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The Roadmap to Grief (Part 2)

August 15, 2012 //
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The journey of grief continued…

Anger/Resentment/Criticism show up and this intense energy is often feared.  We do not see it as a gift and how it is valuable but rather as a socially unacceptable feeling.  Why?  Most of us do not handle this intense feeling of anger well. Our skill set may be limited or past experiences have not had peaceful outcomes when anger is involved. These disempowering outcomes perhaps have done more damage than good to relationships and from here comes our fear of this intense energy. Yet if we think about it, this gift of the energizing power of anger when utilized correctly and in civilized ways is what we need to pull us out of the panic pit or the depressed mode. We need it to make the changes necessary in our life to move us forward to reorganize and redesign our life. How else do we get this energy, when we have been de-energized by our loss? It naturally comes as part of the journey.  Anger can narrow our focus to take action. Yet if we misunderstand and misuse the gift, we can get a hardened heart and hurt others as well and stay stuck in this venom that indeed can poison us and our health. In anger we can find courage to move on.  It is a good tool when in good hands guided by a good head. But then as we move on we feel the strings of guilt.

Guilt is normal when we have done or failed to do something, it becomes unhealthy when it is out of proportion to our involvement in the situation. Yet we will feel that sense of remorse… why should I go on without what I lost, why me, what did I do wrong or not do? I have no right to go on.  It might mean I do not care anymore. How do we keep memories alive? But if we have experienced forgiveness and acceptance we can easily admit the guilt and let it go.  Unresolved guilt can make us miserable for years.  But if we move on, how do we return when we can’t go back?

We Resist Returning to life as usual as it is difficult, demanding and unpredictable.  The familiar feels safer and oftentimes we would rather get stuck on grief than face a new world and decisions. Many out there do not let us grieve and we feel as if grief is out of place in their world and we are left to carry it alone inside ourselves…no one wants to talk about the loss anymore, yet we still carry it. Everyone forgets our loss, but we are still living the ramifications of all the changes in our life. But thankfully, a thread of hope can keep us moving forward if we do not despair.

Hope shines through since we are human and need the warm affection and encouragement of those around us.  It makes it easier to let go of our unrealistic attitude of wanting to shut the world out and all the opportunists for meaning again…not replace, just play again, just participate in the dance of life again. And this new chapter and beginning is not a sign of disloyalty to any of our past or any person of the past. But we will never be the same again.

We Embrace Reality as a wiser, stronger person. We can never be our old self again…it is not possible. We have grown through this journey and are different and changed.  Yet depending on how we responded or coped we will be stronger or weaker, healthier in spirit or diminished.  Those coping with less healthy ways never really work through their grief. Those of us with a healthy faith and healthy coping can be there for others who face similar losses as we are helped by the deepest conviction that we were not alone then and will not be in the future.  We did not do it alone; there was a higher power, God, after all.  Under the duress, greatness was sculpted in the interior chamber of our being and the rays of sun come through the dark clouds that have been inside our hearts. We may continue to struggle, but we can affirm the gift of life and go on living.  Because life is the gift and one day we will meet the end of our earthly journey.  Each loss in our life well grieved will prepare us for the ultimate loss…our very own life.  Grieve well to live and love well.

Remember the journey is unique to each one, but a roadmap helps us to keep moving and not get stuck way past what is a healthy resolution to our losses and grief. Love life and give it your best.  We only have this time now.

 

Maria Hilda Pinon, author of The Willows of Corona, a novel, and Candles in the Dark…poems to grieve, hope and love again.

 www.mariahildapinon.com

 

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The Pain of Loss (Part 3)

August 10, 2012 //
31

Our capacity to experience pain is directly related to our ability to love. This is not a masochistic statement, but rather a sort of paradox of living life. How can it be that pain and love go hand in hand?

For starters we all have a certain amount of energy to do life with each day. If we are using some of it in the emotional bank to hold old pain that had not been dealt with effectively, our fuel is less than a tank full. It seems that pain ties up our energy and when we do not work through it we let the pain hold us captive along with the energy it takes to hold onto the pain.

