Grief and Loss

Grief and Loss ©2021 Joan M. Newcomb, CPC

When I entered my sixties, I realized, in order to live a long time that I'd have to get used to grief and loss. Amongst other things.

Not that I hadn't had plenty of experience with grief and loss in the preceding sixty years. 

However in recent years there's been some wrenching losses, individually and collectively. How I've handled it in the past is to compartmentalize it. I usually go into action mode, "fight" more than "flight". 

I can grieve later, I decide at the time.

There's a practical reality to this, as usually there's no one else to rely on or pick up the pieces. I don't feel I have the "luxury" to collapse in grief. As I write this, I realize that grieving isn't a sign of weakness, and it doesn't have to bring collapse. I can grieve and I can be in action at the same time.

The part of me that is grieving is the part of me that perceives loss. It's the part of me that wants security and stability, and believes those things are in relationships, and material things like a roof over one's head.

It's the part of me that isn't going to make it out of this lifetime alive, so views everything in very black and white terms.

As Consciousness, I don't feel grief nor loss, because I know I am always connected with my loved ones, whether they're in physical form or not. As I write this, I also realize I'm always connected with loved ones not yet in physical form as well. Which delights me.

As Consciousness, I don't need a location for security, as I'm creating all of this in the moment. I don't need security, either. Security doesn't make sense to one that is infinite, All that Is, creating all things.

However, also as Consciousness I've created this form, my body/personality, and am aware of it's needs and desires. 

When I live life *as* Consciousness with a physical form and personality, it doesn't mean marching forwards as if its needs don't matter. That's like riding a horse and neglecting to give it water, abandoning at night when wolves howl. 

As Consciousness, life means experiencing every delicious and difficult aspect of being in physical form. It actually doesn't mean marching forwards towards anything. That is a body level kind of measurement.

Also just realized that living "a long time" is also a body level measurement. Of course bodies want to live as long as possible.

Being in the present moment, is as close to feeling the infiniteness of Consciousness as you can feel.

As a collective, we've been through an enormous amount of grief and loss in the last year or two. We've been experiencing an accelerated shift in Consciousness that heightens our awareness but also our empathy with others. This magnifies grief and loss as we're not just feeling our own emotions.

We're also losing everything we thought was real, but actually was just egoic levels of importance. That's not to invalidate people who lost loved ones during the pandemic. People have transitioned to nonphysical in increasing numbers during this time. That's been hard to handle, we miss their physical presence and the prevalent "noise" makes it difficult to connect with them Spirit to Spirit. They're still there but it's like a bad cell phone connection - easier to talk to but harder to hear.

Evolving to a new level means letting go of what was familiar, and we may fight it even if what was familiar wasn't comfortable. We might be so used to being in pain and unhappy, we're resisting taking steps that would improve our lives or expand our quality of living.

When I'm in that place (and I kinda sorta in that place right now in certain areas), I don't need to immediately leap to being perfectly pain free and joyously happy all the time. Although as Consciousness, I can easily do so. For my body's sake, I can take baby steps to change. 

 

Choosing To Live or Choosing To Die

Choosing To Live or Choosing To Die ©2018 Joan M. Newcomb, CPC

We experience life on a multitude of levels. It is infinitely complex. It is definitely not black and white. But the level where we feel the most conflict and pain, is the level that presents the most choices.

If we're operating totally unconsciously, we don't feel like we have any options. Life happens to us. There is always something bigger and more powerful, that has influence over us. Bad things happen, it's probably our fault or someone else's fault. Good things happen, it's a coincidence.

When we experience life with more Consciousness, we're aware we have choices. If we make a decision, take an action, we can see it's effect in our lives. We feel a little more empowered. If things appear to happen, we can respond differently. Even if something seems "bad", we feel we can do something about it.

At this level of choice, we can go towards light, we can go with energy in motion, we can experience breakthroughs. It's not always comfortable, but it can be exhilarating.

And, in a funny way, choosing not to take action is still an action. We can choose to stay still, to not move. It's familiar, but it may be more painful.

When you look at life from this level and in this way, you can look at it as choosing to live or choosing to die. You can notice whether or not someone is bringing more life energy into form, or is on the way out.

