“In our lives, change is unavoidable, loss is unavoidable. In the adaptability and ease with which we experience change lies our happiness and freedom.” – Buddha
It wasn’t a sudden death. I expected it. My mother had been suffering from a very malignant cancer for several years. Such a diagnosis usually marks the worst, but paradoxically, also gives you time to get used to the likely loss.
Every chemistry she received weakened her body, but at the same time, it gave her hope that she would be able to bargain with destiny for a few more days, weeks or months.
Mum tolerated the therapy surprisingly well, considering her overall health and other chronic illnesses she had. She seemed indestructible. Still full of joy, optimism, faith, hope and the will to live, she did not show us how much she suffered.
We hadn’t talked about dying. It was a taboo subject for us. No wonder, that’s the kind of society we live in. We don’t like confronting our destiny.
Reaction to loss
We rarely use the word death. And each of us dreams of dying unexpectedly and painlessly, preferably in a dream. Nobody teaches us how to mentally support a seriously ill person, how to mentally prepare for their eventual departure or how to accompany them in the last moments of their lives.
I didn’t know that, either. I had to rely on my intuition. I helped my mother as much as I could to close things behind her, especially those concerning the summaries of her achievements as a parent.
But knowing what will inevitably happen does not diminish the suffering that comes. This I found out for myself when my mother died after several years of fighting.
I did not know that the sadness that is a reaction to loss and death could affect my body, mind and emotions in such a way. What I didn’t realize was that grief meant problems with my appetite, sleep problems, muscle tension, fatigue and weight loss.
I hadn’t prepared myself to constantly relive my memories of the moments spent with my mother. I tried to imagine what it would be like to live without her. And I still felt anger, regret, relief, despair and emptiness.
I wondered if there was anything I could have done differently. Was I a good daughter to her? Or maybe I had missed something that might have helped her.
Suddenly, at 40, I felt like a little vulnerable child again. I had lost someone who always loved me unconditionally, and who always had my back. It felt as if a part of me had died with my mother’s death. This turned out to be true later.
However, the adage that time heals all wounds has also been fulfilled. The physiotherapist helped me unblock the crying that was held in my body, but it was not resolved in the rush of funeral-related matters, and the thoughts that appeared in my head were dispersed by the prose of everyday life.
I was slowly getting used to the new situation—the fact that now, I had to be my own source of unconditional love, although I did not know what it meant or how to do it.
After some time, I got so used to the lack of Mum in my life that I completely forgot that she was no longer there. I kept catching myself wanting to call her to talk. I had to remind myself that I couldn’t anymore, because she was gone.
Relief at loss
Time passed and so did the mourning. Until the day came when, instead of sadness, I suddenly felt relieved that she was not there. This feeling surprised me and terrified me at the same time. How is that? Am I glad she’s not here? I shouldn’t be. Is there something wrong with me?
But that’s what I felt. I felt relieved, lighter, and I tasted a kind of freedom I have never known before. It gave me a lot to think about. I didn’t understand what was going on.
Suddenly, it dawned on me. I realized that the relief comes from not having to call her anymore, every time I experience joy in my life. Finally, I stopped fearing punishment for too much joy in life.
This was a milestone in my life. After all, my mother never asked me to explain my pleasures to her, or to justify or explain that I was worthy of a pleasant and joyful life. But I had done it somehow. Why?
I reached deeper, to memories buried deep in my unconscious, and a scene from my early school days came to me.
We were alone in the classroom, the teacher wasn’t with us, so the fun was in full swing. We did everything children do when no adults are watching over them. Suddenly my mother entered the classroom, and all the children returned to their benches in a second and stood to attention, except me, because it was my mother who came in, so why should I?
It turned out she had some business to do at school, and she was walking past my class. She looked inside when she heard the noise. She was probably having a bad day, and she took all the frustration out of it on me.
It annoyed her that I did not stand like the other children and did not show her respect, and in front of the whole class, she scolded me for such behaviour. She took out her emotions on me and left, and all the children looked at me disapprovingly and wondered why I had such a bad mom.
I was humiliated. It happened when I was having my best time. So my subconscious wrote down this information: “You can’t have too much fun in life.” As such, every time my life was too pleasant, I subconsciously excused myself to my mother.
How did I deal with this belief?
Unconditional self-love
Once I recognized my problem, I decided to change my subconscious belief into a new one that was favourable to me. I did it by working with energy, using the Theta Healing method. It worked right away, and today I do not feel remorse anymore when life is easy, joyful and pleasant. Thanks to this experience, I delved deeper into this topic.
When you are convinced that you do not deserve joy, you don’t experience it or you feel remorse when you experience it.
We each have a lot of similar beliefs stored in our subconscious, which are related to some form of judgment. Right or wrong, bad or good, it is the judgment that confirms our belief that we are under the influence of forces beyond our control.
Judgment is our mind’s attempt to give meaning to our life experiences. It defines our identity. When you are convinced that you do not deserve joy, you don’t experience it or you feel remorse when you experience it.
When you recognize your belief, you can change it and create a new reality. When you change your perspective, you begin to see the world differently. You give meaning to your experiences.
Each of us carries deeply hidden subconscious memories that are usually associated with low self-esteem, abandonment, rejection or humiliation. However, everything that happened to us in the past can be changed in the present if we give it a different meaning. We can stop letting the past influence our present. We can feel true freedom, freeing ourselves from our own subconscious beliefs.
We are the creators of our reality
How to do it?
There are many tools and methods. We can do it ourselves by using positive affirmations, visualizations and self-suggestion, and even by working with our dreams. We can ask for help from a specialist, such as:
- A Theta or two-point method healer
- A neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) or emotional freedom techniques (EFT) practitioner
- An Access Bars or hypnosis therapist
We also have a whole lot of different devices to choose from that can help us with this, in regard to biofeedback or brain entrainment binaural beats.
The most important thing is to understand that we are not condemned to play the role our mind has often given us by misinterpreting the events that happened throughout our lives. We are the creators of our reality, and we can consciously give all our memories the meaning we want.
This is called unconditional love for yourself—accepting your own experiences, but supporting yourself through changing the memory of them to live the best life you want.
You don’t have to be a victim your whole life, just because your mind once decided it was so. Be what you want to be. Be free from the limitations of your mind.
«LECTURE CONNEXE» MY SPIRITUAL TOOLBOX: Using the tools to heal from past trauma and love myself more completely»
image 1 FunkyFocus de image: Pixabay 2 images par Gerd Altmann de image: Pixabay 3 images par Stefan Keller de image: Pixabay 4 images par Günther Schneider de image: Pixabay
