Previous Step: The Expansion Principle
Step 2: Moving from loss to renewal
“Allow grief and loss to be present while energizing renewal.”
A crisis, no matter the scale, is very likely to involve some form of loss. The loss may not even be physical — it can be a dream, expectation, world view, or cherished belief. Sometimes we feel the loss of what doesn’t occur even more powerfully than what does occur. This could be losing a person, a place, an activity, or fulfilling a goal.
It is incredibly important to give space to recognize, embrace, and honor loss. Our culture tends to skip over grief and quickly fill in energetic and physical substitutes. This often leads to inner conflict, suppressed energy/emotion, and a life cluttered with distractions. Avoidance also leads people away from true wholeness and renewal; I discuss this more shortly.
So how to handle loss and grief, while still moving forward?
This can be complicated, and the timing and unfolding are always very individual. My goal here is to connect the process of recognizing loss with the movement to energize renewal for the future.
Unfortunately, many people get this process backwards. A common tendency is to energize grief, and deplete renewal pathways by (completely) focusing on the (many forms of) irresolvable loss that can arise from a disaster or crisis. If you have a tendency to become “stuck,” depressed, or unable to respond, this is a common underlying pattern.
As a result, many extend a crisis for a long time after the initial event, still living in the shock of loss, years (and even lifetimes) after tragedy or unexpected change. In the process, some try to revitalize a beloved past with the remaining “post-crisis pieces”, but, in the long run, the creation tends to look like a puzzle with missing chunks, aching and disconnected. Sometimes there is an attempt to create a reality museum.
With the “reality museum,” ongoing attention is directed to the cherished past. It takes time, effort, and energy to sustain. Sometimes this is a useful transition or bridge. But, eventually, maintaining the reality museum becomes an energy drain for future creations. The present feeds the past rather than feeds the future.
Ultimately, the pathway to a (whole and elevating) future begins where many do not want to look — the very present. Not the present of what has been lost, but the present that contains what is never destroyed by physical means. When that can be seen and felt, then there is a place to truly begin again. Not to recreate or recycle, as those are energetic traps, but to channel the inherent, enduring wholeness of Life into new form. A form that has true promise, potential, and vibrance into the future.
This future often looks very different than what was before. This is the very difficult part.
What crisis — physical or spiritual — most rocks and crumbles is identity. Places, people, and ways of life may no longer exist, or are no longer self-sustaining, in the remade reality. If you have been on a spiritual path for awhile, you can (usually) dismantle your identities and identifications at a much more gentle pace than when the disintegration is driven by unexpected planetary or personal events.
But however you arrive at the place of remaking your reality, you are still empowered — if you choose to recognize your own empowerment, that is. In any moment, you are empowered to connect to the eternally life-giving core of Existence and bring forth a new life and uplifting future.
If you have not done so already, I suggest that you pause and connect right now. Truly, it is there waiting for you to receive. You do not “get,” “seek,” or “demand” the pure Source of All-that-Is. Rather, you deeply choose to receive it. If it helps to visualize, hold out your outstretched hand, palm up, with your request to receive. I cannot describe what you will experience — this type of pure connection is recognized with inner knowing.
As long as you have awareness, and willingness, you have access to this vast potential of (new) creativity and flow.
Of course there is the grief and loss to experience, release, and eventually, vibrationally compost. From the the perspective of spiritual wholeness, this is natural and essential. Any form of true renewal, on any scale — brings the process of letting go. How well you can let go of what no longer exists, or no longer serves the potential of an uplifting future, will probably impact your experience and the flow of renewal more than anything else.
As you release the state of crisis, or the results of disaster (of any size), you create space for new life to inhabit. From this opened and expanding space, the experience of true renewal and revitalized wholeness emerge.
