Dealing With Painful Memories and Grief!

I was recently in a conversation with a fellow astrologer and the conversation turned to the “Super Solar Eclipse” of August 2017 which cut across the entire United States from Oregon to South Carolina.

The point of “greatest eclipse” was the area where Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky all meet which is the epicenter of the New Madrid seismic zone. That fault is overdue for a shake, and the last time it moved it literally rang the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, over a thousand miles away!

That Leo eclipse has certainly shown as major changes and divisions in the United States. Politically, culturally, spiritually, and socially, there have been losses and divisions which have made the entire nation question whether we are in fact a “United States.” It seems almost all civility has disappeared from the public square, and many are expressing hatred and anger in ways that are detrimental to our ability to move forward as a nation.

I noted that we also had a major eclipse in 1999 which brought about “the end of the world as we knew it” and that both eclipses had stripped away much America had believed before then. It was as though one world ended in 1999 and the years after, and another world ended in 2017 which continues to crash to this day. "The End of the Innocence" is more than just a song.

My colleague noted “Most people were distressed by that solar eclipse. They had intensified grief and some had traumatic memories. Many were overwhelmed. Surrendering old memories and darker feelings takes work. It is easy to tell people than actually accomplishing that.”

I also agreed that shadow work is not easy, or it wouldn't be shadow work. Having had to go through hell and back more than a few times this life, I actually found that as I practiced radical detachment from my own habit of clinging to bad feelings and had some compassion for myself as I saw my troubles were universal to the human condition, my old attitudes fell away like Autumn leaves in a snowstorm.

Besides my spiritual practice, I had 27 years of off and on therapy when younger. I had to examine why I felt what I felt, why I acted the way I acted, and learned how to observe my negative responses with compassion and turn my responses from unhealthy to productive. I learned that one must break down the old patterns before we can “break on through to the other side,” which naturally leads to breaking away from negative responses and welcoming positive responses if we practice the good each moment the chance arises.

Having counseled thousands related to breakdown, break through, and breakaway opportunities these past decades, I can state from experience that letting go of painful memories and dark feelings is easily accomplished by anyone with a sincere desire to learn new responses to old stagnant material in the subconscious and conscious mind. Both Saturn: Spiritual Master, Spiritual Friend and The Magic of Venus: Friendships, Soul Mates, and Twin Flames. deal specifically with how to transmute negative responses into positive ones from two different angles of approach. We learned many dark thoughts and feelings when we were being raised within the family and cultural matrix, and as we learn to choose brighter thoughts and feelings, we claim our power to experience life on our own terms.

Eclipses, by taking a lot away over the months and years which follow them, offer us the task to learn how to say goodbye with grace and awareness. Because we cannot lose what is truly ours to own, then whatever we do lose is no longer able to be held fast in our lives. Like breathing, we must expel the old when it’s time to take in the new. Life is the same way. As we learn how to let go of the old and welcome a better possibility, then the passages become more fluid as we learn how to deal with unresolved feelings and memories left over from what’s gone.

Past and present eclipses continually recycle what we no longer need in different areas of our lives. So really, whether we know it or not, we’re always letting go of some element of our past or present. Because time is always “slippin,’ slippin’, slippin’ into the future,” it’s easy to leap into the future without taking the time to achieve closure of past actions, feelings, and memories. When we do not get closure in some part of our life, it remains in our subconscious mind as a semi-conscious or unconscious sense of something not being complete. That’s why every time we glimpse that something is ending, it’s good to take a moment to note the passage and honor whatever wisdom and understanding it brought us.

Because we get attached to what we believe is good and bad, as we grow most of these change over time. We all want good experiences, and feel badly when they don’t turn out that way. Because we live in an impermanent reality where all forms pass away, it’s natural and human to have complicated feelings when it’s time to say goodbye, whether we want to or not. And yet it’s a universal that we have to learn how to let go so that better things, people, and experience can come.

It is said there are four sources of suffering which arise in the mind: attachments, aversions, delusions, and pessimism. All of these can be overcome by cultivating their antidotes. Any attachment to bad memories and unhelpful attitudes and responses can be cured by radical detachment. Detach from getting into a funk by not going there. Detach from dreading not knowing how to be by just being. Detach from the mind suffering over its own suffering. Detach from worrying about what will be, what won't be, what has been, or any other apprehension generated by the pessimistic mind.

We can help ourselves by choosing to face any and everything in both the world and our own subjective experience and see that whatever we’re going through is nothing new or unique; humanity has suffered every single thing we could ever suffer. Our pain is the pain of the world. Our wounds show us our ability to heal and serve others with those wounds.

We ALL are wounded in countless ways; we all have to learn how to turn our suffering into the ability to serve the greater good. While each has their own row to hoe, we still are forever nurtured by our Wisdom, our Way (Dharma/Tao), and our Community of Friends, Spiritual Brothers and Sisters who also are sustained by us. We are all wiser, more capable, and more aware together than we are separately.

So in a lifetime of eternal change, of endless leavings and comings, dance in the spaces and remember that with a clear view of a better life, better relationships, better experiences, and better ways to navigate the endings and beginnings is always found in the here and now. Reflect on what has left with an eye to how it helped you become more loving or wise, and see all that ends as a chance to honor what brought you to here and now. Remember the impermanence of all we are going through, as well as the permanence of the love, wisdom, and understanding of our Higher Self, which is who we really are as we watch the weird scenes inside the gold mine at the intersection of Fate Street and Freewill Street on a dimly lit section of Eternity Boulevard.

Reprinted on crystalwind.ca with written permission from Robert Wilkinson. Copying this article to other blogs is strictly prohibited. It is copyright protected. 

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