Moving Through Apathy & Grief: Levels Of Consciousness

These are two emotions that it is very easy to get lost in. There are times when both of these emotions are very healthy and exactly the perfect response to life. However, when we get stuck there, we can end up cycling endlessly. Let's look at how we can experience and flow through these naturally. This is part of our "Levels of Consciousness" series on my profile.

Transcript

So,

Today we're talking about moving through apathy and grief.

So,

This is part of the series we're doing all about the levels of consciousness in David Hawkins' book called Power versus Force.

And I have to admit that this is one of the levels,

Because our goal is to of course do all the levels.

And you know of all the other levels for some reason shame and guilt were easier to do.

And obviously neutrality,

Love,

Expansiveness those are easier to do.

Even anger and pride are easier to talk about.

But apathy and grief like every cell in my body was like I don't want to talk about this like I don't want to,

I don't want to go there.

So,

Today's talk will be interesting because in my experience,

In my sense these are two of the most challenging levels.

They,

Because there's a hopelessness and a sadness in these levels that it's really hard and it touches us really deeply.

Every single person here has a story about grief,

Right.

Everybody has something and it,

It really hurts.

You know,

It's not something to just be talked over,

It's not something to be philosophized out of.

It's real.

And so,

To talk about that pain especially in a group that's really challenging.

You know,

Apathy for example this is something that it's a new level that protects us from the pain of shame and guilt,

Right.

So,

It can be a very positive thing but if we get stuck there we live a life full of regret that we never did anything,

That we never got out of it.

Grief is a very important part of life,

It's a very important part of,

Of loving,

Of hoping and the potential loss of those things.

And it's important to feel it for as long as it needs to be felt.

But if we get stuck there we can circle there for the rest of our lives.

Which is why as difficult as this talk is,

As difficult as it is to feel what this brings up it's really,

Really important to discuss and it's really important because we don't want to skip these steps either.

If we need to grieve,

If we need to feel apathy then we need to feel them and we can't skip them because we don't like them.

In the same way that I wanted to skip giving this talk because that is the truth.

Like it was just like how,

How can we ever talk about this and maybe that's the problem,

Maybe that's the problem.

We don't want to talk about it,

We don't want to think about it,

We don't want to and then we just sort of contract into our world and don't talk about it.

Maybe my experience in planning this talk is exactly what it is like in life.

So,

For anyone who's new to these levels of consciousness it's all based on something called the map of consciousness from David Hawkins book called Power versus Force.

If you google map of consciousness you'll find all of these levels and these are levels that we often can get stuck in or we just resonate in or whatever we want to call it.

So,

Today you can see at the bottom there's shame and guilt.

So,

These are what we would call the lowest levels but also the levels with the least power that if we are being held in spaces of shame and guilt it's almost like we have this interior fight going on and this is where apathy,

So we're going to talk about apathy first.

Apathy saves us from shame and guilt.

Shame is when society has told us that something is wrong with us,

That we did something that was so horrible we're not even worth taking up space.

We can be sexually shamed,

We can be shamed for our birth,

We can be shamed for all kinds of things.

We can be shamed for things that have nothing to do with us.

But what that does is it comes in,

We internalize it and then inside we then have a battle that starts to eat ourselves up.

Like we actually destroy ourselves and we completely withdraw in shame and we believe we're not worthy.

We're not worthy to take up space,

We're not worthy of an opinion,

We're not worthy of love,

We're not worthy of anything.

Shame is this place of this inner battle of complete unworthiness.

And I have another talk about all about this here on Insight Timers.

So,

Feel free to check that out if you want to go deeper into that.

Guilt is a little more powerful than shame because at least we are the one who feels guilty.

We are the one that have internalized some external structure whether it's the belief systems of our parents or the belief systems of the church or the state of the society or our friends or our partner and they have told us that you know this is really bad.

And of course this can be really good because maybe we really screwed up,

Right.

