Grief is an invitation to release what no longer serves us, beliefs and baggage, the invitation to create new rituals, relationships and perspectives. Grief throws us into chaos so we my grow and evolve.

Energetically grief freezes outr chakras, drains or energy fields and we often feel numb, disconnected, and lost, this is passing.

Our fear of grief traps us in various aspects of grief. Causing depression, anxiety, exhaustion, and disconnection, just to name a few common symptoms.

One cause of our depression and anxiety is due to living in a constant state of unfelt unprocessed grief.

We judge, censor and stop painful emotions. We dread experiencing them. Often labeling them as negative feelings. We do not want to feel pain, hurt, sorrow, grief, discomfort and the list goes one. Thus, we are a society of the walking grieving. We push through grief as if it’s some horrible monster that cannot be fully looked at or it will swallow us. Like Medusa if we look at grief We are turned to stone, trapped and hardened. We pretend each and every day that we are okay. Lie to ourselves that everything is fine. We push through change, ignoring our soul’s cry to sit and stay for a moment. To honor what was and embrace what will be. We are plagued with depression and anxiety easier ways to cope then to face grief.

Grief is complex to say the least. It ebbs and flows. Grief can have hurricane force winds that seem to devastate us and the thought of repair seems impossible.

It takes time to process grief, it's hooks the system, mind, body, soul and emotions. And each processes the loss differently. Leaving us to feel vulnerable, out of control and depleted.

We grieve life and death loses. Unfortunately, we tend to minimize our life loses. Barreling through me and discrediting them. We forget that these loses must be felt. In feeling them, we allow ourselves to experience the expansiveness of being human. We allow yourself to understand ourselves on a deeper level. We often fight this afraid, that if we go too deep we will become lost and drown.

Life Grief

Life losses are those experiences that change our normal daily life that causes us to adapt and change. Even those that are positive changes involve grief, because what we know is ending and something different will become our new norm. Common LIfe loses include but are not limited to: relationships changes, job changes or loses, and moving,

Our society accepts death loses more than life loses. However, we still push through this pain, believing the less time spent here the less pain we experience. This traps us and often keeps us stuck.

Death Grief

The grief over the death of a human is culturally accepted. However, there is still judgement and misunderstanding in the grief over a pet.

When we lose a someone we love

Our human relationships are complex and this affects our grieving. Mixed emotions can cloud or hinder the grief process. We need to work through our living relationship with the person, all emotions and feelings. Not suppress or hid but to allow ourselves to feel it all emotions that arise: anger, contempt, love, laughter, whatever emotion arises is perfectly okay. It is part of the process.

When we lose a pet

Our pets loved us unconditionally. They bared witness to our life. Many of our pets see sides our us that no one else sees, they are holders of emotions and keepers of our secrets. This loss can be as difficult as human lose and for some even more painful.

5 Stages of Grief

Elizabeth Kubler Ross outlines the stages of grief as denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. These stages are not linear and you may fluctuate between all of them.

This explains a lot but it doesn't explain what is going on a deeper soul level. Our soul’s experience grief as an alchemical process. Moving through different states that allow us to heal and evolve. It is our soul’s alchemical descent into the underworld that forces us to change.

Alchemy of Grief

The alchemy stages of grief are: calcinatio, solutio, coagulatio, sublimatio, mortificatio, separatio, and coniunctio (Annamarie Fidel-Rice, “The Alchemy of Grief) and J. Raff, “Jung and Alchemical Imagination).

Shadow Side of Grief

Our shadows love grief. For our judgements and shames come out to play. We judge ourselves and others for our grieving process. We shame ourselves for how we grief. In the cycle of acceptance, denial, anger, bargaining and depression our shadow reveals itself. When we allow ourselves to delve into the alchemical process of grief we allow ourselves to integrate these shadow pieces. Embracing the anger, being open to new perspective, accepting the chaos, leaning into separation and finding peace in who we become.

Ways to work with your grief

We need to acknowledge our losses and changes and honor them. There will be tips below depending on your grief type.

Grief is an invitation to embrace our soul's evolution, to create rituals that heal our deepest pains and traumas. Grief is a place to learn the art of letting go and releasing that which no longer serves you.