Category: Separation

Although in my opinion the bereavement at separation and death is similar, however from an emotional point of view there is a huge difference. In the event of the death, you can no longer see, feel or speak the other. However, when you are separated you can still do so; whether this happens depends on the way how the separation took place.

(99) Roundabout of Choices

Roundabout of choices. You keep making choices that lead to similar consequences as from choices you made previously. You promised yourself never to do that again, and still you did.

Choices

In our daily life we consciously and unconsciously make many choices. With one choice it is crystal clear for you to choose, with the other choice the options are not so clear, let alone that you can see the consequences of your choice. You never get full assurance for making your choice. As soon as you have made the first steps after your choice, everything will change as things that were previously hidden for you now become visible. In short, it makes no sense to reason (in detail) what choice you should make… but trust your feelings.

If you don’t make a choice, you literally stand still, and you won’t continue on your life’s path. But, make sure you don’t get on a roundabout of choices.

Roundabout of Choices

Each time you make the same choice of which you promised yourself never to make it again, then your life’s path run along a roundabout; the roundabout of choices. Even though the players you meet may change over time when you walk along your roundabout of choices, it remains a repetition of moves and decisions. You won’t proceed in life in my opinion because you didn’t learn obviously from previous lessons.

Below some examples. Many examples could be added to the list. What matters though is that you keep making choices that have the same kind of outcome or consequences… you promised to yourself not to make these choices again… and, still you did.

An example: Your partner abuses you

Consider for example of a situation where your partner abuses you, or bullies, deceives, neglects or just ignores you. You may not have experienced that in the beginning of your relationship. Later, when you became aware of the situation you were in, you still loved your partner deeply despite his or her behaviour. You didn’t want to admit at first and eventually, perhaps even after long deliberation, you decided to end the relation. And when you settled down again you thought at yourself: “Never again!”

Eventually you met someone again with whom you decided to enter a new relationship. Later, you discovered that this new partner behaved the same way as your ex-partner. “Not again!” you thought. However, your friends saw it happening again from the beginning of your new relationship and were thinking: “How is it possible that you didn’t learn from that hard lesson the last time?” At that moment you returned to the same point on the roundabout of choices where you were last time.

An example: After a break, you choose the same partner each time

The same applies to people who after a broken relationship still choose the same partner again and … sometimes keep choosing … despite the previously broken relationship (s) and the ensuing frustrations and grief. We may think at the next choice … that we did learn from our mistakes and that this time we will make the right choice. And yet others, who know you well … find that you again have again chosen a partner who is addicted to alcohol and / or drugs or threatens or abuses you. You made the same choice as before in your life when you had promised yourself that you would never make such a choice again.

Any other example

That lousy or bad situation does not necessarily have to deal with a partner. I could also be about completely different things: like your financial decisions or changing jobs every time because the last job didn’t meet your expectations again.

How to proceed from here

Get off that roundabout of choices

Get off that roundabout of choices. You can only proceed on your path of life when you choose a route that caries you away from that roundabout of choices. However, before that happens you will have to be prepared not to retreat every time … maybe you think it too bizarre for words … on that old “trusted” path that was your roundabout of choices. You must be willing to think completely out of the box and perhaps even dare to live that way. Only then can you develop yourself further and perhaps discover also new horizons that help you create new opportunities.

Go for it as soon as you leave the roundabout of choices

Once you step on that new path, that path that takes you away from that roundabout of choices, don’t look back but forward to where that path goes. Leave the past for what it is. The past cannot be changed anyway. You can only make choices that concern the future, your future.

Keep making choices

In my opinion, every person has a purpose in life. However, that goal is not important… what is important is the path you followed to achieve your goal and in particularly the lessons you learned on that path. To reach your goal you’ll have to make choices to move forward in life. What those choices are? That’s not for me. That’s up to you! You are responsible for the choices you make in your life. It also means that you must accept the consequences of a choice made… after all it’s your choice.

