Releasing Sadness and Grief

How do you process and release deep held sadness and grief?

You acknowledge and truly be honest about what the sadness and grief is about.  Is it about regret or loss?  Perhaps a combination?  If it is loss of a person who is no longer here, separate the sadness from the regret around that person and your relationship.  Evaluate the regrets of things said or not said.  Acknowledge the regret of lost time together and the regret of things not done, experiences not felt.  Feel the pure grief of missing the physical presence of the person and place it in your heart to be balanced by the love you felt for that person – without that love there could be no sadness for the loss. 

Now as for the parts that are regret, how can you find ways to make them right. To no longer regret?  Say or hear the words that were meant to be said.  Imagine being told what you needed to hear or ask yourself if those words could come from within yourself.  What about the things undone and the experiences not had – are they things that you desire to do, that align with your life purpose and the urge to pick up the mantle and proceed with full intent.  Or are they reminders and lessons to stay true to your own path, to live your mission, to make your time here count and to achieve your reason for being.  Take a good look at your life as if it were to end today.  What is left to do?  What needs to be said, felt and expressed?  What are your greatest achievements and your dreams still held?  Use the love within your heart as rocket fuel to launch you into momentum.

The same goes for regrets not surrounding the loss of a person no longer here.  What needs to be said to who?  What did you not yet do, what promises to yourself have you not fulfilled?  What wrongs need to be righted even if just within yourself and what changes need to be made to step out of the trench of patterned repeat?  What parts of yourself and others need to be accepted as imperfectly perfect but balanced by whole beauty.  What are you known for now and how do you want to be remembered?

As for sadness that has no place – no rhyme or reason?  Ask.  First, ask if it is yours at all?  Ask it what it wants?  What it is here for?  Why is it knocking on your door and what message does it have?  Be patient with the answer – let it simmer if an awareness is not eminent.  Be open to the messages you may see or the insights that may be revealed in unknown ways.  If nothing comes accept that the information will come in the right time or perhaps it is beyond your need to know.  Carry it with tenderness and kindness as if it were a fragile ball of light to be held and cared for. It is just like a growing infant and it does not consume the whole but is rather a part of the whole that becomes less fragile and delicate as time proceeds, strengthening into a strong light of fire.  No longer a fragile ball but instead a strong beacon of light with passion and enough motivation to expand and release its form becoming a flavor of its integrated whole.

In Gratitude and Love.

Nicole Sullivan