Maybe it's not just a negative thing,

Maybe we really did mess up and we feel guilty in that way it's very powerful because we're like okay,

You know what,

I got to do something about that.

Which is very important in all of these talks that there are times that all of these levels are very positive and very important.

The challenge is always when we get stuck there,

Right.

That's the question.

Shame,

Is shame important?

100%.

If we've done something that's really awful then swimming in shame for a while is what will connect with our soul and help us to rise out of it and make amends.

Same with guilt.

If we've really screwed up guilt is what will make us say to someone I'm so sorry and I really mean it and we don't do it again because we genuinely feel repentance.

But that isn't what we get stuck in.

We get stuck in almost a societal guilt,

Right.

We get stuck in a thing that says like literally in Christianity for sure like we're taught that we're sinful by birth.

We're sinful by the very fact that our parents had sex.

We were born in sin.

Like this is a systemic guilt that you're not allowed to get out of.

It's not a point of feeling it and then rising above it,

Right.

That's not the point.

And that guilt just stops us from living our truth.

From ever attaining the truth that we really are that divine self,

Right.

So,

This is shame and guilt.

So,

We're now going to jump into apathy.

How does apathy save us from shame and guilt?

Because it's the first time that we say you know what all your guilt screw that and all that shame stuff forget that too.

I'm not listening.

I don't care.

You can say whatever you want.

I'm not engaging and you just go in.

You just sort of go in and you just say forget it.

I don't know what the answer is.

I don't know how to get out of this but you're not guilting me and you're not shaming me anymore.

This is a step up.

This is a place that says okay,

I'm not playing.

I don't know how to play but I'm not playing with you.

This is an important place.

This is an important place.

This is the beginning of not being so controlled by other and saying I'm creating a new safe place.

So,

What does this look like in the world?

It's apathy.

So,

It looks like yeah,

Well forget it.

I don't even care.

Yeah,

Whatever.

Oh,

You're not going to invite me?

I don't care.

Oh,

You're going to ignore me?

Yeah,

Whatever.

I don't even care.

It's not great but it's better than being controlled by shame and guilt.

So,

Apathy is really,

Really interesting because it also is our protection against that inner battle.

Because the apathy isn't just to other it's also to self.

So,

All those little voices in our head that say you're not good enough.

See,

You did it again.

Are you kidding?

Really?

You did it like you know that,

That,

That voice.

We are also apathetic to that voice that says not listening.

And so,

Of course this could look like addiction.

We could use drugs or alcohol or something to numb that voice to say I don't care what you're saying I'm not listening.

I'm staying in apathy.

I don't care.

You're not going to hurt me anymore.

So,

It's really valuable to look at this apathy.

Look at teenagers.

You know teenagers who get stuck in a space where they're not allowed to be honest because they're going to get in trouble by their parents or their school or whatever.

Here they are,

They're young adults.

They're forced to go to school.

And I say forced.

Like don't get me wrong.

I think school.

I love school.

But you don't have choice there.

Here's the curriculum.

Here's what you're going to do.

It's not about your soul's path.

It's not about anything.

You're going to fit the rules.

This is what it is.

So,

Now you have these people who are young adults and maybe the schooling doesn't suit them.

Maybe the family they were born into doesn't suit them and they're stuck.

So,

What do they do?

Apathy.

You're not going to guilt me into doing things you don't want me to do.

You're not going to shame me into doing things you don't want me to do.

I am going to pull into apathy because no one's listening anyway.

But it's better than being forced off your path by shame and guilt.

Because these are also huge tools that parents use.

Right,

It's a huge part.

It's almost a,

You know,

If you don't want to hurt people,

Well,

I'll just guilt them into it.

You know,

Well,

I'm very disappointed.

Very disappointed.

I was really hoping you'd make different choices.

Right?

The only tool you have is apathy.

It's like,

Yeah,

Whatever.

Yeah,

I'm just going,

I'm going to my room.

Headphones on,

Whatever.

The other benefit of apathy is it begins the end of the defeating self.

