Comfort

Several years ago I intitiated the "lets move to warmer climate" conversation with my husband. In the financial realm it was a good time to try it, but he/we hesitated due to familiy commitments. As I look back on that decision today, living in Massachsuetts I say 'ugh'.

Winter is always a quiet time for me. It is the nautral time to go inward, to regroup, to listen. I believe that is Gods way for us, the universal path of nature. Yet, this winter dons a bit more of it, for I am now living in the midst of 30 acres, no other houses, lots of snow and this  morning lots of ice. Clients rescheduling, me rescheduling clients, people busy with shoveling.....getting the plow man, the ice man and all coordinated.....the list goes on. This quiet time has taken me into a deeply introspective journey - looking from another perspective on this thing called life.

During the holiday season I was very busy with clients/beloveds in hospice and at end of life rituals. When anyone has three deaths in one week, our energies need a breather - a respite for the heart. And yet I see it as what has been the perfect sedge way into this reclusive philosophical mode I am in.  I have found myself standing outside looking in more than usual - and for me, that is quite a bit.

How emotions drive us - in our humanness, this idea of when we do not have the tools to deal with life on an emotional level - we shut down. Truly. Everyone does it. Some of us shut down for one conversation, others for a lifetime. Any of us who are honest at looking within ourselves has to admit, emotional health is where we find our balance. But where does it come from? If the rational mind is in charge, we shut our hearts off from feeling. If our hearts are in charge, we shut off our rational mind from having a say and pulling us out of the goop that is built up in our heart centers.

The other day I witnessed a wonderful, kind, loving mother have a hard conversation with her six year old about dying. The family had recently experienced an unexpected death of the six year olds' great aunt, who was an active part of the family. It was a difficult conversation; not only due to the topic and the age of the interrogator, but because this family does not have strong religious or spiritual foundation - no active faith in the non physical realms. It pained me to listen and when offered to share my wisdom, I was challenged to not look into this childs eyes and say; Honey, your aunt has gone home to heaven to be with God and all her angels. She is never far from your heart, her love will always be with you.

At this tme, it was not my place to bring God or heaven into this family, respecting their beliefs. I believe I said we go home to where we came from,  our bodies change into light
and transform into the sky..........but for a six year old, going home to God in heaven may have been a bit more comforting if heaven or God had been a weekly part of their lives. In my eyes, what they do have faith in leads them no where.

I love this family. They are loving and fabulous and going thru a challenging time. Other than the late aunt, there is also depression in the family effecting all of them. Everytime I am with them, I cannot help but be reminded how ones faith in the non physical realm of life is all ways a comfort. Without faith in that which we cannot see, (which is what hope is) a mystery, how does one have emotional health? Emotional balance? If I thought this was it, if like my atheist relatives & aquaintances I believed there was nothing more than 'this' - where in ones heart do we find any comfort? How do I comfort the 75 year old father whose 50 year old daughter just died when he believes this is it, when he believes everything about his daughter is done. Non existent. What does he do with the pain in his heart?  I knew his daughter for a year and a half. Her dying left a hole in my heart - I cannot imagine what it left in her families.

But my hole was rapidly filled with acknowledging the loss and knowing she is home with God, at peace and she & I commune at will.

When we do not believe in the non physical apsects of healing, of healing from within, where is the hope for balance?  Where is the comfort - the pain will move through my body and one day I will be able to feel my loved one again, hear her voice, watch for signals of her attempting to reach me from the other sdie? Where is the hope?

I often speak of finite vs infinite and in my deep pondering the infinite takes precedant. I see the pain in clients lives who have no faith in a greater goodness. I see the struggle in their lives when they cannot find a sensible, 'rational' way to see the potential of good in a situation. If one only believes in what is in front of them - why even have an imagination, a heart, a prayer?

As I continue my path as a minister, counselor and healer, I come to know more and more each day, that those without faith in the non physical, a spiritual sense of life - suffer the most. I do not like to say this, it sounds too crass, too porochial, too know it all. I hear that, I really do. It takes all I have to write this, to admit it. But I have to. Both my rational mind and my heart see the same thing - when one has no faith in an existence beyond this earthly humanness - dying is hard. To them, death is devastating, a punshment to those left here on this plane. When one cannot lift themselvs up by thier hope filled boot straps in times of darkness - knowing this too shall pass - they wade into the deep end of a dark pool and have to control their existence which then shuts them off from feeling anything at all. Death in body or death in heart?

As I have witnessed many leave this phsyical form, I have witnessed those who feel safe leaving, who have faith in God, who have faith in an after life - leave in peace. Leave beautifully. They have a foundation of faith that this is not it - and  believe they are moving into a better  life.

I watch souls who suffer from  depression  and other emotional challenges and my heart opens to their paths. They have chosen difficult paths of resistance -

My hearts goes out to the millions of souls who do not have emotional health, a healthy loving heart - a heart that says yes! There is more, there is another, there is something better!  My heart opens to those who do not honor the natural cyles of life and death in all things and believe death is punshment.

We are each here doing the best we can do at any given time, but our potential is always more and we tap into that potential through communion with Spirit. If you are reading this right now and are one of the ones who do not have a conscious spiritual life - PLEASE, create one. Look at the stars and wonder. Go to YOGA. Visit a house of worship/celebration. Contemplate what is behind the thought. Ask before you go to sleep at night to be shown a way to hope, a way to learn about the nonphsyical apsects of this thing we are doing called existing. Please, find a way to have faith in the pure possibilities of a totaly irrational, crazy and unexplainable something. Your heart may just find it comforting.

I want this for you. You have my word, that moving through difficult times is eased with faith that it is better on the other side. With faith that this too shall pass. With faith that we are all right where we need to be. With faith that you have the same potential within you that I with in me and I see your Divinity. With faith that NOTHING is too big, or too hard or too sad or too far gone for God. Nothing.


(As I was finalizing this peice, my heart chakra is wide open, aching with the sharing of this truth. From my heart to yours, with love, Deborah.)