Healing from loss

How do you even begin to heal from a loss? How do you start to move forward when your bruised and fragile heart wants to stay in the past. How can you contemplate a future when your exhausted mind is stuck in a loop, reliving memories and replaying conversations? How can you contemplate integrating with the world when you feel so alone?

The truth? I don’t know. It is very early days for me and just as we all have unique fingerprints, our grief is never comparable to anyone else’s.

What I do know, is that while we are grieving the person we lost, loving the person we lost, we must make sure we love ourselves too, show ourselves the same compassion and understanding we would offer our best friend.

My mindfulness practice enables me to explore my feelings in a kindly, non-judgemental way, not an easy thing to do, but grief is not something I want to repress, resist or try to get over. Grief has no time limit.

Through self-compassion we can once again feel connected to the world, not isolate ourselves in a bubble of hurt.

There is a story about a woman called Kisa Gotami. She lost her only child and desperately asked if anyone could help her. Buddha told her he could help if she could bring him some mustard seeds from a household where no one had died. She went from house to house but could not find a home where no one had suffered loss.

Grief. You are not alone.

Written for Streams of Consciousness Saturday. This weeks prompt is heal. No editing allowed.