Grief is a natural response to loss of any kind. As someone who has worked in both medicine and psychology, for over 40 years I am no stranger to grief’s presence in the lives of my patients. I have also had many opportunities to experience losses of loving relationships, loss of a mentor, losses I incurred through cancer as well as the losses on my spiritual journey. Learning how to let go of my ego attachments may have been one of the most painful roads I have ever traveled that is till I lost my son two years ago.  

I feel like I took the time necessary to grieve my losses even moved across the country out of the Chicago suburbs to a small-town in Arizona, Sedona which I felt was necessary in order to quiet my mind and set my life back on track. I am grateful that I gave myself the gift of time and space to heal from all of these losses. However, I do not think I really knew what I was doing at the time. Sure, I had studied grief, read many books, worked in pediatric and neonatal ICU, pediatric oncology and with seniors in nursing homes, but I do not think it ever prepared me for what was to come in my future. I have definitely seen a lot of death and dying in my life but integrating it into my own life in preparation for what was to be was different.  Nothing could have ever prepared me for the sudden death and loss of my 30-year-old son who died from an accidental overdose in 2018. I thought I recognized the pain of loss and labeled it grief, but this loss was amplified to a level I had not experienced before. I actually felt this pain deep in my heart and soul almost like someone just knocked the wind right out of me.

Transformation requires a deeper connection to self.

Over the past two years life for me has again transformed because I chose to be connected to this painful loss and find a deeper meaning. I have focused more on grief than I had in the past for myself as well as my patients. What I learned is that our grief is equal to the strength of our love for the person that died. This can also be applied to other losses, such as disease, aging, money, jobs, house, compromised health, loss of body part, as well as and including all of the psychological losses and challenges in life, such as loss of core beliefs and cognitive constructs that we have held onto for our entire lives. Therefore, our thoughts can comfort us, or they can deeply hurt us with shame, guilt and self judgement. The aforementioned is something that I hear all day long in my practice, patients who suffer through letting go of these old thoughts, beliefs and stories that they have been telling themselves for decades. The attachments that we all have to life be it physical or psychological can either release us from suffering or imprison us in unnecessary anguish because we are holding onto old beliefs and stories that no longer serve us. For most of us letting go of past constructs that are no longer working is by far the most difficult journey of all. It is not an easy journey, but it is a necessary one for all of us and one that is well worth it to take. There is only one way to approach this that is to be present and move through it with patience, loving kindness and compassion. In order for us to transform ourselves we have to be able to look with open awareness, and fully feel it with love. This means we must all let go of our judgements.

Letting go of self judgement is one of the most difficult tasks we are presented with.

Why is this so difficult? Because our judgements have become an integrated part of who we are as beings. Furthermore, it is the only self we know so we tenaciously hold onto it with all our might, it is our identity it is our ego-self. Moreover, if it is the only self, or identity we know wouldn’t we most likely want to hold onto it? Just like a child that was verbally abused, judged berated, shamed and blamed by her parent. These messages become integrated into her identity.  Then the child grows up, and she still has those hidden messages they are rooted in her self-concept. When she interacts with others, she is either the victim or the victimizer, meaning that she judges and is unkind to herself and unkind to others because that is all she knows. This may or may not be visible scars to others, but her invisible hurts have become her demons in life those self-debasing thoughts that keep her in her own painful stories.  These stories may affect her ability to fulfill her life scripts, such as parent, wife, career, socially and spiritually.  

When we approach the death of our ego self (our identity), we feel as though we are dying a physical death. It is like a physical death and like anything that is really frightening we fight against it and resist it. Then we begin to ask ourselves question like, why? “Why is this so difficult, I am so tired of feeling this way, I just want it to go away.”  Why is one of the most senseless and insidious questions we can ask ourselves because there is no answer. We could spend our whole life trying to figure out the why or we could work with what is. For example, the first thing the Rabi said to me after my son’s death was do not ask why? I already knew this through my “self” work that there would be no answer that could ever explain why he died. Not to mention that I have been fielding that question personally and professionally for years. Asking this question only keeps us from the real answer our unharnessed minds also known as the monkey mind. We are human and we are always in search of answers and meaning but what we don’t know is that sometimes there are just not answers to all the unanswerable questions in life.

