With 9 Brains and 3 Hearts, I Figure Grieving is Easier for Octopi*

Blessings and Lessons from Grief

Seems to me that octopi can partition the grief, assign one heart to be broken and one brain to muddle through the fuzzy numb, while the others pick up the slack.

I’m dealing with the unexpected deaths of my mom and my brother in the last three years. Going through belongings, which feels like dissecting and dissolving a life, I’ve felt fuzzy numb for months now.

Relief has started though, the clouds are parting, and I can see the blessings and lessons from the grief and wanted to share in case it’s helpful.

Blessing

We were with my brother when he passed, breathing tube removed after he didn’t wake up from his motorcycle crash injuries. At least we got to say goodbye, we didn’t when my father died suddenly when I was 17. We sang songs, Mom holding his head. I called in all my spirit guides, the operating room filled to the brim with love.

I saw his soul light burst from his chest like a sunrise and Archangel Gabriel gently gathered him up.He was carried, higher and higher, into the light. Settling peacefully home, carried all the way.

I wasn’t with my mom when she passed, but once I found out I checked in to see how she was. She was afraid to die, feeling she wasn’t worthy of getting to heaven, even though she prayed every day and attended church every week. So I wasn’t surprised that she was holding back from moving to all the love waiting for her. I asked for her soul to be helped, in the end it was Divine Grace that carried her home (fitting, as one of her favorite songs was “Amazing Grace”). I saw my brother and my dad meet her, cocooned in comfort and love.

May we all know we are worthy of love and can pass in peace.

Lessons

My brother came to me in a meditation a few weeks after he passed. I started crying, apologizing that I wasn't the sister I wanted to be. Caught up in raising my kids I didn't take the time to be part of his life. He stopped me. 'All I remember is the love, that's all I remember.'

This is what helped me start to come out of my fog: seeing all the love that others felt for both of them with the lives they’d created. But here’s what helped the most: seeing they joy they felt in their lives. Seeing photos of my mom, beaming with joy at my young sons, on her travels, with my dad.

I gathered up as many photos as I could of both of them smiling and laughing, beaming with joy.

I’ll remember and celebrate their vibrant joy when I miss them.

The last lesson is around being of service. Both of them quietly helped many people throughout their lives. My brother as an accountant for small businesses and farmers, giving many people loans or extended payment plans that no one knew about until we heard their stories and tears about how much he meant to them. My mom as a nurse for many decades and helping at the parish food pantry until the day she died (that’s the last place she was seen and a few hours later had passed).

I always wanted to be of service too: I was a Peace Corps volunteer and had planned to work in international development my entire career. Being a single mom stopped all that, and I’ve always felt some shame about not making a bigger impact.

Since my mom died I’ve been compulsively working in my garden and now know it’s the sanctuary space I need to do my work for the planet: feeling love and creative bliss is a subversive act when the world seems to want us to feel anger and fear.

So I’ll sit in my garden, get filled up with love, anchor peace and send it around the world for the rest of my days. Their lives (and my guides) have helped me see this as service too.

Service to others in tiny ways creates massive waves that we leave as our legacy.

I’ll end this with a few scripts to help with grieving and dying, may they be of assistance and support. Change these as feels best for you.

A Script for Help with Grieving

Are you or a loved one feeling grief? Here’s a general script from Spirit Guides on Speed Dial to help you process and release it.

“I’m asking for the help of my guides of highest love. I am in so much pain in my grief. I feel so much anger, guilt, and regret. Please help me understand how to process and release these feelings and how to find the energy to keep going and take care of the things I need to attend to. Please help me sleep, and please help me quiet my mind so I can stop focusing on this. Fill my heart with ease. I ask for guidance that is easily perceived and understood, and to be unceasingly held in love as I begin to heal. Please bring me inspiration and support on the physical plane as part of this process, too. Thank you. I am grateful for the help.”

A Script to be Supported in Dying

Since many people fear dying I wanted to share this script from my book as well.

You can set an intention to be supported and carried home to the light when you die, and repeat this whenever you feel worried or afraid. You can also say this with a loved one, it has helped clients of mine feel peaceful with the prospect of their passing. Here’s the script.

“I call upon all my guides to help me release my fears of dying. I set the intention to be free of fear and pain as I transition out of this body. I ask that any old patterns of judgment and fear of rejection I have related to dying be released now and replaced with the clear knowledge and trust that I am deeply loved, worthy of love, and moving back to the love that I came from. I ask that I be carried home to the light in beauty, joy, and remembrance of the glory of my soul. May I be blessed in my transition as I return to those I love who have gone before me. Please hold me close, carry me, comfort me, and bring me to grace. Thank you.”

*More fascinating octopi facts here.