Soul Food 3 :: Life After Death

Hi everyone,

It has taken me a while to organize my thoughts on this topic because I just have so many, and will probably think of more even after I publish this post.  I have referenced a couple times in my soul food posts that I recently lost my mother, who is also my best friend, pretty suddenly.  Immediately after this happened, I launched a full-on investigation of sorts into understanding what this thing we refer to as “death”really is, where she is, how to navigate our new relationship, and what this means for the rest of my existence as well as hers.  I wanted to share my findings because I have gathered such beautiful information from a number of spiritual coaches/resources and it has brought me tremendous peace.

I also want to dedicate this post to others going through the loss of a loved one, others who want to understand more about death, and others trying to help or relate to someone who has lost a loved one.

My process of “grieving” has been really different than I think the average person’s due to all of my this new understanding of life after death. And by this I mean both my life after undergoing the death of a loved one, and my mom’s life after death.  

I’ve always been a very “spiritual” person, as my mom has been my teacher since I was two when she had her own spiritual awakening. But I never spent much time thinking deeply about death specifically, because I never had a death occur that was very close to me.  My mom is and has always been the closest person to me and my true best friend, so, out of necessity quite frankly, I was determined to figure this whole thing out in order to stay sane and proceed with the rest of my life.

What’s here and what’s there?

I’ve always known that we are not just humans.  This human form is not who we truly are, and most of us have at least some inkling of knowing that within us.  What we truly are is much greater than this Earth plain.  We all come from an incredible place- source, god, heaven- however you prefer to refer to it, where the humanly emotions of pain and suffering and other low-level frequencies do not exist.

My mom always said that life is school. We are here, learning and going through tough lessons in order for our souls/higher selves/true selves to grow and evolve and come back older in our next lives until we are all old souls here and the energies really shift.  We are also here to experience the beautiful highs that there are in life- the tastes, touches, smells, and sights that this world has to offer are things unique to this plain and our sensations of them are unique to this human form we are in.

When we pass, we are actually going to a place much “better”(as most of us know) than this one.  Not to say we should try and go there now or anything, because we are here for a reason, but death is something that should be celebrated- not mourned as it is in most cultures.  Life is very difficult for most people, so moving on to a higher frequency place with zero pain and suffering is something to celebrate.

The illusion

There is no time or space in spirit.  Time is a purely human perception.  We need to feel time in order to not experience everything all at once.  This is actually a principle of quantum physics, so on a human level we are getting closer to wrapping our minds around this concept scientifically, which is wonderful.

So if time doesn’t exist, then isn’t the sensation of being “without” a loved one an illusion? YES. It’s all an illusion, as my astrologer so blatantly put it. Our human minds are very limited in this regard, because we are unable to perceive all that is.  But time and death are just illusions.  Not to mention that we spend lifetime after lifetime with our soul family- you have most likely lived many lives with your current spouse, father, mother, brothers, sisters, and best friends, and will continue to do so, so the human feeling of separation is only temporary anyways.

Though on this plain, my mother is no longer physically standing in front of me, she is not gone at all.  She is here, she is everywhere, she is with me, past, present, and future. She is even inside me.

Where does the soul go?

One of my most precious sources of spiritual information is a man who channels spirit and is called “Kryon” (you can find these talks on Kryon.com and click “free audio” if you’re interested.) In one of his recent talks, he mentioned that when we think of death, we probably envision the soul of that person going up to source/heaven. Then he said something like, “well, what if I told you that the soul actually splits. And a piece of that soul goes to loved ones left behind?” This statement resonated so deeply within me that I just knew it to be true.  My mother is not just a being outside of me and beside me, she is actually WITHIN me.

In fact, since she passed, I had been feeling an intense sensation of strength within me and I didn’t know where it was coming from. Things that used to bother me, couldn’t touch me. Annoying things and people in my life could not affect my mood as they had so easily done for my whole life prior.  I had anticipated that I would feel weak and sad after her passing, but I was instead experiencing the opposite. Then, by no coincidence, I heard this explanation and instantly understood- I now how have my mother’s strength as part of me! And she is the strongest person I know, so lucky me! And lucky you if you have also “lost” a loved one because you have their light within you 🙂

It’s important to understand this- especially if you have lost a person who you loved deeply and who loved you deeply. They haven’t gone anywhere. They are with you in everything you do, and they have even even dedicated a piece of themselves to you, how beautiful is that?!

Dreams

Speaking of time and different dimensions and all that jazz, I wanted to add a little discussion on dreams.  For about two solid weeks after my mom passed, she was in my dreams every single night.  I know that dreams are not just dreams- they are actually happening in other dimensions.  I was and am actually spending time with my mother every night that she is in my dreams.  I wake up with a smile on my face in the morning knowing that I spent time with her during the night.  I believe that dreams are a way for other souls-crossed over or not- to come into our lives and help us, guide us and heal us.

