Lessons of Life, Death, Expansion and Grief
As an energy healer my experiences with birth, death and everything in between is a little different from the way others see it. I often times can come off as cold or indifferent to those who don’t understand where I am coming from. But let me assure you, this place I come from is for the purest and deepest respect for life and loss.
Being Present For Death
In 2011, I spent three weeks with my mother’s family standing vigil with my grandfather who passed away. He hadn’t been feeling well and became very ill and at first it wasn’t quite clear what was happening. We struggled to find out what was wrong and what we could do to fix it.
My step-dad, Grandpa, me and my husband
In the end, it became about accepting the only resolution was death of his physical body where our only role turned us into, what appeared to be, helpless hand holders. For me this process brought up all the things I already know to be true about oneness, spirit and life.
My work typically involves helping people live better lives or learn to enjoy the one they have. I have even worked with people who have already passed. But up until this point, I had never have I had the opportunity to work with someone’s soul through the death process. I learned a lot!
The whole thing ended with a tremendous gift my grandfather gave me, in allowing me to be there, standing with him, staring in his eyes, as he left his body. I say this is a gift, because I got to see his fight to leave his physical body suddenly merge back with the oneness I know we all come from.
I got to see him leave his heavy physical reality behind to rejoin himself and all things in the light that is the realm I work with daily. I got to see him still exist beyond the reality I am currently in. Which makes me a stronger healer and allows my grief to be backed up by work with the healing of the soul.
Grief From A Sudden Loss
Fast forward to Christmas day, 2018 where I receive a phone call from my brother that our father has died suddenly of a heart attack. There was no build up, no vigil to stand, no coming to terms with his death beforehand.
Instead it was a shock that sent waves through my system that I have never experienced or anticipated. I had an extreme response that left my husband and my children at a loss as to what to do to be there for me. I didn’t even know.
Leanne Holitza with her Father.
I had a complicated relationship with my father and since he moved back to his hometown when I was 17, I had less and less contact with him. He wasn’t present in my day to day life. We were in contact, but very little.
This new grief left me feeling lost and confused. Why was this so challenging? Shouldn’t I be able to just move on with my day to day life? What did I lose if he wasn’t a constant presence in my life?
In my work I know that these feelings are normal. I allow them to be there. I also know that oneness can be tapped into any time I want and he is more present for me now than he ever could be for me in life.
Yet, the grief is real and disruptive. This process can’t be rushed or explained away. It can’t be taken away from me by other healers or fixed for me by my connections with guides or the other side. It needs space to unfold me. (Most of my close friends know I don’t do slow well, I like things to go quickly.)
Messages from The Guides
Before my dad died, my guides had been giving me messages for about three months before. Showing me through my work and my experiences how energetically disruptive it is to lose someone you had a difficult relationship with. At the time, I had no idea how soon I would personally need this information.
“There is something you must always remember. you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”
You might assume that that struggle someone had with another person would instantly be lifted in death. But instead, energetically, the work turns deeper and calls forth the inner work that had been avoided and projected onto the difficult relationship.
The living person is left to do the internal work and healing that the difficult relationship was holding space for. We are left to reflect on ourselves and journey past the wounds and struggles to find the love and opportunities in the experience. To find the opportunities hidden in the struggles you had. Getting in touch with true forgiveness. Not the “I forgive you that this happened.” but the forgiveness of “I know that this happened for me and with with me.”
When my grandfather died, I was fortunate enough to feel the love and support from the guides to let go of the supportive relationship. Knowing the support I had was still within me in my memories, self expression and the love I felt.
When my father died, it highlighted the emptiness I felt, not in losing him in death, but instead in life. I was grieving a relationship that hadn’t happened…yet.
Other healing influences have helped me with this process. I am really enjoying Steve Nobel’s work.
Life as a Process of Soul Expansion
The biggest thing I had reconfirmed in this process is that the physical realm is a soul expansion opportunity. A school for us to practice, play and explore things we can not when we are in the lightness of spirit. The heaviness of our physical body is kind of like working with resistance weights. You build strength because of the resistance.
Your fight to get onto the planet is a unique and amazing story. Your soul wanted to be here. The birth process is like a major struggle to enter into the physical realm. The death process (for some) is a similar process. The labor to let go of all the heaviness you have picked up over your lifetime and let go of the realities you have come to know so well.
My grandpa worked through his process of relearning to trust the connection beyond himself. It was amazing to watch and something I could only hold space for, nothing I could rush him through by "healing" him enough. At one point I even saw him get mad at his angels and loved ones for trying to rush him. They reassured him that they were just there for him and he could leave when he was ready.
The Hospice team we worked with even told us that the life you lead and the things you have undone before you go, affects how you die and the process of it. It is about allowing the process of our life and death to take place, no forcing anything, but just easing things into a space where all things are possible.
In this way, I am grateful for my father’s passing to have been quick. Although I had limited knowledge of his current life, I heard from those close to him that he had found peace through religion and had done a lot of reflective work over the last four years. With this knowledge and my understanding of how things process and progress, this means his next soul expansion isn’t on this physical plane.
You Came to Play
Why live if you are only going to suffer and struggle in life and die anyway? Suffering maybe part of this experience on the physical plane. It may be unavoidable and part of this journey. But you came to play too. You came to bask in the glow of your physical existence.
Life is not a rush back to the other side. This is the playground of time and space. This is the realm of good food, smells, sights, and connections you could not have anywhere else.
Acknowledge the process of your life and your choice to lead it the way you do. No one else, no even your guides, are in charge of how you live if. Everything that comes to you is your soul’s opportunity and choice to learn and grow through joy and the contrast to that joy.
You don't question if lifting weights or running through the park is good for you. You don't scream at the weight machine and ask it why it is making things so heavy. So why do you question the challenges that come to you? Why do you scream at the universe "why are you doing this to me?"
Get on that challenge, pump yourself up and feel the strength you gain from facing things head on. Live while you are here.
For those of you who are grieving, and we all are on some level, I am sending you multidimensional love and light and know that when you are ready, you can choose joy.