Right,

Shame and guilt.

This inner battle actually kind of destroys ourself bit by bit.

Every day we kind of just destroy ourselves a little bit more.

Apathy is also the beginning of the end of that.

It's like I'm not,

I'm not going to cut.

I'm not going to do the things.

I'm not going to hurt myself anymore.

I'm just going to live in limbo for a little while.

And this is very different that much higher on the scale is neutrality.

Neutrality is just above courage and neutrality is very different than apathy.

Neutrality is when you're still fully engaged in the world and you're looking around at everyone but you're not polarizing anymore.

It's a very powerful state.

You're looking around and you're not,

You're just not polarizing.

You're not taking sides.

You're looking at everything from a very different place of choice.

That's full engagement in the world in full neutrality.

Apathy is full withdrawal from the world out of self-protection.

So again,

If you're in a space where shame and guilt rule you it's very possible that on strong days apathy is your best friend and this is important.

And if we kind of come out of shame and guilt and we live in apathy for a while even let's say you're in a relationship.

Let's say you're in a relationship where you are controlled by shame or guilt.

Right,

And it could even be self-shaming.

It could be body image.

It could be I don't make enough money.

It could be all kinds of things.

It's very possible that your journey out of that relationship will require a period of apathy and it's almost like you're practicing not being controlled.

Practicing when they give you the cold shoulder you go that doesn't work on me anymore.

Interesting,

You know.

And it has to happen 20 times before all of a sudden you say all right,

I might actually risk leaving now.

But you have to,

We have to get strong in the apathy.

We have to get strong in that self-protection.

So,

Apathy is an interesting one.

It's important to note all right,

I'm using this as a conscious tool or I'm actually lost in apathy.

And all I see in the world like imagine even in the world you look around and you go you know what,

There's no hope.

The world's just going to hell in a handbasket and what the hell,

Right.

You know what,

I'm just going to sit here and play computer games.

No point.

Pure apathy.

It's very different but again,

Maybe we need to live there for a while and then eventually it will get boring.

Once we really nail apathy we'll start to peak our,

You know,

We'll start to look out.

We'll start to peak out and go well,

Maybe,

Maybe I'll head out,

You know.

So,

This is what brings us into grief and this is the hardest part of this talk for me because in no way do I want to minimize the loss of anyone we love.

In no way.

I,

This is where it gets super loaded and because the challenge is when we come out of apathy that means that we're willing to engage with the world,

Right.

We're out of the apathy.

We're like,

You know what,

I'm willing to love someone.

I'm willing to try for that job.

I'm willing to stick my neck out and try this thing.

This is so powerful.

This is such a huge deal when we suddenly say,

You know what,

I don't want to not care anymore.

I want to engage.

I want to try to have a friend.

I want to try to have a love.

I want to go for that job.

I want to try that entrepreneurial.

I want to do that.

But of course,

What comes with trying,

What comes with connecting is the possibility of loss.

And when that loss happens,

It's devastating.

And don't,

Again,

Don't get me wrong at any point in our life whether we are in full love space no matter where we are when we lose someone,

When something ends,

Grief is a natural very important part of our healing.

So,

I'm not saying this is only coming out of apathy.

The natural response of grief is important throughout our entire life and we need to be able to experience it fully and the greatest challenge about healthy natural grief is the only thing that heals it is time.

You know,

When someone loses someone close to us or when we lose someone close to us there's no philosophy,

There's no yoga,

There's no meditation,

There's no special words that fix it.

It just takes time.

The soul deserves to feel it.

The soul deserves this period of loss.

And one of the great challenges we're just going to talk about healthy grief for a moment.

One of the great challenges is that in many of our societies we don't even allow grief.

We minimize it.

We're like,

You know,

Why are you still going on about that?

Or you know,

That you should have been over it by now or whatever.

But the biggest challenge is we don't we don't wail about it at the time.

You know,

There are cultures that when we lose someone we wail on the casket.

