By Irina Jordan
This post shares the highlights of the talk given by Uma Girish, Grief Guide.
- Tell your grief story to release, heal and cope with shock of losing your loved one.
- Tell your grief story to have witnesses for your wounds.
- We like to talk more than listen. Move to expansion, away from victimhood.
- Shift your scenery to re-enter and re-connect with life to avoid being stuck in grief and in an infinite loop of loss.
- Look at your grief through a different prism. Joy is our divine default setting.
- Our brains are velcro for negativity and teflon for positivity. You'll hang on to an insult more than to a compliment - this is how our brains hard wired. Shift out of velcro of negative thinking.
- Mind doesn't always tell the truth, don't believe every thought your mind tells you.
- Recognize a spiral of negative thinking and stop it in its tracks. Being a victim is easy as there is no responsibility. Happiness is a habit, not a decision. Just like fitness, you have to work on it. Practice gratitude.
- Your energy field is felt by other people. Don't be in victimhood. Move beyond it. Healing is essential.
- Strengthen your neural pathways by sending positive messages. You can change your brain at any age .
- Bigger picture is beckoning you. What are you meant to create and leave behind? Leave legacy.
- Choose an empowering story. Take time to heal and then move beyond negative space and receive gifts of grief.
- Move from 'why' to 'what'. What am I meant to learn from this? Like a mother who started Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD).
- Do something meaningful in your own life. Make a list of loved one's values and follow them to honor his/her legacy.
- Moving to empowered place, helps us find meaning and purpose.
- If your loved one were standing before you, what (s)he can say to you? Use it in journaling or meditation.
- Every morning say 'Today I choose happiness' in a rote fashion even if not feeling it. It will become a habit.
- When you are ready to re-engage with life, able to feel joy again, you will know that this is the first step of healing.
By Irina Jordan