Grief & Mourning

Welcome to this guided meditation called Grief and Morning.

Please get comfortable,

Seated or lay down if you wish.

Closing the I'm.

.

.

Thank you.

Connect to the breath by holding it still for 7 seconds now.

Connect to the breath,

Long and smooth.

Now Grief.

Losing someone is the natural process of entering green.

And to more.

Let's draw strength.

Let's expand the mind and connect to this deep topic that all people go through.

From all nations,

The world at large and embrace the right to more and take comfort and strength from understanding the whole process.

Eventually through the entire human process we tap into the very word acceptance.

And here we find our power and control.

So in a sense here is a story about grief and mourning that different kinds of people go through.

And here often the observer sees what you are going through and a search for answers and understanding of it all.

Is there a clue in that they are only physically gone?

For our minds and hearts keep them close.

Grief is in a sense one self,

The journey and those we meet on the way.

But I love how we add to our journey.

The ways,

Their ways,

Their habits,

Their memorabilia,

Keepsakes,

A fondness that remains always in the name of love.

Many books have been written about grief and mourning.

Doctors and psychiatrists call it and explain it as the five emotional steps through loss.

One lady called Elizabeth Kiber Ross worked so much with this topic through her own experiences and published a book on death and dying.

She herself born with complications of weighing only two pounds at birth who believes her survival was due to love and nurturing.

Also reaching age five she was hospitalised with pneumonia and here she witnessed her roommate pass away.

This led her to believe death is the necessary stage of life and one must be prepared to face it with dignity and peace.

Again age thirteen as a young laboratory assistant saw many unsettling things and some of the things to do with war.

The images she saw of hundreds of carved butterflies on walls were final works of art by those facing death.

She then continued to dedicate her life to help others and later as a psychiatrist observed the five stages of grief that are believed to be this.

Denial,

Anger,

Bargaining,

Depression,

Acceptance.

So denial is when we begin first with how to process the sad news,

Often heightened with fear of no control,

With denial to cling emotionally to a false preferred reality.

Anger,

Anger is a stress release,

Trauma and shock.

Anger is why me,

It's not fair,

All about who's to blame.

The word bargaining is ready to bargain with God,

Hoping to avoid all grief in exchange for a reformed life.

Reason is simply feeling so sad and why bother with anything,

Withdrawing and questioning one's own mortality.

Then finally acceptance,

To embrace mortality and an inviteable future with stable emotions.

I too believe once the shock has run through the body,

We bow to acceptance of this change.

For we are human with our hearts,

Body and mind and go through the symptoms such as loss of appetite,

Body aches and body pains,

Headaches,

Unsettled sleep,

Unable to function with normal activities and loneliness,

Missing them.

Let's look around the world,

Explore other cultures that address this grief and mourning,

For the world is full of people.

In Ethiopia Africa,

There is a traditional community organisation called Ida,

Whose members assist each other during mourning.

Members contribute to the fund that helps to fund funeral costs.

Members comfort the mourning with females taking turns doing housework,

Doing food preparation for the family and males arrange a funeral and erect a tent,

A tent to shelter guests who visit the mourning family.

Members stay with the mourners and comfort them for three continuous days.

Now Asia,

Asia is to mourn is to wear white with pointed hats too.

In imperial China,

Even the emperor retires from public affairs for a three year period of 25 to 27 lunar months and even shorter in the case of necessary seclusion of 27 days.

Japan,

Japanese are mourning and believe their spirit is nearby,

Living in afterlife.

Mourning comes at different stages,

For example daily for the first seven days or a number of services within the first 49 days.

Even on the seventh,

Forty ninth and hundredth day,

Depending on local custom,

Most commonly observed are the Buddhist service on the seventh day after death.

And the Japanese public share Obon.

Obon is a festival of remembering the dead.

There is even an anniversary on the fifteenth year.

What happens on the fifteenth anniversary of a Japanese person's death is that the deceased is turned upside down in and through these various actions.

Individual identity is said to disappear and the deceased is incorporated into the collective sense of ancestors,

Being reborn as a guardian,

A spirit or a god.

Thailand.

Thailand wear black and widows may wear purple if the death of a spouse.

Filipinos are influenced by other cultures and folk Catholic beliefs and may wear black or may wear white.

Red is frowned upon and the consumption of chicken.

There is an initial nine days of prayers and praying by the mourners.

During these days,

The spirit of the deceased is believed to be roaming the earth for forty days.

This is a Catholic practice of commemorating the dead after forty days from their death date.

A mass,

A small feast are held to commemorate the dead during the forty day period,

With the fortieth day as judgement day and signals the end of mourning.

Europe.

Europe the custom of wearing black clothing dates back to the Roman Empire.

In areas of Russia,

Greece,

Mexico,

Spain,

Widows wear black for the rest of their lives and immediate family of the deceased for an extended time.

Since the 1870s,

Mourning practices continue even for those who have emigrated,

With still wearing black for a good two years.

Jewellery that is often black dates back in time and tradition of wearing and jet.

In the nineteenth century,

Mourning could be expensive,

Such as a new set of clothes or the need for working clothes to be dyed black.

Now at the end of that wonderful movie,

The Wizard of Oz,

Dorothy explains to Glinda that she must return home because her aunt and uncle couldn't afford to go into mourning for her because it was expensive.

Around the twenty first century,

North American created the rear view mirror,

A mourning phenomenon that clings a well displayed vinyl window of birth and of death dates of loved ones and some have sentimental phrases too.

The Pacific in Tonga often display black bunting hung outside homes and buildings as well as wearing black themselves.

Confucism.

There is even a grade of five in the Confucian Code of Practice,

Where a man is expected to honour most of the descended from his great-great grandfather and most wives.

One's father and mother merited twenty-seven months.

One grandfather on the male side and wife merited twelve months.

A uncle merited nine months of mourning and one's father's first cousin and maternal grandparents of five months mourning.

But what did Confucius say about life?

Life is really simple but we insist on making it simple.

A superior man is modest in his speech but exceeds in his action.

Be not ashamed of mistakes and thus make them crimes.

The more man meditates upon good faults,

The better will be his world and the world at large.

So to grieve and mourn is also marked by withdrawal from social events and quiet,

Respectful behaviour.

But what of death and a new beginning and messages?

Survival evidence that someone carries through messages after their death through a new age and mediums have been around hundreds of thousands of years that believe we survive the extinction of the physical body can release us all from the fear of death so we can live our lives to the full.

With everything in the next dimension is constructed with the mind.

That's why it's important in this dimension to strengthen it with positive thoughts and imagination.

Then you will be upfront when you die,

Said by Betty Shine herself.

Death and both are both traumatic but we manage the first and we shall be last.

In time we as humans will connect to a smile,

To laughter,

A new adventure,

A new strength but an everlasting bond to those we truly love.

So keep them close with memorabilia,

Light a candle if you wish on special days,

Keep them in your prayers,

Your heart.

Some day we will meet together,

Learn to nurture and strengthen yourself once more.

For our minds and hearts keep them close.

Life is in a sense one cell,

The journey and those we meet upon it.

But I love how we add to our new journey their ways,

Habits,

Keepsakes and a fondness,

Love that always remains.

Breathe in deeply,

Breathe in your inner strength,

Through the heart and through the mind.

Thank you.

Let's awake to the count of seven.

One,

Two,

Three,

Four,

Five,

Six,

Seven.

Waking up,

Eyes opening,

Eyes fully open,

Wide open.

Please drink some water soon.

Thank you.