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Grief takes a tremendous toll on your health and how you live your life. As a professional psychotherapist in practice for over 30 years, I know the pain of loss and the effects of grief on the well-being of my patients, but it wasn’t until I lost my beloved husband of 27 years that I realized how limiting the traditional Western grief model is in helping people heal after loss. Instead of healing our hearts, we feel utterly alone and lost in living a life without our beloved by our side.
Whether you’ve lost a beloved spouse, child, parent, sibling or a pet, the emotions that flood your life are all the same; deep sadness, depression, loss of sleep and/or appetite, loneliness and lack of joy in daily activities. What’s worse than these debilitating emotions is that we’re told to “grieve, let go and move on,” as if it were that simple. As someone who has experienced loss, I can tell you, nothing could be further from the truth. We are taught that once a loved one leaves the earth, so too does the relationship, the love and the connection we had with this person. This is so counter-intuitive to a spiritual being. In essence, that’s what we all are, spiritual beings, so we must be able to connect with one another via the spiritual channel–if we are open to such communication. Therefore, love can never truly die and our relationships are not meant to end in death, despite what we’ve been taught.
If it weren’t for the remarkable, and almost unbelievable, messages I received after my husband passed, I’d still be stuck in this traditional model without hope or a way to regain joy. I would also still believe, no doubt, that love dies when we do. Once you experience this reconnection, like I have, you realize that the only limitation in reconnecting with your loved one is holding on to the false belief that you can’t.
I started receiving messages from Jean shortly after he passed. He would come to me in moments of silence letting me know that he was still right by my side, just as he had been when he was in physical form. At first, I thought I was making his manifestations up, but over time, I began to trust and follow his messages. I soon discovered that not only did I not have to say good-bye, but that we could remain connected in spirit and continue our love story. His manifestations often occurred in front of witnesses, so I knew I wasn’t imagining these signs.
Even though Jean was sending me these messages, he told me that his purpose was much grander than merely reconnecting with me. He was using me as a conduit to explore this spiritual evolution of what happens when we die. So, this reconnection wasn’t something special that only Jean and I could experience. Each one of us is capable of continuing our relationships with those in spirit. We simply have to overcome the false teachings to see these signs for ourselves.
The loss of my husband led me to explore grief on a very personal level. I discovered that when I sat in silence or when I created what I call “pockets of peace” I could actually hear Jean reaching out to me as if he were right in the same room. I began to crave these moments and so spent time in quiet solitude regularly so I could communicate with Jean in this new way. This was the only way I could cope with the loss, and what surprised me most, was this new way offered tremendous healing that I couldn’t find in the traditional grief model. The outdated traditional method only left me hurting and left me completely closed off from life and the spirit world. I was literally just going through the motions of life without feeling any real joy until I started creating these pockets of peace.
This awakening of reconnection prompted me to develop a revolutionary method to heal after losing a loved one. I wrote a book, Love Never Dies: How to Reconnect and Make Peace with the Deceased, which became an instant bestseller. I shared my new method in this book to help others realize that they don’t have to say good-bye to their loved ones and that there is a way to dialogue with those in spirit. Shortly after this book was published, I was asked repeatedly to host workshops and retreats so I could work with people on a more personal level. The healing that has occurred during these sessions has been remarkable to say the least.
Here’s one of the exercises I share with those who are suffering from loss. If you’re in the throes of grief, feeling alone, hopeless and disconnected from the joys of life, I encourage you to give this exercise a try. Even if you don’t believe that communication with spirit is possible, creating pockets of peace will offer more comfort, more peace and more joy than the traditional model ever could.
3 Step Process for Reconnecting with Your Loved One in Spirit:
1. Sit in silence. Even if you can only do this for 5 minutes at a time, the solitude will open the channel of communication between the earth and spirit plane.
2. Ask to reconnect. By simply asking to speak to your loved one in spirit, you open the spirit channel to send and receive messages from your loved one. Visualize your loved one as if he or she were standing before you. Look into their eyes and ask to communicate with him or her. Don’t worry if nothing comes right away. Just remain open to the possibility. Your loved one is waiting to reconnect.
3. Be open to the signs of spirit presence. Spirits, without the physical limitation of the body, can communicate in various ways. You may hear a favorite song of your loved one playing in your mind. You may see your loved one’s favorite bird or flower that you hadn’t noticed previously. You may even pick up a scent that is associated with your loved one. By opening yourself to the various forms of communication with spirit, you’ll begin noticing more and more signs from your loved one.
This simple exercise is enough to open the spirit channel and begin a reconnection with spirit. As you practice, you will begin to feel more peace and more joy in each day. Love does not end in death and your loved one is always with you, just in a different way than you are used to having him or her.
If you’re interested in learning more about reconnecting and making peace with your loved one, I invite you to read more about my workshops, retreats and online courses here. In the meantime, practice using this exercise and see what manifests for you.