And at a higher level of Consciousness, we're aware of all of these levels, and there isn't a judgment about life and death, coming more into body or leaving it. Sometimes people leave the party early. Sometimes people hang out until the wee hours.

Growing older means knowing more people going down the path of dying.  As much as it would be nice to hang out longer with our friends and loved ones, everyone has their own storyline and timing. I may miss their bodies when they're gone, but I sometimes (often) have a better relationship with them when they're non-physical.

At a higher level of Consciousness, the choice isn't about living or dying. It's about being fully in form, living fully in the moment, loving and appreciating all that is, and everyone in it.

I guess you could say that's choosing Life.

What Is Dying In Your Life?

What Is Dying In Your Life? ©2016 Joan M. Newcomb, CPC

This has been a long, hard year for many people. And we've had some significant deaths, as well. With the recent unexpected passings, I've joked that David Bowie and Prince are hosting one heck of a Sky Party.

And for those of us who are staying in our bodies, there have been other kinds of loss. If it hasn't been material, or in relationship, it's been within ourselves. Perhaps our world view has changed, or an aspect of our identity has gone. Perhaps we have lost hope, or inspiration.

Chinese Opera, by Nova

In the last couple of months some of these have been sudden and unexpected. We're in shock, as well as grief.

For months now, I have been aware of an impending death in my life, and am not clear what it is. I've been rebuilding since 2013 (the year I helped both parents die, and also my dog, lost my uncle, my house, and my business effectively shut down).

I've also been aware of being at a tipping point, a sense of about to dive in, all-or-nothing. Which doesn't entirely make sense to me, since I've always been resolutely committed to my work, which is my purpose and calling in life.

What this reminds me of, is when I did psychic readings and looked at people's futures. Sometimes their future self would be right there on the timeline, pointing out what was going to happen. At other times, the timeline would disappear into a fog.

I had two interpretations for this image. One was that the person wasn't meant to see what was coming up, they were supposed to stay in the present moment, otherwise they'd try to skip steps to achieve it. The other was that the future was still being written, it was still being designed.

I sense it is the latter for me. I am letting go of expectations and assumptions. Releasing effort, trying hard. It's been several years of a lot of action, of running around giving it away, trying to reach as many people as possible. It feels like things are changing, my focus is narrowing to those who can show up and have the information.  It feels like a return to creativity as well. I've had a couple books that have been waiting years to come out; perhaps 2017 is a time they will be birthed!

So what is dying for you? What is going away?

Collectively, I think we've moved to a new level of Consciousness, so anything of a denser vibration no longer exists in this new reality.

We can use this time to our advantage, to actively release that which we may perceive as dragging or holding us back. Perhaps you've been struggling with something for a long time. You can leave it in 2016, and let 2017 be a different Universe for you.

You don't have to know the solution, or the answer. You just have to step into the space where it exists.

You may find that you haven't lost anything at all (anything of significance is always stored in Consciousness) and instead gain a whole new world!

Death and Taxes

Death and Taxes ©2015 Joan M. Newcomb

"In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."  Benjamin Franklin

This may be a little premature (for both topics), but I was having a conversation with Janet, my radio show co-host about recording a show in April. She thought it could be about money, as it is tax time in the U.S. 'People are feeling taxed' she said. 'What is taxing you, how are you feeling taxed?'

And I immediately thought, 'in paying taxes I am expressing appreciation for all that the taxes are going to support!'  I like roads, and school, and healthcare, and retirement. And I may not like supporting warfare, I don't mind supporting the troups. Military spending includes supporting military families.

Two Tax Collectors, Marinus van Reymerswaele

We think of taxes as something bigger than ourselves (the Government) taking something away from us. Or we count on tax returns to give something to us. We're little, they're big.

And from the perspective of Consciousness, it's all a creation.  As the greater aspect of ourSelf, we create the reality of taxes.

If we feel like it's something happening to us, we're reacting as our body/personality.  We feel powerless, less capable, something bigger than us has control.

Stepping up to the awareness as Consciousness, we feel amused, we are in total agreement with whatever is occurring, we see the interconnectedness of it all.