When we do not allow ourselves to live through our own pain we will also not let anyone else do so and thus each time someone is in pain we either dismiss their pain or minimize it or outright tell them they should not feel what they feel.  Why?  Because we do not want to be reminded of our own pain that WE cannot deal with.

As we are able to truly heal our pain, we will find that we will be able to hold someone’s pain and really accompany them on their journey of healing. Whoever holds our pain when we experience it and allows us to be in the pain as we need, is someone who is not afraid of this experience. They have lived through it and know it will not destroy us, but rather transform us at the end of the journey.

Who can you share your pain with? Who do you allow to share their pain with you? If you have to release and heal any pain, be encouraged to do it for you will find that when it is released and healed, it will free up the energy you did not realize was wrapped around it…and guess what?  Suddenly you will have more energy freed up to love even more.  You will have greater capacity for love! Now is it not better to have more of the beautiful energy of love than of pain? 

Some of us may believe that if we let go of the pain, we stop caring about this loss that created our pain, but the fact is that because we care, we should be eager to work through the pain of loss as it will allow us to free up the energy for love.  The energy of love lifts us and others; the energy of love transforms us and the world around us.  Be courageous and heal your pain.  You will be glad you did. 

Our greater purpose in life is to love to the greatest and deepest capacity, not to be diminished by pain to the point that we can no longer take the risk of loving again.  Inadvertently holding onto this way of living, weighed down by pain, and believing it is purposeful robs us of the gift of living and loving fully.   

Heal thyself, so you can help others heal…and the world will be transformed as it is lifted from the pain that can keep us all small in our love for others and for ourselves.

Maria Hilda Pinon, author of The Willows of Corona, a novel, and Candles in the Dark…poems to grieve, hope and love again.

www.mariahildapinon.com

 

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The Pain of Loss (Part 2)

August 8, 2012 //
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Let your pain refine you rather than define you.  How many times do we stay stuck on pain to the point that it becomes the shield or badge we hide behind or organize our life around indefinitely oftentimes permanently?  It becomes the excuse for just about everything and we do not realize our potential or dreams. This may not be intentional and at a conscious level or it may be, but all the same it leads to the same place: energy tied up to pain rather than powering our dreams and developing our potential. 

Pain is a natural result of being human and daring to care and invest our time and energy in the human laboratory of life.  I am neither minimizing nor discounting pain as it is an occupational hazard of life. However, pain can be worked through and healed.  The circumstances that created the pain and the story of how our pain came to be does not have to create our future. It can be a part of the past, a healed past that becomes a springboard to the future without any strings of the past influencing our tomorrows. We can learn from the past so our future is navigated with greater clarity. Turning back to our history brings us smiles rather than tears.  We can draw strength from the past rather than allowing it to diminish us and keep a hold on our energy needed for the today we live and the tomorrow we can still create.

Time heals wounds goes the adage, but we have to do our part. We need to call the pain by name, experience the feelings it generates to the fullest.  We neither run from them to avoid the pain by burying then behind anxious busyness or anesthetize them with drugs or alcohol or hold onto them for life like a “scarlet letter”.  We allow them to be in us. We accompany the feelings and allow them to teach us about what they want us to know about ourselves. And we let them pass through us and dissipate, until they show up again and we repeat the process.  Ask your feelings…what is this about for me? Do not cut them short due to the discomfort as they will take you on a journey beyond the surface of the first answer.  They can take you to the core of your deepest and oldest wounds by asking yourself.  When did I first have this feeling?

With the thoughts revealed that accompany this feeling you suddenly have the power to change a disempowering thought and release feelings associated with these thoughts. Our feelings of loss can be so strong and loud that they do not let us hear our own thoughts. So this is why we have to feel them to release them until they become more manageable and we can actually hear the thoughts related to those feelings.

It requires courage to stay on the healing task which means you will have to tell your fear it is uninvited in this process.  Keep breathing through it all for fear will hold you back.  Fear will consume your energy and rob you of your power to heal and release pain.  Fear will convince you that somehow this pain is crippling for life and now you will just have to live with it and drag it around like a ball and chain. How tiring!

Be not afraid to live through your pain, get support when needed, but do not live in it and with it for the rest of your life, just for the duration that is normal and necessary in your process of healing the pain…after all neither fear or pain pay rent to you, so evict them, they do not have squatters rights unless you allow it.