New opportunities

It amazes me time and time again is that you unwind once you’ve made your choice. You’ve put a step forward. And whatever the situation was where you’re coming from… or maybe even still is… you’ve put a step… a step forward. And with that you opened new opportunities to move forward in life. Make sure you make use of what you discover… see… get… receive… and feel. Exploit it fully! Get all out of it! At a certain point in time you may discover that you’ve learned new things… something that you never would’ve chosen otherwise … something is a revelation to you… where you become a happy person!

(98) Letting Go

Letting go. Have confidence in yourself, believe and trust that nothing is for nothing… sometimes the difficult things in our life make the choice to look at ourselves. It’ll be fine.

Ask for help, to restore yourself. Everything is a choice… the choice is what you decide… you, and only you, allow that choice… or not.

Letting go is very hard and challenging… but nobody else can solve that part for you. Hence, it is better to face this as soon as possible… to create new room for new things… positive things.

The old energy… the fear… the care… the must do’s… the criticising … the judging… the imposed feeling of yourself or the other… the emotions… the believes… all that’s now allowed to let go… all, that you can let go.

Be thankful and see this as a blessing… as an enrichment to proceed… to embrace yourself again… to love yourself. That’s the key that opens the new door… but, be watchful.

Be yourself… be happy with yourself… laugh at yourself and with yourself… award yourself that which you grant to another… to really feel the new energy… the new energy, when you do realize: “This is not the way I want to go on!”

However, you must take this step, and only you can do that with all your new energy… with all your passion… all your Being… to really experience it… to really feel it, and permitted to share it.

It’s very simple.

Invite the new energy and say farewell to the old energy… thank the old energy and embrace the new one as if you hug a good friend.

You could do it… and you will feel relieved because you do not hold anymore the fear, the care, and the must do… the new energy that makes you feel again in a way as you are.

Sometimes, it’s not clear why things happen… are noticeably profound… for no reason. But, when we look deep within ourselves… then we see, or feel, that little place where you do not always want to go to… to really feel… because you assume: “Surely that’s no longer possible?”

It’s going well, however, you forgot what you saved in all your cells… in your deepest Being… in your Soul… because you had to go on… no whining, no squealing, just moving on. And just right now when everything goes fine… you don’t feel good… tired… not pleasant.

Letting go the piece that has hurt you so much, has disappointed you so much… is now surfacing… because you have the peace… have the (inner) silence… have the time… to really feel it now.

Feel, undergo and look where it hurts you. Look where it reveals itself when you look honestly through the eyes of your Soul, from the eyes you not always want to see and feel on that spot… that hidden spot… just very briefly, 5 minutes, that’s ok… and then just let it go… let it go and see what happens.

It’ll be fine! Have confidence in yourself, believe and trust that nothing is for nothing… sometimes the difficult things in our life make the choice to look at ourselves… a crossroads with a choice… your choice, where do I want to go to.

Go there with your thoughts and live and enjoy this moment in the now. Especially, do not worry about tomorrow… no, there is so much beauty… so much good around you and within you.

Embrace your family, your work, your relatives, your friends, your house, your car … name it … and … beam it, express it!

(97) How Easy Can It Be

Lately it seems like I am meeting more and more Angels on Earth. Angels that show you… how simple it all can be… is granted to be… is. How beautiful the world is… how beautiful you, yourself, are… and… the people around you. How with a few words your world can tip… from rain to sunshine… from gloom to joy… from in and in grief to moments where you can forget that grief. How with simple insights… veils are removed one by one… making everything crystal clear… lighter… serene… happier… and you can in and in enjoy life again.

Those moments I consider the diamonds in my life.

My sincerest thanks to all the Angels around me… I love you!

(95) A Chance Encounter

When you pay close attention to the world around you… you regularly come across special things to enjoy… you meet people with whom you have special conversations. The more you are aware of this… the more beautiful life becomes… the happier you become… despite that great loss, or the dear one(s) you have lost.