We prepare the body.

We do all these things that actually help us cry and we have catharsis and and you know,

Even as I'm talking about it sounds so clinical and I don't mean to sound like that but there's important parts of the grieving process that in our society,

In the society I live in we become cold to it.

We let someone else do that.

We let someone else prepare the body.

We let someone else you know,

We put it off in a funeral home as opposed to doing it in the home.

We've gotten rid of all the natural human parts of this journey.

It's almost like the way we well it is.

It's how we the same way we treat trauma.

Who is it?

Alex LaVine no,

Peter Levine you know,

Who did so much work in trauma.

You know,

One of the biggest dangers that he found was that someone who maybe is in a car accident or something has happened,

The body starts to shake and the first thing the medics do is give them a medication to stop the shaking.

But that shaking is the importance of releasing the trauma and it's so important and so part of his therapy and I don't want to begin to think that I understand all of his therapy is to actually allow the shaking allow that trauma to be released because it's a natural part of the human psyche.

It's a natural part of our nervous system staying healthy that when something is a shock that we actually allow that trauma to come out and of course when we grieve it has to come out in tears and wailing and pounding and screaming and that's the trauma of these great losses.

You know and there's no talking about it.

It has to actually be this physical release but because we don't do that because we have to look stoic because maybe we just think well I'll just medicate it or I'll just do whatever because we don't have a safe container to actually release all this.

It gets locked in the body.

It gets thrown into the mind.

It gets psycholod.

.

.

I don't have the right word for that.

But it gets put into our psyche and then we start putting ideas on it and philosophies on it and thoughts on it and it almost creates its own cycle right and that's when it becomes unhealthy because it's something we can't release.

We can't get out of.

We get stuck in it and again if we are in grief and it's only been a year or two years since the loss that's not getting stuck.

That's a natural thing.

It takes sometimes years to get over the loss of someone close to us.

So,

That's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about 10 years later.

I'm talking about when for whatever reason we haven't been able to deal with it.

We haven't for a million reasons we haven't been able to get over it.

So,

That's.

.

.

So,

We really want to just press the point that grief is a very very healthy important thing to experience and even to let ourselves experience you know the number of people I talk to who are grieving and they'll apologize for their tears.

I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry.

I'm still crying about this.

It's just you know and I don't even understand it.

Like tears are the only the only way through it.

It's very very important to allow ourselves all the time and all the experience we need in it.

So,

Coming back to why grief is so important and why it's above apathy is you know and we experience this often when we have grief that we say things like well the truth is and this is way after the grief the natural grief cycle is over.

We honestly can say well I I'm sure glad I got to experience that.

You know when my mom died.

My mom died when I was 25 and like you know obviously there's massive grief at the time and massive grief even when she was sick like the loss of her healthy life that part of her life where she was still growing and changing and all that kind of thing and as soon as she became she was sick with cancer for three years.

You know there's a grief of even that that goes on through all of all of those times.

And once the grief has passed you really do come into a place where you go wow I'm so thankful to have had her in my life.

And again that's that point where we say it's still worth being out in the world.

It's still worth connecting with others even though I know I could lose them.

It's still worth it and you can feel how much more light there is in that than in apathy.

Right that we say you know what it's okay.

It hurts and it's horrible but I'm not going to close down.

I'm not going to become apathetic.

I'm not going to fall into that.

I'm staying in the game.

The other interesting thing or the other important thing about grief is it isn't always even about people.

Sometimes it's about jobs,

Opportunity and this isn't something to be poo-pooed you know compared to losing people because what we do in the world,

How we contribute that's a huge part of our life sometimes not for everybody but for some people and I don't mean for some people I mean I know a lot of you guys know I do these energy grids and depending on how each of us are wired through our third chakra some people are heavily wired through the third chakra so career is very very important.

It's actually part of their soul's path.

So to lose an opportunity,

To lose a job to lose for a business to go bankrupt or something like that this is a soul a part of a soul struggle.