The pain of loss has the power to transform you. Heal your pain and evolve. Heal your pain, evolve and you will be able to give more to the world to transform and evolve it.

Maria Hilda Pinon, author of The Willows of Corona, a novel, and Candles in the Dark…poems to grieve, hope and love again.

www.mariahildapinon.com

 

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The Pain of Loss (Part 1)

August 7, 2012 //
8

Life can be like a ledger, tracking gains and losses.  Few of us suffer pain when we gain or lose if we agree with it and want it.  It is when we do not consciously choose it that we run into the emotional downward spiral.

At an unconscious level we choose everything for there are those who say it is what the soul has chosen for this lifetime. So everything even though it may feel like a painful loss is actually a gain. This premise presumes we are experiencing life from a higher level of consciousness.

Yet precisely on our journey to higher consciousness, we will stand in agreement with the above perspective and welcome all experiences as a doorway to growth and higher conscious evolution.

In the meantime, life happens, it gets messy and painful, jobs end, relationships end, earthly life ends, finances burden and redesign our lifestyle etc. and with these events a windfall of pain accompanies them unless consciously chosen.

The pain is what keeps us stuck, and into patterns of unconscious repetition unless we heal the pain, move to higher understandings and let it go…move on, release the grip it has on us.  We do not have to let go of the story of what caused the pain, it is the pain we need to let go of.  This is where healing is.  The art of healing our losses is indeed an art and a journey in itself.

Yet we often stay stuck not only with our pain, but with our story, seeking others to validate our story and make us right and someone wrong rather than validate the pain and realize that the story is a perspective and may or may not be right.

However at a higher consciousness it is not about being right or wrong, but living from a higher realm of understanding and being that does not invest time or energy into being right or wrong, but just staying in the light, expanded in our highest being and in unity. 

Seeking to heal all pain from our stories so that we can convert each painful experience into a diamond of light and draw strength from what has already happened is something to aspire to.  For as we release the pain and transform it, it will no longer diminish us, but expand us spiritually.

Loss in whatever size it comes must be grieved in order to heal…and that is an art in itself. More on this art of grieving will follow in other reflections.

In the meantime, take some time and make an inventory of where you are now on your ledger of gains and losses.  If there is a salient loss you are living now, “do not sweep it under the carpet” as they say, but spend the time to work through it, not around it.  When we experience the feelings fully, we can begin to release them, if we shortchange this process, it tends to last longer in our emotional bodies and will resurface later, reminding you that your work is not over.  Avoidance guarantees we will relive it again for “what goes under comes out sideways”, “what is not talked about gets acted out”.

We are invited to heal all our pain in order to evolve and shift to a higher consciousness…

 

Maria Hilda Pinon, author of The Willows of Corona, a novel, and Candles in the Dark…poems to grieve, hope and love again.

www.mariahildapinon.com

 

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“Bloom Where You are Planted” Jeremiah 29(1-7)

August 6, 2012 //
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Where are you now? Where is the place you call home? Where are you planted? Are you blooming?
In an age when we engage in all social media to build platforms as springboards for marketing ourselves, our wares, our gifts, our products, our anything….are we waiting to be discovered? Are we waiting for a “gatekeeper” to open the door and let us into the next level of stepping out into this global world environment where we want to be heard, recognized, acclaimed, noted not just by one, but by millions? Is this not the age when what we have to sell is not as important as who there is to sell it to? Who will give the gatekeeper the next opportunity to make millions off your gifts and talents? Platforms (followers) are the industry standard these days. For without any clout, we start at the bottom and may never get past a few rungs up the ladder of success (defined by how many millions are made or how many followers are ready to spend on what you have to offer, say or give to them).
And it is not just one ware, product or gift or anything we have to give that has value, but we also have to “up sell” give more “added value”, and create “urgency”, buy now before it is too late, or you get left behind, to compete in this global world. It feels like a race to outdo, outsmart, out strategize just to maybe step out and up! Whew! The goal keeps outdistancing itself, for when you reach one, the rules change, the methods or processes change, technology changes, the gatekeepers have changed….are we there yet?
Before we connected with technology, our only way was to connect personally. It may still be a most effective and valid way. We spend so much time with machines…adding to the value of a mechanized world, rather than the value of a human world. Our technology speaks to our current direction…more impersonal, scripted, mechanical, instant, and irreverent, anything goes.
Alas! Whereas we strive to stay connected and technology has opened the world to us and through this medium, for instance, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Turkey, and Great Britain have this blog in common and we connect through the technology web, it is still a machine in front of us and between us.
We fail to thrive without human contact or touch. We need each other, to look into someone’s eye’s and see that window to their spirit, to touch and transmit our healing and loving energy, to hear and allow the voice to vibrate and resonate in the chambers of our inner worlds.
Wherever you are give your gifts to those around you to those who will receive them and continue to bloom and grow where you are planted, while we wait for the seeds cast out in this web of technology, to fall on a fertile mind, heart, or spirit and your creative life force spreads globally, perhaps because of a gatekeeper or your platform size, but hopefully because your gift is the most valuable thing we offer to anyone. One on one, eye to eye, face to face, hand to hand, you are valuable where you are now.

