I want to start with a little preface. I decided to revisit each of my blog posts many years after I originally posted them to update and revise as needed. I’m finding that I wish I had an editor and want to soften the tone of the information I’m sharing. To be honest, the last thing I want to sound is preachy or righteous because I am forever learning the depths of my soul. I think when I first wrote the posts, I was excited to share a practice that worked for me so it may have come across that way. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me. I’m definitely still my hardest critic. I wanted to revise a few things so it’s more about sharing what I’ve learned and experienced on my journey. The soul healing practices are a mix of my personal experience and past mental health professional background. These practices have been helpful for me during my journey and are continually evolving and changing just as my soul is growing and expanding. If you do try any of these practices, I encourage you to experiment with the practice in order to make it your own. Listen to your inner wisdom and change or refine the practice as needed, so it completely resonates with your soul. My only motivation for sharing is to inspire and offer support for your own unique and sacred journey. This is what I’ve found along the way.

Grief is something quite familiar to me as I have experienced the loss of my husband, my father, and numerous life/identity changes. Grief is a natural response to any loss of attachment (i.e. death, divorce, moving, changing jobs, any life or identity change), which is an ending to a former way of life.

The following are soul healing practices I found beneficial in riding the waves of grief. The practices are only suggestions and don’t need to follow a specific order. It is also most important for you experiment with the practice, to change or tweak it as necessary, so it totally resonates with your soul.

SOUL HEALING PRACTICE 

1) LOVE YOURSELF

A way to love yourself, is to give yourself permission to rest in your own sacred space within, to make contact with your divine sacred self. Too often we are busy doing for others or distracting ourselves with endless stimuli to include self-defeating and limiting thoughts/beliefs. All the while your inner guidance is inviting you for a retreat within. This doesn’t have to be a lengthy activity, but a short respite lasting even a minute is helpful.

Centering or grounding yourself with breath, meditation, and/or prayer are ways of offering yourself a retreat. I enjoy the four-count breath to begin the process of relaxing my energy and centering from within. The four-count breath is quite simple, but effective. You count to four as you inhale expanding the belly (1, 2, 3, 4) and slowly exhale as you count four backwards (4, 3, 2, 1), repeating until you feel calmer and more relaxed. Once I’ve settled my energy, I continue with intentional breathing where I say, I am, on the inhale, and on the exhale, I say, calm, repeating the practice with, I am, on the inhale, and on the exhale, safe, breathing in, I am, and breathing out, empowered, breathing in, I am, and breathing out, love, and finally breathing in, I am, and breathing out, light. Remembering also with this practice you are bringing the breath all the way down to your belly and not just to your chest. If you like this technique, I also suggest experimenting with the intentions so it totally resonates with you and gives you a sense of calm, a feeling of being centered and nurtured, and even empowered.

Once you are centered, imagine a sphere of golden light shining from your heart center and then expanding outward, until the sphere is now all around you. As you are encased in this golden sphere, you feel warmth, love, and compassion. If the golden light doesn’t quite resonate with you, then experiment with other imagery that generates feelings of love and warmth where you feel held, comforted, and nurtured.

2) ACKNOWLEDGE AND ACCEPT YOUR CURRENT STATE OF BEING

Acknowledging and accepting your current state of being is honoring your soul’s natural current, its ebb and flow. The ebb is a pause and sometimes comes with an energy of distress, discomfort, or resistance within the soul, often physical discomfort or pain is noticed prior to anything. The flow is movement with a sense harmony, as well as allowing any distress and discomfort to flow through the soul. The soul’s current is composed of emotions and feelings, thoughts, and divine energy. Emotions are typically sensations in the body such as fear, sadness, anger, or happiness and joy. How you interpret the emotion, such as how you think about the emotion, transforms it into a feeling. If the emotion is uncomfortable, then the interpretation may have self-defeating or limiting storylines attached to it. This just means the state of ebb may be prolonged until it is addressed and resolved.

To allow the flow of emotions, it  is helpful to use simple statements to identify the emotion such as: I’m sad, I’m afraid, I’m angry, or just sad, angry, afraid, or even I’m grieving. By making these statements you are allowing the emotion to be present thus accepting their existence which initiates its flow. Simplifying the statements also helps to minimize the interpretation of it and prevent the attachment of additional storylines that may block the flow, thus keeping you in a state of ebb longer. Although, for many of us, interpretation is automatic and the thoughts and beliefs about the emotion isn’t far behind. If this is true, and the feeling is uncomfortable, the storylines may be self-defeating or limiting in nature such as: no one loves me; bad things always happen to me; I’m not good enough; I’m always alone; or I don’t deserve love.  However, if you investigate these beliefs you will find they are not 100% true, but tend to frequently dominate your state of mind causing feelings of suffering.

Unraveling the mind does take practice so be patient and kind with yourself. It can be further compounded by hating or feeling guilty for having self-defeating thoughts/beliefs. If you need further help in identifying these storylines, visit my post, “The Art of Untangling Your Mind” (15 March 2016), for a way to challenge and resolve them. Also, a way to provide just a little more space between you and the storylines is to remind yourself they are just thoughts, and the thoughts are NOT you.

Either way, if you are working with an emotion or feeling with attached storylines, acceptance of your current state of being as described previously is the beginning of moving from ebb to flow. Utilizing imagery may also be helpful to initiate the soul’s flow. I like to imagine crystal clear water is cleansing, rinsing, and healing my heart where the current emotion is residing. The healing waters are compassionately acknowledging the presence of the emotion, comforting the emotion, and then when it is ready it flows through my soul. If I notice a thought or storyline attached to the emotion, then I direct the water to my mind where it cleanses, rinses, and heals the thoughts or beliefs that are present. I may also direct the water to my physical body where there are areas of tension or pain needing love and attention.