As Consciousness we feel ownership, and authority.  Nothing is more powerful (and nothing is less).  There's no good nor bad as Consciousness, there's no ethics, so it's all good.  There is ultimate acceptance of what is.

"The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn't get worse everytime Congress meets."  Will Rogers

As Consciousness we've created this wonderful world of opposites and oppositions.  It's not accurate to say this is all an illusion, because it invalidates the very real, feeling experience we're having.  It's too easy to try to detach by being in denial and trying not to feel.  But then we miss the point of being here.

Taxes aren't certain, you can live without taxes.  Death may be an inevitability for the body but it's timing isn't certain.  Perhaps the biggest illusion is death.

We react to death, we feel the absence of the deceased's physical presence, but it's our grief that keeps us from sensing the aspect of them that's still alive.

If we miss someone, we may actually be experiencing what Bryon Katie calls a visitation.  They come to mind because they're there.  It triggers our body, because it feels the absence.  Bodies don't like death because they're not going to make it out of this lifetime alive.  But we will.

Consciousness doesn't die.  And that is certain.

Embrace Change

Embrace Change ©2014 Joan M. Newcomb

I started writing this talking about the tough times people are going through, then realized it was exactly like a post I started writing a month ago, and scrapped in favor of a more uplifting message.  I'm doing the same again.

Listen, I know tough times.  I've survived an overdose, abuse, betrayal, divorce, poverty, loss, death.  And I honestly can't say what kept me from jumping off a ferry at times.  But I'm glad I did. I want to give a higher perspective of what it's all about:

Seasons are changing, trees and plants are going through new cycles, it's time to move on. This planet is all about creating and destroying, and each part of the cycle is equally creative, from the perspective of Consciousness.

If you try to hold on to what is going away, it's going to be extraordinarily painful. Trying to stop the flow of life is like trying to stop a river with your hands.

This doesn't mean you can't change your reality. You can reverse a fatal illness, you can get out of a soul destroying job, you can thrive after abuse. But change comes with letting go, you don't fight what isn't working.

Sometimes your Universal Self helps you change by creating circumstances that are "straws that break the camel's back". Situations from which there is no turning back. Forcing you to hit bottom so there's no way to go but up.

Things happen that shatter your sense of self, and you have to reinvent your life. It's like not remodeling your house until there's a fire or earthquake.

Consciousness (your Universal Self) views all this with amusement and neutrality.  This world is Your playground, Your whole purpose is to create. Nothing is ever truly lost, nothing ever truly dies, energy transforms.

Beings leave their bodies, but they still exist as Essence. At a greater level, as Consciousness, there is no separation, we're all still connected.

At some point, I realized that in order to live to a ripe old age, I'll have to get used to loss.  So here's my greater perspective on that:

Embrace change, welcome the new, open your arms to what is out there.  You are your own parent and midwife, birthing you into a new experience with each breath.

You ARE Consciousness, this is your playground, go out there and play!














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Confusing Personality for Consciousness

This week on our Radio Show Janet and I discussed a topic send in by a listener.  She wondered how much of life was consciously created, and how much was that 'sh*t happens'.   Two people she knew had died recently, one had committed suicide, the other overdosed.

The suicide had been an energy worker, and was discouraged that her techniques seemed to no longer be working.  She said her Higher Self had planned for her to 'leave early'.

The overdose may have been accidental, but an aunt had foreseen when she was a child that there was a 'dark cloud in her future'.

I've long said that nothing is pre-determined in that nothing is set in stone.  We create our future through our choses and actions.  We have free will to change lanes on the freeway of life.  If that's so, how could the aunt see a dark cloud ten or twenty years into a child's future?

It's like a long term weather forecast.  Meteorologists can see a weather pattern happening in Guam and know that there will probably be snow in Oregon six weeks later.  When looking at futures, you're looking at possibilities.  You may be seeing some influence by family patterns, just as a Meteorlogist knows weather currents and storm seasons.

And within that, an individual can make shifts, go into recovery, turn from 'bad' to 'good' simply by changing their beliefs about themselves.

However, there's still weather.  It still may rain or snow.  And within that weather, there are choices how to respond.