It's a soul death.

It's a or it can feel like that that it's like no this was really important I put my whole heart and soul into this and I've lost it and that can send us into massive depression,

Massive apathy you know if not lower into guilt.

I can't believe I did that I was so stupid you know and then into shame you know so it's it's very important to understand how this grief can also drive us down into the much heavier heavier emotions and it can be it can be many many things the loss of many things.

The other important part of the grief piece is and David Hawkins talks about this in his book that if you're dealing with if you're working with someone let's say a traumatized patient and we can talk about ourselves we can talk about friends that when we're super traumatized by grief and again could be job loss,

Loss of a loved one,

Loss of anyone like that and we're sort of surviving in apathy you know maybe we maybe we through the loss we dive into shame and guilt that we believe it's our fault or we had something to play in it which is very again self-destructive right very self-destructive and then we come out of that and maybe we live in apathy we're kind of living in that numb space and then at some point we come to a place where we start to cry and this is the point of healing this is where grief becomes the journey of healing it becomes the journey out that even the freedom to cry says that I deserve to cry that my feelings matter I'm no longer in the destructiveness of apathy of shame and grief and guilt I'm no longer just numb to it I'm ready to cry about it now this is very very healthy and we may need to cry and cry and cry and that is how we move through it you know that's the huge part of the point of this talk is how do we move through apathy how do we move through grief it isn't about not feeling it it's about how do we face it feel it and then move through it and tears are the answer anger is the answer who knows what it is that we need to do to really to move through these things these very very human experiences no small thing the last thing I want to mention about grief is and this is what happens with all the levels below courage there's a very natural part of the emotion and then what happens is so imagine like an emotion an emotion is just something we flow through it's a very important human experience very very important the reason we get stuck in it is because our brain starts telling stories and we're not going to be able to start telling stories the stories get attached to the emotion and we start to cycle so for example our brain starts asking unanswerable questions like why did this happen this can't be right why did this happen to them they didn't deserve this I didn't deserve this this isn't fair this isn't fair this isn't fair these word these let these mantras get into our head they connect with these very painful emotions and they start to spin and the problem is you can't get out because these are not questions that can be answered that's where we get stuck you know there is no answer to why that's not a question it's not a correct question it's a torturous it's a torturous question that's how we dive into getting caught inside forever and never getting out you know I've spoken before about Viktor Frankl at length we've talked about Viktor Frankl Viktor Frankl was a Austrian Jewish psychologist and he ended up in concentration camps during the second world war Dachau,

