10 Tips to heal after loss of a loved one

Its common to find it hard to accept the perceived death of a loved one. We are deeply conditioned to believe in loss and to feel this in the physical body, and reinforce our resistance as suffering in the mind. There is no right or wrong way to respond. There is only a specturm of experience to develop or draw from. Consider 10 tips to heal after loss of a loved one:

1) Meditation and Mindfulness: 

A regular meditation practice helps to quiet the "mind chatter" and observe the true nature of the mind and the ego-centered identity. Mindfulness, or bringing present-moment awareness into daily activities, naturally follows and helps in seeing reality as it is, without the obscuring layer of conceptual thought and beliefs.

2) Self-Inquiry: 

Directly investigate the belief in a separate self by examining it against actual sensory experience. For example, try to find the exact physical location of the "self" in your body. By doing this repeatedly, you may realize the self has no physical location, revealing its conceptual, rather than factual, nature.

3) Observing Thoughts Without Judgment: 

The illusion of separation is reinforced by identifying with our thoughts, emotions, and sensations. By observing these internal experiences without attachment or judgment, you create space to recognize that you are the awareness of them, not the thoughts themselves.

4) Connecting with Others:

Engage in practices that foster a sense of shared humanity. Simple exercises like prolonged, silent eye contact with another person can help break down barriers and create a profound sense of connection and universal love. This helps to dismantle illusion of separation so you realize love knows no true bounds except in the mind.

5)  Reframe Language: 

Instead of using labeling statements like "I am sad," try rephrasing them as "sadness is arising" or "tiredness is present". This subtle shift in language helps decouple your core identity from fleeting emotions and sensations.

6) Embrace Vulnerability: 

Allow yourself to be "permeable" by letting things in and acknowledging your desire for connection. Being vulnerable helps join your "inside and outside worlds," moving away from the fear that fuels separation.

7) Challenge Your Beliefs: 

Actively question and re-evaluate your thoughts and beliefs about yourself and the world. Ask yourself if these thoughts are producing the results you want in life and if they are truly fact-based or simply habitual patterns.

8) Focus on Contentment Over Happiness: 

Strive for a baseline of contentment (Santosha in Sanskrit) rather than chasing fleeting happiness. Contentment fosters inner peace and stability, making you less susceptible to the ups and downs that reinforce the ego's narrative.

9) Spend Time in Nature: 

Connecting with the natural world can help remind you of the interconnected, fluid, and dynamic way everything in nature works together. This experience serves as a powerful counterbalance to the individualistic thinking prevalent in modern culture.

10) Seek Non-Dual Teachings: 

Listening to various non-dual teachers can be helpful to ground you, but nothing replaces your own direct investigation and personal experience. 

The power of self-inquiry

Many people wonder which impulses to follow. How do you know when to trust yourself? and when your impulse is leading you astray?

Unless you are already enlightened, that is, you always feel in harmony and manifest instantly, then not all of your impulses are going to come from your higher self-intuitive guidance system.  Some of your feeling-based impulses are going to come from your lower level blockages; your fears, limiting beliefs, emotional wounds, baggage and karmic patterns. As such, humility is a reliable guide.

So, if everything in your life is not in perfect harmony, disharmony is not going to shift unless you are willing to do a bit of self-inquiry. Breathing more consciously is a good start, but you benefit greatly from going further.

As it is, the universe is designed to project and help you work through your emotional blockages as quickly as possible, mainly to create the exact situations that dig up what is holding you back so you face it.  Making blockages conscious with honesty and humility and appreciating the service they perform (blockages are initially designed to self-protect, and always offer valuable lessons), gives the energetic blockage has permission to dissolve.

If in a particular moment, you choose not to face yourself, the universe patiently keeps creating new situations that offer the same opportunity to face your shadow (the unacknowledged and disowned parts of yourself) until yo uare ready to look deeply into yourself and feel what you have not been wiling to feel. This is to be done with unconditional love and compassion. 

As Carl Jung echos: "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate."

Whatever arises in your life, as yourself if you are being guides by higher self or the lower emotions of fear. Ask to be shown what you cannot yet see.  Be receptive to lessons you have not yet recognized and integrated.

3 points to know where you stand

Asking yourself where you stand is a self inquiry about the foundation of your character and principles you base life choices on. Awareness of this foundation empowers to make the inaccessible, accessible. The conscious part of you knows nothing exists you cannot be or do.  Yet what do you see? What is your direct experience? Are you ready to see and live differently?

Regardless of what you wish to manifest or achieve, all is possible when you are true to the core foundation. This foundation is forgotten or blocked energetically by frequency interference and self-limiting thoughts and beliefs. All fear-based programming must be dissolved from emotional bodies for the wisdom of Higher consciousness to be accessible. Listen to intuition. Reflect on three points to know where you stand;

1) Be flexible in how you are willing to grow and manifest

2) Stay true to what you represent

3) Be willing to evolve into what you wish to see

What makes life easier?

You may ask what makes life easier? Get into the mode of self-inquiry. Brace yourself: everything that happens in your life you have chosen, asked for and created. In this way, everything that unfolds is inviting you to own it, to take responsibility and grow.

Recognize you are not defined by your conditions or unfolding events in your life. Ask yourself what each experience teaches you. Appreciate all that arises. Be detached. Do not permit emotions to control you. Ask why you create situations that preoccupy you. Why do you need this? How does this invite you to exapand and be greater love? 'Why' is the query that triggers breakthroughs and transformation. You gain insights and clarity at the pace you are willing to accept. Being aware allows access to inner peace.