3) REACH OUT

Grief at times has a tendency to make you feel quite isolated and alone in your pain. By reaching out you remind yourself although you feel lonely you are never really alone.

Ask someone you trust to send you healing energy or prayers, to listen to you, and to validate your feelings. This someone or multiple beings can be living, transitioned (deceased), angels, your spirit team, pets, or whomever has the ability to provide you genuine, comforting support. I found it important for my own sacred journey to discern who can and can’t provide me genuine support. If you reach out to someone who brings their own projections and distress, then their inability to support you when you are in deep pain can further complicate your grief journey.

By reaching out, you share the burden of your grief and offer another being an opportunity to give comfort and you allow yourself an opportunity to receive. It is a reciprocal exchange of love and a way of helping you feel deserving of love. In addition, you are offering yourself another opportunity to acknowledge and accept your feelings by bringing difficult emotions from the darkness to the light with the help of another. If you aren’t quite ready to reach out to another person, other effective ways of reaching out may include: journaling, automatic writing, poetry, or writing a letter to yourself or to whom or what was lost.

Finally, an expression of gratitude for the support amplifies the experience. Gratitude is an excellent way to elevate your energy and soul.

MY EXPERIENCE WITH THE SOUL HEALING PRACTICE

I woke feeling depleted and irritable. Immediately the thought, what is this now?, was present in my mind as I noticed the tone of my internal voice was a bit edgy and quite annoyed. I got up to start the morning routine while closely monitoring and observing my internal state. I knew based on my own inner work when I felt fatigued it was cuing me of an attachment to limiting thoughts or beliefs.

I initially tried using gratitude to raise my vibration and began repeating, I adore my life, as I was making my daughter’s breakfast and lunch for school. Yes, it was beginning to shift the energy, but the block was deeper. Something was emerging from the darkness wanting to see the light. I noticed under the feeling of irritation there was deep sadness. And then it hit me, my daughter is turning 15 years old this month, will be starting driver’s education to obtain her learner’s permit, and once again my late husband is not here in the way we want for yet another huge milestone.

I’m doing this ALL alone, AGAIN! was the thought cycling in my mind. And then the old storylines came rushing in, as if an internal dam broke: I always have to be strong for everyone else; I always have to do it alone. I found myself plummeting into the darkness as these storylines attached themselves to my emotions like heavy concrete blocks. I noticed my breathing changed and was quite shallow. I dropped numerous items in the kitchen because my mind was spinning with self-defeating thoughts.

Taking a deep breath, I slowed it enough to interrupt the cyclic mind energy. I said out loud, I will nurture myself, noticing my tone was loving, but strong. I centered with breath and imagined a beautiful warm, golden light at my heart center that expanded into a sphere surrounding me. I felt held and nurtured. Upon this imagery, I noticed two hands coming towards mine and gently holding them. I sensed it was him, my late husband, supporting me. I stated, I’m grieving, with no other thoughts or beliefs attached to the statement. I literally felt as though the bondages of the storylines unraveled and fell to the floor. My mind was clear, my breathing was deeper, and I could feel my vibration lifting, opening my heart.

After I dropped my daughter off at school, I decided to reach out to my best friend and my mother requesting healing energy and prayers. For me, allowing others to share my experience is a work in progress. They both lovingly validated my feelings.

My best friend offered a different perspective of my experience and reminded me the excitement of this rite of passage (learning to drive). She also reminded me to recall our experience at that age allowing me to awaken my inner child and to remember the many laughs we shared. My mother and I discussed the trap of staying stuck in negativity and the importance of honoring your feelings and allowing them to flow and pass without unnecessary blocks.

The results from this practice was honoring my soul’s current, the movement from ebb to flow, and having compassion for my experience. The sadness passed with ease without hindrance and actual excitement seeped into my experience.

At times during the day, the old storylines were tempting me back, but I gently interrupted the pattern with shorter/briefer versions of the practice above. Rather than projecting my distress onto my daughter, I was able to reverberate excitement and happiness in order to help her anxiety and fear of this rite of passage (Learning to Drive!!!).

Thank you for an opportunity for healing, expansion, and soul elevation.

The purpose of this blog is to share with you how I integrate my personal experience, spiritual growth and expansion, and past professional mental health experience in the form of soul healing practices. By sharing my experience, it is my hope it will provide a practical example of how to interrupt and eventually resolve the cyclic energy of suffering and to elevate your soul.

These practices work best when you are ready to heal and expand. It is OK if you are not quite ready. Please be gentle and patient with yourself. You will heal and expand when you are ready. Sending you so much love, warmth, and compassion.

Visit my website if you want to learn more about me and to check out my poetry.

https://www.baresoulworks.com

Donations are always deeply appreciated 💚: https://paypal.me/baresoulworks

Thanks again for visiting my blog and for your support. Stacy 💚

 PLEASE BE ADVISED

The soul healing practices provided in this blog are meant as a tool to aid in healing and not for psychotherapy or social work practice requiring a contractual, professional relationship. If you need consistent therapeutic care and/or crisis intervention due to being at risk of harming yourself or others, then seek professional and/or emergency services immediately.

© Stacy L. Pintor 2016. All Rights Reserved.

Revised and updated 2023 by Stacy L. Pintor.

(No part of this blog may be reproduced without written permission from the author)