Auschwitz others and this of course this question this why how could this happen how could God let this happen these unanswerable questions that end up torturing us of course these are the questions that tortured the people who ended up in these camps right and he said that you know after obviously he lived he said after after the war was over people either went one way or the other they either dove into these unanswerable questions that just kept them swirling for the rest of their life and they never ever could move on from it or people walked forward because and the number one reason they walked forward is they stopped asking those questions and this is part of how we get out of this cycle we have to stop asking why we have to stop asking how is this fair right these aren't these aren't these are they're almost like terrible seeds that got planted in our minds that just keep us stuck and once we understand that they're unanswerable we start wondering alright what do I want to do with my life then I've had this great loss how do I want to live the rest of my life how do I want to fill my days and we start stepping forward and that was a huge part of Viktor Frankl's psychotherapy with people because whether or not you lived in concentration camps and lost all your family everything or whether we lost people in our lives in the normal course of living whether we lost job opportunities all these things the only way forward is forward the only way forward is through it and if we have these negative mantras in our heads we just get lost in ourselves and so it's very very important it's like you know when a lot of spiritual teachings a lot of Buddhist teachings a lot of gurus you know have spoken to us about how the source of our suffering is in our mind it's in our thoughts and this is so hard for us to fathom because we say no no no my grief is real I feel this this is real and that is true like the pain of grief is real but if we allow the pain to just if we allow ourselves to feel the pain if we allow ourselves to truly exist in our truth through all that we do move path we do move through it which is hard to fathom when we're in the middle of it but we do move through it but if our mind gets a hold of it and it tries to be smart if it tries if it thinks it's smarter than God it thinks it's smarter than I don't know the quantum reality we live in it brings up these questions and if we allow those questions to rule us that's the suffering that's the beginning that's when we we kind of create our own hell and we just circle there you know and that's where even meditation can be so challenging yesterday in our radiant sutras talk we talked about the power of letting emotions rise while we meditate and honoring them and diving into them and this is very interesting if we sit in meditation and we feel grief or we feel anger we feel sadness and we allow them to come up because we allow them to come up we start to see them as separate from these mental thoughts and that's when we can start to discern them and say oh these are the mental thoughts that I need to let go of it's not the grief I have to let go of it's not the feeling I have to let go of it's these mental thoughts it's almost like the mental thoughts want to keep it going or something it's very weird so it's just very important again not if we're feeling natural grief or natural apathy but if we're stuck even in apathy what are the mental thoughts that are keeping us here what are the mantras nothing will ever change there is no hope they'll never change I'll never change nothing is you know these are the mantras that keep us there that don't let us escape and the great thing is we each have access to our brains we each have access to our minds we can see the thought patterns that are making a very healthy natural part of being human a very negative destructive cycle that we can't get out of so this is our this is our journey I'd love to hear I'd love to answer whatever questions you may have or comments Do you have a few mantras that you can recommend to move past the apathy?

Life is about movement Life is always changing I am always changing Every day something new is possible I am always changing I am always changing Every day something new is possible something new is possible The other mantra to know is what I feel is right I need to protect myself for a while but one day I'll reach out again The Ganesha mantras are so beautiful because to even repeat these beautiful mantras into the body that's a huge intention and the mantras speak to our soul even if we don't understand it but whatever language you speak whatever your first language is it's very important to find the words that directly counter like even you could even if you are looking for the mantra write down the mantra that is repeating in your mind so for example if you are meditating and the thought comes up there is no point then what's the counter mantra?

To you to find the medicine that's perfect for you if the mantra is nothing will ever change the counter mantra for you is life is always changing so just to find your perfect your perfect your perfect your perfect mantra your perfect mantra How can we tell if it's healthy apathy and not just burying the feelings to resurface in other ways?

I would say it's our consciousness it's almost like if we are actually able to look at ourselves and say I'm experiencing a time of apathy to help heal from all the years of guilt and shame so maybe within this safe place of apathy maybe I'm going to journal maybe I'm going to talk to somebody maybe I'm going to make sure that I'm healing from that even the fact that we're conscious of it is I think that's maybe all that we need it's the ones that are unconscious of it and they're just like I just don't care okay stop talking about it I don't want to talk about it forget it alright that's when we know we're burying it it's not fair the statement it's not fair that feels like grief what is an opposing mantra for that?

Hmm that's a really good question for me if I start to say it's not fair I have to say it's not fair I have to ask myself does the word fair even mean anything?

Is that a real word?

Does it even exist?

Because fair would assume that one person deserved something and another one doesn't or one person it was right that this happened to that person but not that person is that even a real idea?

You know or does fair exist in a construct of judgment?

You know so I think we have to go deeper into it and ask ourselves is there even such a thing?

You know or is it is it just what it is?

Because you're right I don't know that there's a counter mantra for the idea of fair because I don't think it's a real idea.

How do we decide worth?

This is again an amazing amazing question because the question of worth like we have to ask ourselves this also comes under this construct of judgment that I judge this to be worthy and this not worthy that you are worth more than this.

This isn't even true.

This isn't real.

There's no such thing.

Every single person here is a divine being incarnate on this earth.

How can we be worth or not worth?

There's no,

There's no such thing.

You know years ago when I was sick so 1999 I had breast lumps met this man Guru he's the topic of my first book called what if you can skip the cancer?

Jim.