So ask, every night when you go to sleep for whoever you want to come into your dreams to help you. If they don’t come the first night, keep asking, they will. 🙂

Another source of empowerment

The most beautiful thing about this experience is a new-found, complete understanding of death.  I realized that all of our humanly fears are rooted in a fear of death. Everything we are nervous about, or that gives us anxiety can be traced back to a fear of dying or losing someone else.

In fact, I had gone back to work not long after everything happened and one of the clients (an older lady) was talking about her kids stressing about something, and she turned to me and said, “You know what I tell them? Nobody’s dying!” This statement really made me realize how much most people fear death.  So everything is ok in life… until someone is dying. Then what? We lose our minds? We are doomed forever? It just goes to show how little understanding there is in death.

Once you understand that there is actually nothing to fear at all, NOTHING else can scare you.  This is a tremendous relief!! It is truly empowering to know that you faced the worst thing that you could conceive of, you looked it square in the face, and came out the other side with a bigger understanding.

Unconditional love

For those that have lost someone they love dearly, you would probably qualify your love for that person as “unconditional.”  A love so deep and strong that it cannot be perturbed by anything. It is unchanging in the face of any condition-even death.  The love between my mother and I is completely the same as it has always been- it simply cannot be changed due to its very nature. That is the beauty of unconditional love.  Is she incapable of loving me if I am not physically seeing her in front of me? Of course not.  Everything is energetic, and I can still feel her love every moment of every day.

If the love is unchanged, there is no lack at all. And if there is no lack, there is no needing or wanting her- only missing. Of course I miss my mother, I will always miss her. But there is no lack, so I avoid saying/feeling that I need or want her. (And if you do feel you need that person, or any person for that matter, the lack is often found within yourself- lack of self love).

I read a poem at the ceremony that said at one point “the thread is uninterrupted.” Our relationship and love have only moved over, they have not been changed or interrupted.

The factor of everyone else or, “the buffer”

One factor in this whole experience that I was not expecting at all was how everyone else would add to my already full plate.  My extended family, friends, and coworkers often upset me even more than my actual dealing with losing my best friend, as crazy as that sounds. I was really blindsided by this additional frustration.

Almost everyone that said something to me regarding my mother was projecting their own thoughts and feelings on me while I was trying to deal with it alone by going to spirit for my answers and healing.  The important thing to keep in mind is that in this type of situation, everyone says and does what they think is helpful, but at least in my case, 99.9% of the time it was not helpful in the slightest and actually worsened my stress.  I noticed that a lot of people said to me what they would want to hear if they were in my shoes, which was not in line with what I wanted to hear.

People also said rather insensitive comments based on their own experiences with death such as, “I’d like to tell you it gets better, but it doesn’t” or “I can’t IMAGINE what you must be feeling.” Fortunately, my mother taught me to never listen to or accept other people’s experiences as my own. If it “never got better” for you, that is your reality-not mine. And projecting on someone else that you feel sorry for them or think that their life is basically screwed because you can’t imagine going through it, is not constructive at all.  I got that “I can’t imagine” line about 100 times- shockingly, I CAN imagine, because I am going through it and you are not helping that. I needed to do a significant amount of blocking, energetically, of other people’s emotions and comments, which was extra taxing in an already difficult time.

In another scenario, I was very calm for the service for my mother because I didn’t connect with it at all.  If it were up to my mother, my sister and I would have done something private just the two of us to honor her and that’s it. That was a ceremony for my extended family to process in the traditional way, not for us-who were the loves of my mother’s life.  I also had the understanding that we were not “saying goodbye” at all, and that my mother was not there at all in that jar on the table, so the ceremony for me was just a weird thing I had to go through for others’ benefit. Again- catering to others when I ideally should have only been focused on myself and my sister.

I manged to shield myself going into it and was pretty peaceful throughout, fortunately. Obviously this was interpreted by countless family members as the poor daughter who is still in denial. One of my relatives even said to me, “you know,  you don’t have to be strong.” Because of course it is a faux strength that I am showing you, not how I truly feel. Because how could I possibly be smiling on a day like this?! Well, because I have an understanding of all this that brings me true peace inside, that you do not. It is another practice in holding your truth and not letting others shake you.

One of my coaches told me that this factor of “others” often occurs as a kind of “buffer” for your sake.  To soften the blow of dealing with this huge change straight on. I tried to keep that in mind, but I have to say that it was very difficult to manage everyone.  Maybe it did serve as a little distraction- the jury is still out on that one for me.

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I think I covered most of the bases I wanted to, I know it was lengthy, but there’s just so much to share 🙂 Please let me know your thoughts and questions below, I would love to know what you think.

Love,

Amanda <3

 

 

header photo: Marie P, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

photo of road panorama: Daniel Weinand, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

photo of circle: Yuma,  Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

photo for dream section: Jochen Spalding, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

photo of sand: Ian Norman, Creative Commons Attribution-Share alike 2.0