Working Through Grief with Ayurveda
We need to know when to sustain our boundaries and invite times to pause, rest, and explore. There is no need to push yourself too hard. Just take it easy and take it as it comes.
A special friend on social media posted a bit ago the loss of his daughter and the hurts he has been enduring since her recent loss. I felt utter compassion as I read his words, in remembrance of the loss of my mom only a few months before.
I had posted an image of myself walking in a cemetery and in the image, the words, “where you see death, I see life.”
He wanted to know how he can see this…
As I reflected on his words before responding to his comment, I sat with a moment of grief for how I felt the day I lost my mom as I also watched the emotions of my grandfather having to bury his beloved daughter on his face.
No parent ever wants to lose a child, let alone, give them back to the source of creation without them living their fullest life.
A challenge indeed and grief heavy no matter the mask we wear. As deep within we are hollow, broken, void, and numb. No words to edify and no external support that can change the pain within.
Deborah Lieder, a fellow Ayurveda consultant of Maharishi International University (MIU), shares, “My favorite thing about Ayurveda is its truly beautiful, poetic embodiment for all of life. We can apply the principles to each aspect of our life. It is important to do so because when we do, everything enlivens. The things that used to block or create resistance, give way and we receive more of the nourishment our body is asking for. I believe there is such power in what we feed ourselves energetically and emotionally and that first determines our wellness. When these channels aren’t open, if we are not allowing the flow - spiritually, emotionally, physically - disease begins to manifest.”
In turn, remaining in this state for a long period can lead to debilitating heart conditions, depression, and an insatiable amount of suffering. This state of clouded intellect is known in Ayurveda as Pragya Aparadh. “Suffering often helps us to redirect our focus. It shifts our thinking from immediate circumstances so we can listen to God concerning His work in our lives. It becomes our spiritual schoolroom.” (Fisher)
You probably don’t want to hear that, or probably don’t want to believe it.
I respect your decision as a season of such hurt is a delicate time to introduce the power of inner strength and God's consciousness. However, I ask that you maintain a teachable heart during painful circumstances. The Psalm 119:75 says, “In faithfulness, you have afflicted me.” Isaiah the prophet viewed suffering as a refining process. In New Orleans, Katrina, and in Puerto Rico, Maria, brought great ruin, loss, devastation, and destruction. Families torn apart, removed, abandoned. However, through the great ruin, comes even greater strength.
We are not alone in our experiences of pain. All experiencing our own version. Grateful to still be alive and present. Pragya Aparadh “can dismantle the world as we know it. That’s why most people prefer to remain on the surface of things.” - Lily Tomlin (I heart Huckabees)
“We need to learn how to see the blanket truth all the time in everyday stuff.” - Dustin Hoffman ( I Heart Huckabees) If not, what goes from pain to suffering leads to a repeated mental cycle and then enters the body through the Mano Vaha Srota and leads to heartache, disease, and broken heart syndrome. Negative effects lead to a dampening or constriction around the body’s inner intelligence. Like a snake choking its prey.
Feelings of Darkness that stem from Pragya Aparagh, Grief, Suffering, and the like, are carried by the dhatus (tissues) and create such disturbances because that dhatu (tissue) is not happy.
Broken Heart Syndrome is like feeling the wind being knocked out of you. Sharp pain in your chest.
According to the Mayoclinic:
Broken Heart Syndrome may cause a person to have sudden chest pain or think they're having a heart attack. It affects just part of the heart, temporarily disrupting the heart's usual pumping function. The rest of the heart continues to work properly or may even squeeze (contract) more forcefully.
The symptoms of broken heart syndrome are treatable. Broken heart syndrome usually reverses itself in days or weeks.
BHS may also be called:
Stress cardiomyopathy
Takotsubo cardiomyopathy
Apical ballooning syndrome
Symptoms
Can mimic a heart attack and may include:
Chest pain
Shortness of breath
Indirect Causes -
Improper Diet
Irregular routine
Poor relationship choices
Eating at late times
Disrupt sleep
To combat this equals empowering one’s resilience to the stress itself. Direct or indirect. This will improve the person’s health positively by illuminating awareness or enlivening their intelligence towards this.
To layer in the Ayurvedic version of Broken Heart Syndrome:
The major Ayurvedic text, Charaka Samhita, describes an intimate connection between the heart and mind and says that the “seat of consciousness is in the heart.” As we have digestive “fire” to create energy, the same is true for each cell. One function, Sadhaka Pitta, a sub dosha of Pitta, (that we have learned in podcasts and blogs prior) is associated with the heart and the processing of emotions.
