Do you believe in life after loss? (Part 2)

Dear reader,

This is the second part of of the previous post of “Do you believe in life after loss?” Where I asked the question and answered it with a “Yes.” From my own personal experiences with losses in life, the largest loss being the passing of my father, which has made me feel like an orphan and wondering how in the world would I make it. Mom was the first to pass and Dad 15 years later. What I do know is that for about a year after my father passed I was “ok.” That’s what I can see now looking back on all of the events that have transpired. However I now also see that I didn’t take the time I needed for myself to allow all the waves of feelings and emotions to pass out of me. There was MORE than a lot of hurt. I understand that it is life and this is a destiny for all of us at some point or another.

What I believe for me was “trigger” was that when I was a child my first experience with death was the neighbor who lived across from us. I was somewhere around the ages of 5-8, what I remember is that it was the middle of the night and I remember mom and dad telling me about the neighbor and how she was no longer with us. The next thing I remember was that I was crying on their bed about it. Shortly after that I went through a phase where anytime death was mentioned I turned into crying waves of emotion. There was also a time near this time in life that, I am sure that I am not the only child this happened to, I was afraid to walk into my bedroom if the light was off, i.e. the dark. I clearly remember dad would tell me it was time for bed and either I covered myself in a blanket, at least my head, and have to reach around the wall to turn the light on so I could enter the room. The connection I have made with these two scenarios in life is that it was made known through conversations that I kept saying that I am “afraid” and a friend of mine called me out on it and asked “Phil, what are you afraid of?” “Dying” was my answer. And being afraid of the dark is something I linked back to these two scenarios. Now the dark can be a few things, but since the these scenarios were in the dark (middle of the night) and death, it makes sense to me this was a starting point for some of my troubles. I am also sure that through a lot of my discoveries of other events that happened in life that they are all connected in some way shape and/ or form. A lot of this came out in this stage of life through my conversations with dear friends of mine. If you have read the previous post, and I mentioned about how the storm that is around you, that seeing out from where you are is sometimes difficult. What I didn’t know is that people were sent to me in aid of discovering what has just been posted.

These earlier events are about 40 years ago. As this “recovery” process has started the day I called the Employee Assistance Program number, I just didn’t know it then. So that, Dear Reader, is a recap and some new information on my story/experience with loss. Going forward I would like to share more of what things I did, or were presented to me to help me along to get to where I am writing this and share it.

I mentioned in the previous post that I was bed ridden for about 3 days, listening to the “Golden Girls” and that I decided to take a leave of absence from work. It was a tough decision to make, but I can see now that it was important that I did so. During this 3 weeks of the start of my recovery. I found myself starting to make changes to my daily routine. A lot of times in the morning after coffee, breakfast and clearing out the mailbox the brain would kick in. Getting it to stop the thoughts racing through my head. What I now know about this is that, it was all stored energy that was looking for a way to be released, but that is for a later post. I found myself over this leave of absence going for morning walks, they say it is good for you, and getting on the phone and talk to people. All forms of releasing as I now know. The more I walked and talked the more it seemed to stir things up and getting it to subside was difficult. For a while now I have been a subscriber to Apple Fitness +, part of the package is that there is a meditation section. I discovered that there is one on “calm.” I also know that there are many forms of meditation. However, I started logging many hours of “calm” meditation and listening intently to get the brain to stop. I remember during one session that i felt like I was looking out at the Milky Way and there was calm and peace about me. Unfortunately it was short lived, for a few moments tho, I felt normal. That was rest assuring. Also during this time, part of the EAP (Employee Assistance Program) I was seeing professional help to assist me. I kept the professional help up to date on my progress when I wasn’t in session. What was amazing to me is how much a human can store without realizing it is being stored. The thing I was hearing over and over is that I was storing a lot of “trapped energy.” I didn’t understand what that meant back then. I do understand it now.

What the trapped energy was is the build up to the many many many releases that have happened during the last 6 months or so. What does this mean. it means that many dams have been broke. There was a time I was telling friends on the phone that if you hear me talk and talk and I can’t figure out what it is that’s bothering me if they could help “bring it out.” I cannot begin to tell you how many time on the way to work, this is after I returned to work and step back in to the realms of life, that I had break downs while driving. It isn’t the safest thing in the world, what’s happened is what happened. I think the biggest break for me was when it was brought to my attention and as part of the healing process, that I write those I have lost in life a “letter” and vent to paper or a computer screen while typing. The letter I wrote to my father stirred me very very very deep. The further I got into it the more it stirred. I can remember as I started to write the closing side of it, telling him how much he is loved and missed, I felt what felt like the tip of a sword “slice” the back of my head. I actually stopped writing and felt the back of my head to see if that’s what happened. There was nothing on my my hand. Whatever was written in that letter was said and it was like a sledge hammer smashing through concrete. The level of emotion that came up was beyond the bottom of my stomach. It was such a bellow. I knew it needed to be done. The scary part of it was “letting my father go.” I believe from my own experiences that this was a true defining moment in getting back to me. I knew if he had seen me in this condition he wouldn’t be happy about it. Unfortunately my life isn’t his, and this was my choice not to keep it concealed anymore and adding more pressure to an already full pressure cooker. It took so much out of me, I was shaking and basically was out of commission for the entire day. All I wanted to do was sleep. Which that day is what I did. Sleep is the body’s natural way of processing things and helping to put the day’s events away properly. When things aren’t put away properly, the brain start stirring on information looking for an answer. It just took me a while to reach this point where it HAD to come out.

Before I end this post, I would like to thank the many people that God has placed in my life to be there for me when I had no idea what was going on. It was with their help, their love, their compassion that I can sit here comfortably and say that, you know who you are, and I can’t express my gratitude enough, just for you being you. I decided to put this particular post down and make two out of it. This is the first half and the next part will come out in part 3.