The famous I was going to call the infamous Jim.

The famous Jim we'll call him.

And at that time so my kids were two and four and it's story time for a moment.

And before I was before I had children I was a computer programmer and when I had my son I stopped working and full time on the farm you know milking cows babies on my back you know full out farm wife.

And between everything going on you know my brain was I think it became a little addled kind of came out of the technology world.

Anyway this man that I used to work with that I worked with when I was a programmer he had recommended me for a contract job as a computer programmer with this company.

Their computer programming department the head of it had quit instantaneously kind of idiot and they couldn't run their batch jobs they couldn't run their factory and so he had said oh Katrina can do it and I was like are you kidding I'm so out of it you know I've been out of the world for four years now you know I'm sure I'm antiquated there's no way I'm like a dinosaur in the computer world.

And anyway so I went in for the interview and the guy looked at me and he goes he says we're going to hire you anyway based on what Hans said so he says how much do you want to make per hour?

Well when I was a programmer back in whenever that was 1992 1993 I was making $16 an hour which was a lot of money especially as a university student and I just looked at them and I said oh I don't know and they said I said you know maybe like $20 an hour maybe?

And the guy looks at me like I was a total idiot and he said look the guy that fixes the printers makes $45 an hour.

The guys that we just hired out of London to do the programming that totally sucked we paid them $120 you can have anything you want in between there.

And I looked at him and I literally said to him oh $20 is fine.

Laughter Anyway this is in the middle of my breast lumps right this is in the middle of my my massive awakening massive awakening.

And so I'm lying on Jim's table and I'm telling him this story and I'm like yeah I just don't I said Jim like what do you think I'm worth?

Laughter Jim looks at me and he said what do I think you're worth?

I don't know like $10 billion dollars?

What are you talking about what you're worth?

And he just said he goes the idea of finding the worthiness of a human is the most ridiculous concept I've ever heard.

Laughter So the idea of worthiness is such a weird question just so you know they ended up paying me $45 I should have taken the $120 after hindsight.

Laughter So anyway it was really funny it was a long time ago but okay what if you want to experience grief and tears more fully and they've been locked away frozen and not flowing?

Sometimes you need a friend.

Sometimes we need someone close that's safe that will just be there and let us talk it out and then they ask a question and then we might fight them and then we ask and then all of a sudden we feel safe enough to let it go.

Like we aren't human beings are social creatures we're meant we're meant to be with other people.

We aren't meant to hold everything in.

We aren't meant to be alone.

We aren't meant to experience these things sometimes we we spend too much time alone with our thoughts with our emotions and it could just be that there's someone in our lives that we can call up and say I I feel like I need to cry and I can't do it I just they won't come.