We met somewhere by chance at an airport, waiting for the call to board the plane that would take us to our destinations. She went to Italy… a week to a painting course in Florence and then a week to Venice and Rome. I was on my way home.

The encounter had something magical. We both had the feeling that we knew each other for a very long time. But, that just wasn’t possible. She had grown up somewhere in Central America, and I somewhere in North-West Europe. During the conversation we found out that she had lost her husband and her son… and… I had lost my daughter and my wife. She had another daughter and I had another son. It seemed as if we were two halves of a whole. We recognized each other’s grief with which we struggled… we understood each other completely. Perhaps that’s why we felt we had known each other for a very long time.

Our conversation took less than an hour, but it felt so much longer. It seemed like we had to meet each other… we had to meet each other to make us aware that although you have a lot of grief because of your loss… that you’re not the only one.

When she walked to the plane that would bring her to Italy it seemed… as if she was dancing… as if she was relieved… as if she had become aware that she was not the only one who had lost precious mates. In my case it seemed a veil was being pulled away… making everything a bit brighter… happier… lighter.

(c) Stichting Jouw Rouwverwerking
Beauty is in the unexpected

It was just a short encounter, by happenstance. But still… by the peace and the joy it gave… afterwards… both to her and to me… you would (almost) think that this encounter was set up by a higher power. And just those little moments… those little moments that can stand in stark contrast to the life of all day… those little moments are for me the moments that make it worthwhile to take everything out of life what’s in for me.

When you pay close attention to the world around you… then you regularly come across special things to enjoy… then you meet people with whom you have special conversations. The more you are aware of this… the more beautiful life becomes… the happier you become… despite that great loss, or the dear one(s) you have lost.

(94) It’s Time to Change Course

What I have learned in the recent years while writing these blogs for the Mourn & Grief Foundation is … that at the beginning of my journey on the path of mourning I absolutely could not see and could not realize what it would take and what I would experience… a journey with moments in which I no longer knew what I should to do in order to get back on track in my life… moments in which I would rather prefer to die and to go Home, to be able to see my great love again and to hold her in my arms again… and yet … and yet, during those same moments there was always something that, or someone who motivated or, stimulated me in some way to go on… and moments when I really could not go any further in my life and everything seemed against me, my guardian angels made me feel that if I asked them for help, I would receive help in some way.

In retrospect, when I looked back during those years so now and then, I was always amazed what I had achieved in the meantime. I never noticed that during the day-to-day affairs. However, when looking back over a period of several months I could clearly see this. It provided me also with the extra strength to continue my life’s path.

In retrospect, I should’ve asked for help with processing my grief sooner than later. Apparently, it must have been the case not to do so, because the path of life on which I find myself now feels very good to me. It is what it is!

It’s time to change course because the processing of grief means to go on in life. Usually going on means to go on in a different way than you used to do so before. To go on with those things that are important to you in your life. Despite that huge loss. Despite that raw pain. To go on with your life… you must!

Realize that the closer you were to the dear one you’ve lost and, realize that the more you have loved her or him, the rawer and the deeper your grief of the loss will be. On the one hand that hurts you a lot and the other hand it is a huge compliment to the dear one you’ve lost and… it also is an indication how deep the love to each other was… or… still is.

But by going on, on your life’s path you also set your first steps in processing your grief. By going on you also begin to look ahead again, although you may or may not realize your destination yet. Hence, yes, it’s time to change course.

Yes, for me too it’s time to change course. Somehow, I feel I’ve fulfilled my daughter’s last wish I promised to carry out. Lately, it became more like a personal need to do this kind of work

As for the Foundation’s website it is also time to change course. A plan is being developed to add a discussion forum to the website for you to use later this year. It is obvious that the forum will be placed in a secure environment. I would like to receive any suggestion you have for the structure or content of the forum. You can contact me via this link.