To use modern terminology, neurohormones are located in the brain and all over the body, including the heart. Those located in the heart send signals to the brain to register sadness or happiness, depending on how the individual processes and experiences. (MAPI BLOG)
When the Karma is over, the medicine comes to you.
- Jyotish Principle
As life gives birth to death and death gives birth to live, an inevitability that is part of the seasons of human life. No matter the age, death like the soul is timeless and is an equal opportunity visitor. His daughter and my mother and all those we have loved and lost, cross into the realm of the most expansive nature of consciousness.
The realm of ancestors and into the arms of the most divine. They have attained the maha atman aka the great spirit of God-consciousness.
One in Being, Eternally with thee.
as you read on the grave marker in the image for this blog.
They will never leave you and they will always be present in your life. No one can tell you differently. Your smile is their smile, your hurts are Theirs. And in time the both will become one in spirit as it is written so it shall be done. You will overcome the initial sting of this pain and it will melt into the blossom of a beautiful flower, their scent, their name, and as humans, we grieve but the spirit will rejoice. As the two have always been one along.
4 months ago is a fresh time for the loss of his daughter, 11 months ago and this being her birthday week, a fresh loss for me. So give yourself the time to allow for processing the initial hurt. I still mourn the loss of my mom who entered into the ancestral realm, yet, I see the strength she infused within me as your child infuses in you.
You will not see life the same as of yet, but once the clouds begin to pass, the sun will shine and will reveal the very essence of her gift in you.
Like that, your life will be different, and you will continue to evolve. It is part of the timelessness of our soul journey into pure Being. When you attune yourself to your Self, you go beneath the surface to find the depth of your wholeness. Below is a poem I wrote a month after my mother passed as the words flowed along with a drawing that came through on a pad while meditating with my best friend Illi overlooking a sunset in New Orleans.
The Bhagavad Gita
(slightly edited extract from verses 11 - 30 chapter 2) mentions:
Gifted from my professor Dr. John Collins, of Science and Technology of Consciousness MIU
You grieve for those for whom there should be no grief, yet speak as do the wise. Wise men grieve neither for the dead nor for the living.
There never was a time when I was not, nor you. Nor will there ever be a time when all of us shall cease to be.
As the dweller in this body passes into childhood, youth and age, so also does he pass into another body. This does not bewilder the wise.
Contacts of the senses with their objects, give rise to the experience of cold and heat, pleasure and pain. Transient, they come and go. Bear them patiently.
That man indeed whom these contacts do not disturb, who is even-minded in pleasure and pain, steadfast, he is fit for immortality.
The unreal has no being; the real never ceases to be. The final truth about them both has thus been perceived by the seers of ultimate Reality.
Know That to be indeed indestructible by which all this is pervaded. None can work the destruction of this immutable Being.
These bodies are known to have an end; the dweller in the body is eternal, imperishable, infinite.
He is never born, nor does he ever die; nor once having been, does he cease to be.
Unborn, eternal, everlasting, ancient, he does not die when the body dies.
As a man casting off worn-out garments takes other new ones, so the dweller in the body casting off worn-out bodies takes others that are new.
Weapons cannot cleave him, nor fire burn him; water cannot wet him, nor wind dry him away.
He is un-cleavable; he cannot be burned; he cannot be wetted, nor yet can he be dried. He is eternal, all-pervading, stable, immovable, ever the same.
He is declared to be unmanifest, unthinkable, unchangeable; therefore knowing him as such you should not grieve.
Even if you think of him as constantly taking birth and constantly dying, even then you should not grieve like this.
Certain indeed is death for the born and certain is birth for the dead; therefore over the inevitable, you should not grieve.
Creatures are un-manifest in the beginning, manifest in the middle state, and un-manifest again at the end.
What grief is there in this?
He who dwells in the body of everyone is eternal and invulnerable, therefore you should not grieve for any creature whatsoever
If you need someone to speak with to sort out your mental, emotional, and physical state of consciousness due to processing grief. Please feel free to click the image below and sign up for a Free 1-2-1 session so we can navigate these waters together.
Stay healthy my friends, and know I am here for you. Below are some free resources for you all to enjoy.
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References and Resources:
Our Daily Bread; School of Pain, Dennis Fisher (2019)
Banyan Botanicals - Use code: CHRISTINA15 to save 15% on all products
Mountain Rose Herbs - Save on your monthly orders
Mayo Clinic, Broken Heart Syndrome Blog
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