"Be soft in your practice
Think of the method as a fine silvery stream,
not a raging waterfall,
Follow the stream, have faith in it's course
It will go it's own way, meandering here,
trickling there.
It will find the grooves, the cracks, the crevices.
Just follow it.
Never let it out of your sight
It will take you."
- William Wray, Sayings and Tales of Zen Buddhism

As I have mentioned many times in BLOG thingie, GRIEF is a direct result of LOSS which is the OBStacle that sets off a chain of NEGative emotions (NEGOBS). So the loss may be loss of a partner, a family member, a friend, or a loved pet. It may be a material loss of the family home, business, trust fund or loss due to financial ruin. In some way, shape or form it will cause a loss of love in your life........
Enter pain and suffering. Enter the turbulence of your MIND and the THOUGHTS that you will CHOOSE. If you take a trip into Devil's Dip (under the doona, crying, doubting, missing.....) then you are susceptible to making the wrong choices because your psyche has been weakened by the obstacle, the loss that has decimated your very BEING, sometimes to the point of questioning your existence. And those questions will begin the NEGativity process that you must go through to LEARN FROM LIFE. Rather than use the experience of the loss to answer some of the principle questions about the 'Meaning of your life', the 'Reason for your existence' and the mandatory 'Why?', the negativity causing the pain and suffering, will weaken your resolve, and often your WILL .... to live.
Enter pain and suffering. Enter the turbulence of your MIND and the THOUGHTS that you will CHOOSE. If you take a trip into Devil's Dip (under the doona, crying, doubting, missing.....) then you are susceptible to making the wrong choices because your psyche has been weakened by the obstacle, the loss that has decimated your very BEING, sometimes to the point of questioning your existence. And those questions will begin the NEGativity process that you must go through to LEARN FROM LIFE. Rather than use the experience of the loss to answer some of the principle questions about the 'Meaning of your life', the 'Reason for your existence' and the mandatory 'Why?', the negativity causing the pain and suffering, will weaken your resolve, and often your WILL .... to live.

As I explained in my book, there are Degrees of Devastation that each person suffering loss must experience. When I ended up homeless I needed support but as it was a 'new' experience and one I was very uncomfortable with, most embarrassed about, and too ashamed to talk to anyone about, I had to find some way of helping myself through my pain. I needed an invisible mentor, somebody I could talk through my problems without having to reveal them. Sounds pretty "nuts", huh? But when you are in Devil's Dip you do not think clearly because you are mentally weak. You forget a huge LESSON IN LIFE and that is, that no matter what happens you have people that LOVE you, people that want to help you overcome the negativity eating into your very soul.
In my case I made wrong choices driven mostly by my EGO which was the main contributor to my destructive path. So my cluttered reasoning at the time was to hit the books at the Library, always the self help and personal development books. In some ways it was a good idea because I did LEARN from the writing of others. But because my EGO was controlling my decision making I began to search for the suffering people who had losses bigger than mine. Whole families wiped out, losses of children and the like. Degrees of Devastation greater than mine made me feel better. Pretty sick, huh? I wanted to play the "my pain is greater than yours" game....
See, looking back on it now, that is the negativity eating into your very BEING..... all driven by EGO. Oh dear, what was I to do?
In my case I made wrong choices driven mostly by my EGO which was the main contributor to my destructive path. So my cluttered reasoning at the time was to hit the books at the Library, always the self help and personal development books. In some ways it was a good idea because I did LEARN from the writing of others. But because my EGO was controlling my decision making I began to search for the suffering people who had losses bigger than mine. Whole families wiped out, losses of children and the like. Degrees of Devastation greater than mine made me feel better. Pretty sick, huh? I wanted to play the "my pain is greater than yours" game....
See, looking back on it now, that is the negativity eating into your very BEING..... all driven by EGO. Oh dear, what was I to do?

Without re-hashing what I have mentioned so many times before, this became my way of dealing with my demons, and I made it ritualistic to the core. I retracted from society. I became reclusive from my family and friends. GRIEF had taken a hold of me. I was sad, sometimes depressed (clinically), I was terribly lonely. And I cried. But there was only one person to listen. Only one person to dry the tears. And there was only one person to BLAME for creating the existence that I was living. I even went as far as instilling the "mea culpa", mea maxima culpa" mentality into my already flourishing logic of the forgiven. Latin for "through my fault, through my most grievous fault", the negativity had dragged me so low to BELIEVE that if I blamed myself for everything, then I could absolve myself from any blame. I could even start feeling sorry for myself!
How wrong I was. Negativity was beating me up. Common sense and logic were out the door. Welcome into my life..... the tyranny of GRIEF.......
(TOMORROW : The DEFEAT of the GRIEF....
The TRIUMPHANT BELIEF...... )
How wrong I was. Negativity was beating me up. Common sense and logic were out the door. Welcome into my life..... the tyranny of GRIEF.......
(TOMORROW : The DEFEAT of the GRIEF....
The TRIUMPHANT BELIEF...... )