I remember when I had my first miscarriage the first thing I asked was why? Did I do something wrong or am I being punished for something I did before. Then I got cancer and was told that there is no cure for this type of cancer, and it could return. The treatment in 1993 was remove the left kidney. My initial response was okay because I had only one choice. My next question to myself was why? Why me, why this why now? I was a health fanatic, exercise enthusiast, yogini and meditator as well as a vegetarian. I was at the height of my career and I had a successful private practice. This diagnosis made no sense to me. I went through all the stages of grief, first I denied, then I got angry then I used bargaining and then came the sadness. The last stage of grieving lasted the longest, because I had to make peace with my own mind, body and spirit.  While working with an acupuncturist I discovered the location of my cancer, the kidney is the seat of fear. Immediately I received confirmation for going deeper into my mind.  Fear is something that most of us live with and it was ever present in my life growing up. This is the point of my life that I became involved with The Course in Miracles and Dr. Kenneth Wapnick. According to the Course there are only two emotions love or fear. If you are in fear there is no love and when you love, there is no fear. That made sense to me and that was enough evidence for me to acknowledge that my thoughts were misaligned, and I needed to change my mind about life. I had to make sense of something that made no sense. When we cannot make sense of things, we look to blame someone or something for what we are feeling. To me this meant I had to look deeper into self and the way I approached life. I welcomed that journey even though I knew going into it that it was going to be difficult and filled with pain and tears. I had to let go of who I thought I was and find a different way. Instead of rejecting myself I had to learn how to accept self and be kind and loving to self. If I did not find a way to let, go of my old dysfunctional beliefs the next time cancer returns I may lose my life. We cannot cheat or escape death and dying no matter what we do but we can learn to embrace life differently and live a more peaceful, and equanimous existence.

Are some of you feeling grief right now in this pandemic?

I am guessing yes you are. Again, I listen to the fears of my patients all day long. Besides anxiety, sadness/depression we are all feeling a serious loss of the life we once knew two months ago. Most of us may not have previously imagined the losses that we are all incurring and witnessing daily due to the global pandemic, loss of jobs and income, loss of economic security due to a failing market, loss of businesses, loss of freedom to move about, loss of social connection, and for some loss of speech. Not to mention, postponed graduations, proms, weddings, concerts, birthdays, and vacations. Some of us are also experiencing a loss of health and perhaps loss of connection with family and for some a loss of life.  Furthermore, for those who are dying their families are unable to say goodbye without traditions and rituals where we all gather to celebrate their life and grieve together.

How do you feel about this?

These are times that none of us were prepared for or are familiar with. Our daily lives have been immeasurably disrupted. Most of us are accustomed to our daily routines that provide safety and structure. Even the simplest of things such as going to the grocery store to pick up what we need has become difficult because we may not find what we need on those shelves.  When things in life change and become uncomfortable and unfamiliar, we become fearful and anxious. Life feels out of balance and we want it to go back to the way it was. What we are all currently experiencing is called grief. We are shocked, in dismay and feeling a certain amount of disbelief with regard to the disposition of our country and the world.  Elizabeth Kubler-Ross identified five stages of grieving and David Kessler who worked extensively with her just identified a sixth stage, finding meaning.  The first stage of grief is denial.  Denial was our first reaction to the pandemic we could not believe that this was happening and that is probably what contributed to societal chaos.  Not to mention that everyone had a different opinion or idea about what should be done. The second stage of grief is anger and there is a lot of that in our world right now. We hear it all day long on the news and social media, everyone pointing the finger at someone for what is going on, recognize it this is judgement. Not to mention the tremendous losses that we are all experiencing and the current political climate that surrounds us all.  We are currently experiencing a life without individual choices. This is a very uncomfortable situation for a democratic country. The third stage of grief is bargaining and some of us may be having regrets about how we did or did not live our life before the pandemic. The fourth stage of grief is depression a deep sadness from the loss. We are all feeling a deep sadness about all the layers of loss we are experiencing in this pandemic. The fifth stage is acceptance. Many of us may not be here yet because we are feeling such imbalance and uncertainty about the trajectory of the pandemic.

The time is now to work on our minds.

We have no idea how our lives may change in the future. But there is no time like the here and now to begin working with our minds. This is no easy task for anyone, but it is well worth our time and effort. I suggest that instead of looking out into the world to make sense of what is going on and looking for someone or something to judge or blame for the state of our nation, i.e. our government, China, Europe we each take responsibility for our contribution to this pandemic and chaos. The outside world is a picture of the turmoil in our own minds.

The last stage of grief is finding meaning this is important for each and every one of us to find meaning in life. When we let go of our fears and the chaos in our own minds we let go of our egos. As I mentioned in a previous blog to the ego death is suffering. But to our soul death is awakening to a new perception of self and our world and unlimited possibilities. Our lives are no longer bound by our limiting beliefs.

 In Tibetan Buddhism they have a mind training that I have mentioned before called Lojong, it is the training with slogans. I have been practicing with them and they are beautiful and as relevant today as they were when they were created. One of those cards’ states, “regard all dharmas as dreams.” A Course in Miracles would suggest the same, life is a dream and if we approach it as every thought and feeling is a memory from the past then we will be able to recognize that birth and death exists in every moment. Nothing here is solid it is always ebbing and flowing and when we are able to move with it instead of resisting it, we become at one with ourselves and all beings. According to Kahill Gibran, “You will know the secret of death…when you seek it in the heart of life.” In other words when you embrace life fully, loving every moment and unveiling the mysteries of life you become comfortable with the thought of death and dying. Ram Dass states, “Dying is the most important thing you do in your life. It’s the great frontier for every one of us. And loving is the art of living as a preparation for dying.” These words are so true because he is not talking about the end of life, he is talking about how we choose to live our lives in preparation for shedding our bodies for what lies beyond in the next life.