Now an energy worker can fall into the belief that they can (and must) control their reality.  That if something is happening that they don't like, there's something wrong.  That thought alone, that something is 'wrong', is personality based.  Consciousness in neutral, amused, and non-judgemental.  Nothing is every wrong.  All is very, very well.

That bodies get sick, and bodies age, is fascinating to Consciousness, which is eternal and ever joyous.
If you're viewing something with black-and-white, life-or-death thinking, it's your personality lens you're looking through.

Jerry Hicks, husband of Esther who channels "Abraham-Hicks", developed cancer and died.  Why did he do that, aren't they so enlightened that they'll live forever?  Well, yes, and he is living forever.  But it was time to trade in the old body.

The energy worker committed suicide, that was another way to go.  But she could have also stuck around to see what else would unfold.  Old techniques stop working when you're transforming into a new state, opening to new possibilities.

I used to say that we signed up for life lessons before we were born.  The more capable we are (I'd say) the harder lessons we'd take on.  We'd enroll in 8 honors classes, two afternoon clubs, varsity sports, and a weekend job and when we incarnated discover that it was college, not high school.  Or I'd use the example of actors in movies.  The more talented actor takes on the most dramatic and painful role.

Now I realize it's not so linear. We're simultaneously Consciousness and personality-form.  Embodiment, incarnation, is continuously happening.  We're bringing in Awareness, and releasing unconscious patterns.  We inhale a new experience with each breath.

Higher Self is not separate from Us, unless you're viewing it through your personalities eyes.  You Are Essence moving into form.

When you shift to that awareness, you make different choices, you relax into whatever is happening.  And if storm clouds are brewing, you put on your yellow slicker and rubber boots and jump up and down with excitement, waiting for it to come!

The End is Just The Beginning

The End is Just The Beginning ©2014 Joan M. Newcomb

Tomorrow a friend is burying her husband, and my husband is visiting his friend who has a terminally ill wife.  I'm sure that people are dying at the same rate they always have been, it just seems more noticeable nowadays.

I can't emphasize enough that just because their bodies die, it doesn't mean they're gone.  And it's not that they're still 'alive in your heart'.  They still *exist*, just not in physical form.

They're still available to talk to, they still hear, even if you can't hear them.  You can sense them, and if you're watchful, they'll give you clues.

It's important to grieve, as your body (and it's emotions) is the part of you that feels the loss.  Grieving helps open the way for clear communication.

If there's anything you didn't get a chance to say, say it now.  Write it down, if you need to, it will still be communicated.

Don't hold back (unless you're in the grocery store.  Wait until you're in your car, or at home - alone).  Let it all hang out.  They're easier to talk to, just harder to hear.  Say the things you couldn't say when they were alive.  You can resolve whatever you need to, now.

It's an opportunity to open up to a brand new relationship.  One that can be more than was possible before.

You'll find the end is just the beginning, to an expanded awareness of Love.

Why Fight With Patterns?

Why Fight With Patterns? ©2014 Joan M. Newcomb

One of the things I noticed when my parents were dying is their patterns unravelling. We each are a tapestry of patterns, a lifetime of accumulated energies.

When we pass, they drop, like clothing without a body. When you're with someone who is passing, your own patterns light up. You either fight tooth and nail for their validity, or you can allow yours to drop as well. The latter is not so easily done, as there are others within your life weaving who are invested in the reality of these patterns.

Since my last parent died, there's been quite a residue of "stuff".  I've chosen to shine light on it, to speak up and to question it, which has caused a discordant ripple in the combined family fabric.

Heck, anything that doesn't agree with the current vibration is going to appear inharmonious. Really, it's a pattern that's come to the surface because it is dissolving.

Why fight with it? Why not step back and let it dissipate? Because to remain silent is, in a way, to agree with it. Because part of the pattern is secrecy and complacency.

Keeping one's mouth shut is part of the pattern. Staying quiet means allowing it to stay within you. And I'm not carrying this forward.

Yet the opportunity is to rise above it, to look down on it from the clouds, so that everyone involved look like ants. From an airplane, do you really feel that engaged with traffic jams below?

If I really let go of the pattern(s) within me, would everyone else behave differently?  There wouldn't be anything to reflect.