“Bloom where you are planted.” Jeremiah 29 (1-7)

Maria Hilda Pinon, author of “The Willows of Corona”, a novel, and “Candles in the Dark…poems to grieve, hope and love again.”

www.mariahildapinon.com

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Beliefs…Worth Hanging Onto (part 1 of 3)

July 31, 2012 //
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We never act outside of our belief system.  If we do, we generally experience dissonance or discomfort at some level.  We then can either change the action or change the belief to improve our experience of dissonance or discomfort.

If you wonder what your beliefs are, just observe your behavior or conduct. There is a belief you have that allows you to act on it without any feelings of discomfort at any level. For example, if you get involved with activities that promote health, it is probably because you believe this is something to support and live out or perhaps you believe you should do what other individuals with greater knowledge offer.

We are invited to believe in many things that can be at odds in many ways and make our life a very complex list of do’s and don’ts and potential conflicts. 

Some beliefs are myths… some unexamined and others more examined. We choose to believe the myths as true.  But, just because a large majority believes something, does not mean the belief is true anymore than when a small minority believes something and we believe it is untrue.  Our collective history evidences how some beliefs once held unshakeable, get abandoned.  Remember the time when slavery was common practice?   

Given the nature of how beliefs create the path we chose to walk, it is prudent to ask ourselves what we believe about any action we give time and energy to support and create.

If we are willing to loosen up our attachments to our beliefs long enough to examine them, we could learn about ourselves without getting so defensive or argumentative or aggressive when someone challenges a belief we hold.  Each challenge can help us clarify or perhaps liberate us of what can bind us and keep us from growing, moving forward or becoming more than we can be at any given moment. We can choose to stay in conversations of possibilities or gridlock them.  We can choose high roads or low roads. We can rise to an occasion of greatness or step into smallness. All greatness, now or in the past, comes from seeing possibilities and releasing some beliefs…  

 

Maria Hilda Pinon, author of The Willows of Corona, a novel, and Candles in the Dark…poems to grieve, hope and love again.

www.mariahildapinon.com

 

 

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The Torch of AWE!

July 28, 2012 //
1

Such a symbol of unity when one torch lit a circle of fire and was raised high above to become one…fire! So many countries united as one team! What a moment! What planning! What coordination! What cooperation! What a message! Can we as humanity light a torch toward unity in the common goal of excellence, mastery and bringing out the best in all of us to make our world viable for future generations, beginning with our tomorrow?  We can do this in other areas, not just sports…can’t we? Every discipline needs the inspiration of the multiple lights becoming one, despite all differences.  We are capable of not being threatened by differences, but rather admire and learn from them. We are capable of being side by side in peace and joy. We are capable of joining hands and have the music move us into a dance of harmony…Hey Jude, don’t let me down….don’t let us down…let us rise up to the challenge to bring our world to a better place.

The last time the torch was lit, was before the United States had a new President, before the Wall Street embarrassment of greed, mismanagement or bad luck broke our pockets and all the institutions that tumbled in the aftermath, to list a few, but take note worldwide, of what has crumbled down since our last Olympic torch was lit!  When things breakdown…where does it end?