Would you mind coming over can we just have coffee can we just talk can we just go for a walk I just I think I'm ready to let it go or something and whether it's a counselor whether it's a friend or whether it's you know I remember when I I met my husband in a time when I was 18 I went I moved out I went to university and that's when everybody started dying in my family like I just had a lot of family like I just had this weird time of my life that everybody grandparents uncles aunts friends children every not my children my friends children my mom getting sick happened in the middle of all that and I didn't like going home anymore on weekends to Toronto so my friend I made this really good friend who lived on a farm and so I used to go home with her on weekends and she happened to have a hot brother which is how I met met the farmer and married the farmer but when I would go back to her place again I had so much grief like I was literally in in funeral homes every other month for like four years and I was in the lineup like I wasn't just going to a funeral I was in the lineup because it was someone so so close to me who had died and I would go to the farm and I would just go to the barn and sit with the calves and talk to them and cry with the animals that was my place of catharsis even my own family it was hard to cry with them because I think we have enough stoic belief that we're not supposed to cry and everyone was hurting in their own way and so we didn't want to cry in front of each other so it's a very very very good question because we need to cry we need to let it out we need to be angry we need to scream at the world and to have someone there that just says give her don't don't push it down cry scream yell you know cry so how do you release stuck anger and guilt that it causes I feel I want to express them and not withdraw into myself but how do I do it in a positive way physically if I renovate the house with channeling the energy of anger or grief then I wonder if I actually get stuck with a constant reminder of my anger and grief I would rather be reminded of love we don't want to judge the anger and we don't want to judge the grief whatever you're feeling you're feeling and if it meant all that energy came out and renovated part of your house then that's awesome that's that's that's just you being human even if it's even it's a if it's a if it's pain from relationship or it's pain from our childhood or whatever we're just humans we're just feeling we're just having experiences even if it's even if it's a reminder it's like wow I went through that and I lived and I processed it and now I have a new bathroom awesome I wouldn't judge any of it it's almost like every single thing we've experienced every grief every shame every anger every everything it's just part of this life this this incredible incarnation we're experiencing we don't have to have anything anything attached to it there's something really important about the humility of being human right it's funny actually when you think of that that humility and human have similar they're similar words we're just rolling through this world right we're rolling through all of our grief and anger and everything however we process it's perfect I do cry for other types of grief but when it comes to grieving over a person it's so difficult to access that emotion and that makes me fear the loss of friends and family it feels like that emotion is locked up in a chest underneath the dark ocean again there's something inside of our philosophy that we have to look at there's something inside of us that says that we're supposed to be okay with this or we're supposed to get over it we're supposed to not care anymore and the idea that grief is okay and it's okay to cry it's okay to it's okay to cry for a long time or it's okay not to cry or it's okay to just feel what we feel it's a so many judgments around it so many judgments of how it's supposed to look and how we're supposed to process it it's so funny there's so many things I want to say but they're just so philosophical and that's the worst laughing laughing nothing worse than philosophy when we're talking about something real like loss and grief stoicism sometimes feel like maybe it's a state of coping from trauma wow it's almost like imagine where it would come from like in a time of war or a time of famine or a time of real pain to choose to be separate from the suffering is a way of survival in Tonga there are professional grievers for funerals wow beautiful beautiful well thank you guys so much for being here today today we'll see you guys later

Reviews

Glad to revisit this talk 🙏. Love you, Katrina 🤍.

Thank you. Helped me access and release a layer of grief I didn’t realize I was carrying 🙏

Namaste- I appreciate the heart opening allowance for being fully human - and the tender, full invitation to embrace all of that.

Such a timely talk for me. Love how you allow us to see parts of ourselves without judgment. Thank you, Katrina 🙏🏼

Amazing talk & well embraced. Thank you Katrina 🙏🏽💜🌸

Very helpful. I've been in one of those periods like you described, of seemingly most of my family and friends passing away, only it's been a bit more spread out, with a few each year. Two friends, the most recent in mid-September and the other five months before that. An in-law was diagnosed with aggressive stage 4 cancer the day after my final visit with my friend who just passed, right as I was getting ready to fly home. I am helping my husband and in-laws work through this as necessary. I just keep wondering when the flow will slow down enough for me to fully sit with my own experiences and properly give them the attention and respect necessary. For many reasons, I am in that "survival" mode and have been for a few years now. I am hoping that it won't be too much longer before I can breathe. Even in my meditation, I can feel the presence of my circumstances hovering in the background, ready to wrap me up again as soon as I bring my awareness back to the present moment. Sometimes I just hide myself away from others and do things by myself to avoid being given things to do or questions asked, etc. I am contemplating taking a long weekend trip by myself to a retreat or a cabin or something to simply BE. I inadvertently did that once in an abbreviated fashion while accompanying my husband on a business trip once some years ago, and it was wonderful. I feel a repeat of that "no tech" in peace and quiet and solitude to reconnect with myself is very much in order these days.

Thank you for making this talk available to us, particularly those of us who wanted to attend but were unable to. I see you and the light within you. Be well. 🤲🏻❤🤲🏻

I need to hear this several times. I love this and it is helping my current situation. Thank you, Katrina!