If I really let go of the patterns myself, everyone could behave as crazily as they already are behaving, but it wouldn't make me insane as well.

What's crazy is to expect others to behave differently.  We can only change ourselves.

How do you change yourself, when these patterns are so ingrained that they are invisible to you.  They are an accepted part of your family reality.

It's easiest to work on a symbolic level.  You can see it as an image, hear it as a sound, feel it as a vibration.  Imagine yourself, and see the design separate from your energy space.  Or, hear your own note or melody, and mute the disharmonious notes.  Let your vibration be high, light and bright, and what feels 'off' drains out of you into the earth.

Work on a quantum consciousness level, step to one side, into a Universe where that pattern doesn't exist, you never had it, you never will.  Turn and shift in your new space, this will often change the entire cast of characters as well.

Play with this for the next 7 days and see what happens!

The Other Side (of the Veil)

(c) 2010 Joan M. Newcomb

The more readings I do, the more sensitive I become, and I've been doing a record number of readings (for me) over this past year. 

I've been hesitant about developing my ability to talk with dead people, because I don't want to become Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost.  As an empath, I've felt inundated enough by the living!  The increase, however, has been very subtle and, so far, not invasive.

Since moving into my current home nearly 3 years ago, I've occasionally smelled cigarette smoke.  At first I wondered if it were coming from outside, but the windows were closed and where I particularly smell it is far from the neighboring driveway, which is where I'd assume someone would be smoking.  I also wondered if it had to do with our wood stove's chimney, but it's distinctly tobacco smoke.  Then I wondered if it's my ex (who's alive) who I'll still tune into, because of our connection with our kids.  However I suspected it may have been the property's original occupant, who lived here from 1963 until his death in 2003.

Except it's not the original home; it was torn down to the studs and rebuilt.  So it's not the physical building that would still be reeking.  I just learned that this fellow had cancer, and shot himself (in a building no longer standing, outside our house).

Okay, as I typed that last sentence, suddenly I became very aware of his presence, and it felt like my lungs were filled with smoke.  Now I don't have ethics around suicide; I believe when we pass we shift into a world of love and joy.  However I have read folks who've passed and can see residue within them if they were on medication or drugs when they died.  And I know when someone dies suddenly, like in an accident, they're still around physically for a while (just not usually for 7 years).  In this case, I also know this person was a lifelong alcoholic, and so what I was sensing was the personality level that was left behind.

I took some time out from typing this article to do a clearing process by Machaelle Small Wright in her Perelandra Garden Workbooks.  It releases energy from a location in a gentle, co-creative way, so that it can move on to it's next evolution.  I chose this from my spiritual toolkit because it's non-resistant, unlike my older techniques for "exorcism".  Resistance only attracts/perpetuates that which you are resisting.

It's clear now, although I'll do a follow-up later on today.

What just happened was an interesting illustration of experiencing 'the other side'.  Until I knew the details, my awareness of the being was subtle.  He'd been dead awhile, and the longer they've been gone, the more diffuse their energy feels to me.  But when I focused specifically on him, his energy came right in (literally)!  I was aware of desperation to be acknowledged and at the same time I knew it was appropriate to assist him with shifting to his next level of evolution.

It seems to me that your loved ones who have passed would like to be acknowledged by you.  If you're thinking of them, they're still around.  They're not necessarily stuck, often they're around by choice.  A block to communication is the energy of grief.  The more fully you allow yourself to mourn the lost of the physical relationship, the clearer the spiritual connection becomes. 

Bottom line, you're not crazy.  And they're not ghosts.  They're just non-physical.  And I do feel that any unresolved issues, resentments, dissipates when they pass.  If you had an abusive parent, or a narcissistic one, those aspects dissolve and their Essence is easier to connect to.  A lifetime of pain can be resolved in an instant, in a way that would never have been possible if they were alive.


Now there's additional expansion and awareness of what's beyond this physical plane, and I'll share my revelations about that on my my other blog.

An exercise this week, should you choose to accept it, is to talk with a love one who's passed.  Sit quietly with a notepad or journal, and write what you think they'd say to you.  And write your response.  When you read it afterwards, you'll be validated that you couldn't have possibly made it up.  You can also start by writing what you'd like to tell them, and then what their response it.  You won't hear actual words, necessarily, usually I get impressions or 'blocks of thought'.  The more you do this, the easier it becomes.