What does it take to move the spirit of unity outside of the arena of sports or humanitarian efforts when tragedies occur, either from “nature” or someone’s “awry nature”? What does it take to get us to really examine what works and what does not work in our world? What does it take to recognize that WE are the co-creators of change in the world and it is up to us to own the breaking down of institutions and the building up of institutions…new ones, renewed ones?

The torch of AWE!!!!! A World Evolved…because we have evolved and can create a world that works for everyone…we have what it takes in us and around us. What will we each do to contribute to make this change?

Maria Hilda Pinon, author of The Willows of  Corona, a novel, and Candles in the Dark…poems to grieve, hope and love again.

www.mariahildapinon.com

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A Voice…Your Voice in the World

July 26, 2012 //
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Do you believe you can make a difference in this world?  Are you empowered or feeling powerless amid the backdrop of so many areas of our functioning world that are functioning for just a few?  Are we at a tipping point of breaking down or breaking through?  Critical mass is the term they use to refer to how we can “tip the point” in either direction. Exponentially voices seeking to make a difference, make a difference.

Destroying or transforming is a choice we can make and we each decide and contribute to the outcome….

Choose to transform…begin with you, transform yourself and through your transformation you inspire others and can support their transformation and in turn with this “ripple effect” make the breakthroughs needed to avoid our break down.

Share your transformational message with the world, perhaps through your writing voice, singing voice, dancing voice, speaking voice, photographic voice or any voice that connects you with others. Nothing is as powerful as this transformation; one by one…it shifts and lifts all of us.  Our transformation takes us to a deeper spiritual place within…to our essence, from where we then step out back into the world with a new and cleaner lens and a stronger sense of connectedness to each other.  

www.transformationalauthors.com  is one access point to get your message out in the written word.  Be inspired to transform the world by transforming yourself through your writing. The world needs your voice, your message of hope, love, resolve, strength, integrity, forgiveness, awareness.

In the words of the English Statesman, Edmund Burke (1729-1797):

“All it takes for evil to flourish in this world is for enough good men to do nothing.”

 Maria Hilda Pinon, author of The Willows of  Corona,a novel, andCandles in the Dark…poems to grieve, hope and love again.

www.mariahildapinon.com

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An Echo from Eternity

July 25, 2012 //
0

“People are often unreasonable and self-centered.

 Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives.

Be Kind anyway.

If you are honest, people may cheat you.

Be honest anyway.

If you find happiness, people may be jealous.

 Be happy anyway.

The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow.

  Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough

 Give your best anyway.

For you see, in the end, it is between you and God.

It was never between you and them anyway.”

 

Mother Theresa of Calcutta

www.mariahildapinon.com  Maria Hilda Pinon, author of The Willows of  Corona,a novel, and Candles in the Dark…poems to grieve, hope and love again.

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Express Gratitude…

July 22, 2012 //
0

In all things GIVE THANKS! We are not hearing this for the first time…it’s scriptural, but can we really give thanks in all things when they are not going our way? So what do we do…shrug things off, wish a bit harder, sweep them under the carpet, curse someone…or really give thanks when you really don’t mean it?
It is amazing what happens when we first say “Thank You” to the universe, our highest being, God…whomever we acclaim. What follows immediately is the opportunity to learn and reflect on our “thoughts” around what occurred and gain perspective! If we investigate our thoughts we won’t give energy to the “Poor me downward spiral” that gets triggered. We will spare ourselves lots of “grief”, if we utilize the time and energy instead to reassess our expectations, strategies, actions etc.
Catch your thoughts and the subsequent feelings generated by them and let them teach YOU…they are always trying to tell you something about YOU and no one else and the more awareness you have of this internal dynamic, the greater mastery you will claim over yourself.
Feel the feeling and name it, ask it to reveal the thoughts you have around the feeling and yes give thanks for now YOU have information to work with to heal, transform and evolve you to a higher level of functioning…
By giving thanks in all things we hold the key to balance the “tipping point” of the downward spiral and tip it to the upward spiral of hope, new opportunities and staying in the conversations of possibilities.

  Maria Hilda Pinon, author of The Willows of  Corona,a novel, and Candles in the Dark…poems to grieve, hope and love again.

www.mariahildapinon.com

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