Category: Healing Grief

Worldly Beliefs

by Karen Lang, posted in Healing Grief

I have heard enough warrior stories of heroic daring. Tell me how you crumble when you hit the wall, the place you cannot go beyond by the strength of your own will. What carries you to the other side of that wall, to the fragile beauty of your own humanness? – Oriah Mountain Dancer

Why have we all come to believe that what the world tells us is true?  That there are perfect families and perfect bodies, perfect husbands and wives and perfect children?  I would like to know where they all are, because I have yet to meet any and yet we are all striving to be them.

Media, Television and Radio bombard us daily, on how to look younger, get fitter, feel happier and yet in today’s paper it reads:  “The number of patients in therapy is growing by 20 percent annually.  The Australian Psychological Society reported that this year has recorded the highest rates of patients booking in for anxiety, distress and depression and that one in 10 Adults are on antidepressants and anti-anxiety pills.

We see others through eyes of envy and wish we could be as happy or as rich or as beautiful as they are and then work tirelessly to keep up with them, convincing ourselves it will be our turn one day.

Why do we feel we cannot be ourselves with one another or share the pain of our wounds that we face each day?  Why do we all feel the need to pretend?

Fear always keeps us in the dark about the truth.  Fear blocks us from being vulnerable with one another.  Fear makes us feel alone in our anxiety and stress and we become desperate for a quick fix, so that others will never see there is anything wrong.

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Everyone wants to be accepted and loved.  We all want people to like us and so we are hesitant to show others the pain and the truth of our life behind closed doors.  We become silent in our suffering for fear of rejection and allow the world to continue to promote perfection which keeps us trapped.

“The easiest thing to be in the world is you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people want you to be. Don’t let them put you in that position.” – Leo Buscaglia

Trust that we all have our own story and pain to share.  Trust that in sharing honestly with one another, you will find you are never alone and in turn you will allow others to open up and even begin to heal their wounds.

At the end of the day, pretending is exhausting and to no-one benefits from it.  It takes so much energy to keep our secrets hidden.  What needs to be faced is our fear, stepping out beyond the familiar and into the unknown.

Slow down and become aware of who you are in this world.  Accept and love yourself for who you are right now, in doing so, we can become free from the chains of falsehood and begin to live freely in our own uniqueness.

Don’t tell me how wonderful things will be . . . some day. Show me you can risk being completely at peace, truly OK with the way things are right now in this moment, and again in the next and the next and the next. . . Oriah Mountain Dancer

The Death of our Ego

by Karen Lang, posted in Healing Grief

“The ego is the false self-born out of fear and defensiveness.” – John O’Donohue

Ego is the unobserved mind that runs your life when you are not present or conscious of your thoughts and actions. – The Power of Now – Eckhart Tolle

Ego is born from our deep inner fears or lack of self and as we are surrounded by many others who have similar ego based fears like, control, power, greed, and defense we begin to create drama and problems in our life.

The emotions that stoke our need for power are much stronger than we care to admit.  Our ego’s blind us to the truth as we pick and choose facts that support the story we have created in our mind and ignore and minimize those that don’t.

Power struggles, emotional and physical violence all stem from EGO.   So we need to ask ourselves “What have I attached my ego to?”  Is it the intellect identity?  or the victim identity?  Is it the Drama?  or the Social Status and Wealth identity? or martyr or illness identity?  There are so many emotional areas that our ego can attach to and once we understand which one we are, only then can we learn to let go of it and change the illusion of self.

When you reconnect with your true spirit and are no longer run by your ego mind, you will stop creating drama’s and suffering in your life.

“Enlightenment is ego’s ultimate disappointment.”  – Chogyam Trungpa

Once you have identified you have an ego, you will start to see how powerful it is in your mind.  Even if you live alone your ego can still create drama, feeling sorry for yourself, feeling guilty or anxious or angry at others, that too is drama.  Your ego feeds off drama, so when I ask you to let it go, I am asking you to let go of  an identity that you have always felt comfortable with, and this creates a great deal of resistance and fear.

The ego is born at a young age and not because we have consciously adopted a certain identity but rather we have connected to one that helps us adapt and receive what we need in the environment we grew up in.

We cling to our carefully planned explanations we have told ourselves and others about why our lives have unfolded as they have, not realising that even when they appear empowering, they are hindering our growth.

When I was young, I found that when I got sick, I got a lot of attention from my parents and this became part of my identity in the family.

Over the years we attach ourselves to a story that we are convinced is our truth.  Think about who you are in your own family and what role you were given in that environment.  You will begin to see the truth and start to understand the illusion we have all created.

“The ego relies on the familiar. It is reluctant to experience the unknown, which is they very essence of life.”  – Deepak Chopra

What if I told you “You will no longer have suffering in your life?”  What if I told you “You will no longer have drama or illness in your life?”  Would you be happy?  Most people would say yes, but if I took it away from you……what you would feel would be a sense of loss and a death to your identity.

When you live in complete acceptance of what is, that is the end of all drama in your life, then nobody can even have an argument with you.  When there is no ego to feed and you are conscious of all your thoughts and words, you will learn to feel peace and acceptance in your life, no matter what is happening around you.

Learn to accept that we all have an ego and begin to understand what identity you have attached to it.   Step into the unknown and out of the illusion by letting go of this story you have told yourself.

Allow stillness and mediation and yoga to help you through this healing.

Know that most of us will spend a life time trying to let go of our ego’s but never give up trying to find your true self and purpose in life.

“The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, person and family history, belief systems, and often nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you.” – Eckhart Tolle

Losing a child……..

by Karen Lang, posted in Healing Grief, How to heal after losing a child

When we tragically lose one of our children, our entire world comes to a grinding stop and everything we have ever believed is questioned.

Through understanding this journey you have been given, my wish for you is to connect to a new hope and to a process of complete healing.

You may at first not understand how you could ever survive this loss, that there can be no way out of this pain, yet overtime, I promise, there is a way through.

Our son Nathan was 9 years old when he was hit by a car.  He had massive head injuries as a result of his accident and we were told he was brain dead.  We were encouraged to turn off his life support and donate his organs.  Two days later we did just that and sadly said our last goodbye.

How do you begin this journey? Who prepares you for this sudden change? How do you wake up the next morning knowing they won’t be in your life anymore?

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