in this one line you just taught me that indifference and pain and love and grief can all co-exist. I always thought indifference was this empty void, the abyss of emotion, but no…it lives inside the emotion soup with the rest of them.
There was so much richness in this piece on grief, Amanda. I could especially relate to "My feelings for him, and all of my family, have been indifference for a long while now. All of it seems like something that happened to someone else. Because I am different now. I’ve healed much of the damage done to me. I’m still healing other layers, and have come to understand I probably always will be." This is such an accurate description, in my experience, of the fruit of a long healing journey.
I wish you and your husband the best with finding the perfect spot to lay down roots.
Thank you, Shoshana. I’m sure the right home is coming soon. And I’m glad my healing experience spoke to yours. It is a long journey that takes many unexpected turns. More to come too, no doubt!
I am so sorry you are being bounced around from place to place, Amanda. I have hiked in the moors of Scotland and when it looked like you had a home in Scotland, I was happy for you. What a journey you have had and what resilience you have dug out of your deepest essence. I know the universe will be rewarding you with the perfect home for you and your husband. It may take more patience than you want to experience but it will come. I am going to become a paying subscriber to your Substack. Sending you many blessings!
Thank you so much for your kindness, Lauren. I do know a home will come. I just wish it would hurry up! 😊 And it would be so lovely to have you with us if you become a paid subscriber and hopefully we’ll get to meet on Zoom one day at one of the community events. 💙
grief doesn’t come to be understood. it comes to clear space.
what you wrote here holds both the blade and the balm.
the death of the dream is the cost of becoming someone new.
My heart goes out to you & your husband... what times we live in...never been easy but here we are...grief... ever so very present... I feel the heaviness & possibly will for so much longer but I know I am alive, you are...Reiki found you, which is precious & so needed, Ireland is home & so Europe. Know you are not alone! Keep writing! I know you will.
Sending lots of love & strength ... to hold space for whatever may come...Rising gently... every day... a little more. ❤️
Thank you, DD. Since starting writing on here, I feel much less alone. It’s been a challenging year but I’m definitely rising back up. Love and strength back to you. I know you’ve been through lots too recently. 💙
The other side of the Grief coin is Love. To grieve is to love. even if that love means wishing you were loved by someone who didn't love you the way you wanted or needed to be loved. Love is Love.
My shaman teacher taught me that those who were the most challenging to us in life are the most beneficial to us in death. When we claim ancestors as our spiritual guides, and we claim those ancestors as the ones who were the most difficult to us in life, we claim that emotional charge of that relationship to be the most powerful and potent in spirit. because spiritual energy is activated by emotional energy. It doesn't discriminate between "positive or negative" charge. an emotional charge is an emotional charge. If we look at how someone challenged us in life, and flip it compeltely upside down, using that same charge, they can be our greatest asset in spirit. My teacher put it this way, "when the soul crosses into the ancestor realm, they "get it" and realize all that they had done "wrong" in life...and the desperately want to get it right now...so they become your greatest benefactors."
Perhaps your stepfather was busy traveling from the physical realm to the spirit realm since February, and now as you start to feel the grief for the complexities of his relationship with you, you are starting to claim him as an asset on your spirit celestial team.
I went through this with my grandfather. He was a crotchedty and angry old man that terrified me when I was a kid. He was patriarchal and mean. But now, decades after his death, he is one of my greatest confidantes. His business acumen, his international diversity, his curiosity and voracious reading habits all live inside me.
Yes, I realise now that despite everything I still had love for him in my heart. We’ll see if he turns out to be an asset now he’s gone!
I’ve learned in recent years that the opposite of love is not anger or rage or hatred or any negative emotion. Those are all actually expressions of a DESIRE for love.
The opposite of love is indifference. apathy. lack of emotion. that’s scary.
Indifference is how I’ve been feeling about them for ages.
and in this one line you just taught me that indifference and pain and love and grief can all co-exist. I always thought indifference was this empty void, the abyss of emotion, but no…it lives inside the emotion soup with the rest of them.
There was so much richness in this piece on grief, Amanda. I could especially relate to "My feelings for him, and all of my family, have been indifference for a long while now. All of it seems like something that happened to someone else. Because I am different now. I’ve healed much of the damage done to me. I’m still healing other layers, and have come to understand I probably always will be." This is such an accurate description, in my experience, of the fruit of a long healing journey.
I wish you and your husband the best with finding the perfect spot to lay down roots.
Thank you, Shoshana. I’m sure the right home is coming soon. And I’m glad my healing experience spoke to yours. It is a long journey that takes many unexpected turns. More to come too, no doubt!