Try this for a week and see what happens! And email me the results!

The Illusion of Death

©2008 Joan M Newcomb

I've had an unusual number of people I'm acquainted with die recently. Three were men in their fifties, one was a ten year old girl, and one was a woman in her eighties. And then this week Dr. Oz did an Oprah show 'on death', except it really was about living - one woman had lived with stage 4 - terminal - cancer for years, and one man has two months left to live.

We really have a lot of expectations on how long people should live, that a long life is a good thing and that dying is a bad thing.

This could be equally about the illusion of life, as it is about the illusion of death. Elsewhere on this blog is an article entitled Life After Death about my experience with my friend Ian after he was hit by a silver PT Cruiser while bicycling. It really shattered my beliefs about life after death. I'd imagined that people instantaneously return to Source Energy, so dying is like jumping into an ocean of Love. I'd assumed their personalities dissolved as they became pure Essence. Since I believe we're all One, I believed that when we die, we become One again.

Ian was very physically present with me for up to nine months after his death. Which led me to now believe we have a 'gestational period' - similar to when we are born. If you die suddenly, you hang around for some time afterwards. If you take a long time to die, you're doing your 'gestating' while you're still here. However I didn't always feel him and when I did it didn't seem in the same chronological order as I was experiencing time. I also got the sense of his traveling in cycles and that there were moments where the veils between our worlds were thinner than at other times.

Ian's still around, but now, several years later, his energy is more diffuse.

The other day I was teaching my beginning students a simple exercise to illustrate physical reality. I had them close their eyes, ground and center, and then imagine themselves to go from the center of their heads to just outside the classroom door, notice what it was like, and come back into their heads again. Then I had them open their eyes, get up and walk to outside the classroom door, notice what it was like, and return to their seats. Everyone reported being aware of light, of vibration, of energy, when they went there 'as spirit', and then everyone reported the air temperature, the sounds, what things looked like, when they took their bodies with them.

I flashed on one of my earliest connections with Ian after he died and he was complaining how he couldn't see clearly. At first I assumed it was because he was without his ever-present glasses, but then I realized that it was because he hadn't yet adjusted to seeing everything as energy. Without physical eyes, and in a dimension just beyond our own, how would you perceive things?

So when one passes from physical into non-physical reality, it's really a simple shift in perception. And the ethics we have about this shift all emanate from the physical; as I said in my Life After Death article 'our bodies take death *very* seriously as they're not making it out of this lifetime alive!' We have assumptions about time as well - short lifetimes are less desirable than long ones.

"The truest measure of a life is not its length, but the fullness in which it's lived." (Maria Housden, 'Hannah's Gift') "And that's all I have to say about that" (Forrest Gump).

If you imagine yourself as pure Energy, existing beyond time and space, with momentary jumps into physical form - imagine how delightful those trips would be! Like being on holiday from the Ocean of Source. Returning home would be just as fun, swimming around in all that love and ecstasy until another opportunity came about to jump into a body. Now imagine that it's really a thin veil separating both realities and you can only sense the other side (and perhaps the Other Side can only sense you, but maybe a little more clearly). No one is ever gone, we're just momentarily separated.

Grieving helps us clear the blocks to connecting with our past loved ones. It releases the body's attachment to form, and it lets go of the accumulated energy from the past. When we're clear, we can become more open to sensing their presence. Many people report 'visitation dreams' - and I believe this is because it's easier to connect on the astral level when we're at a higher vibration than when we're in our bodies.

Validating that they're still real increases our opportunities for communication. They're easier to talk to but harder to hear (like a bad cell phone connection). We're attached to communicating in words, but Spirit communicates in pictures or impressions, or symbolic appearances (I still see an abnormal amount of silver PT Cruisers and know it's Ian's way of saying hello).

If you're reading this, then there's a reason for it. Perhaps it's validating what you already know, maybe it's introducing some new things to ponder. If you've had someone pass, notice if you're ever reminded of them or if you sense their Presence. They'd be delighted if you said hello back!