Be in Your Elements. Bring your Self adn Soul into Oneness

When A Turtle Swims Against The Flow

8/22/2020

This time I would like to share with you that I consider NATURE my REAL TEACHER.If we walk with open eyes between trees and animals, they teach us valuable lessons about life and the the Law of the Universe.

This what happened the other day: I was walking by the canal at Princeton and I noticed the water was swirling unusually much, almost like crazy.

I took a closer look and I noticed that there was a really small turtle in the water. Maybe she was the size of my palm. What happened was that after swimming in one direction, she decided to turn around and swim in the other way –against the flow..

The result was not satisfying at all, and she couldn't do it a long while. Her tiny legs were paddling like crazy, but she hadn’t moved and inch. Then she stopped for a second and the flow started to take her …

Realizing the force against hers, she started to swim again, still in the same direction- against the flow(!)- with even less success, because she started to move backwards though she intended to get forward.

Then I noticed the proportion of the turtle and the canal. How huge, gigantic the canal is comparing to this tiny, determined, strong willed turtle…

Then it hit me.

How similar we are to this turtle. The universe is huge, operating by its own laws and forces. We are tiny comparing to the universe.

We have our strong (small) will, especially when we set a goal. We go, swim, we do whatever it takes, we stress out and have anxiety… and we don’t notice that we are actually going against Thy will. If we could stop for a moment, we would be bale to see that "dinner may even swim by" and that the flow can turn us gently around and take us to a safe place: to the shore, to a swimming log or anything that can make our life easier. Swimming against to flow will definitely makes us stronger but it will not take us anywhere.

Next time when you realize that life is too challenging again; when you see that one obstacle comes up after the other; take a moment and see yourself as this tiny turtle.

Take a deep breath and set your intention that today, only today, you will go with the flow, and you will not judge, criticize anything or anybody,

You will mostly say yes to any request comes to you (if it make sense and for the highest good) (Watch the movie: Yes Man by Jim Carrey) and see your circumstances as an outsider rather than a victim.

Have fun by swimming with the flow, till next time

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You Might Be Really Good At Meditation Without Knowing It

8/19/2020

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Thank you again for those of you who are interactive and ask questions from me. I love personal messages from you; and I would be grateful if you would leave a comment after reading the blog, and if you would type your questions there as well. Your curiosity may inspire others. One of you asked me if I could share some thoughts about meditation. She said:" I meditate every day, but I don't know if I am doing it well".

Meditation is getting to become an evergreen topic nowadays. Since we have more freedom to practice spirituality and the pendulum is swinging more to the yin side (feminine) of human consciousness, we let ourselves be more intuitive. Those facts and techniques which were considered "woohoo", or even dark or claimed witchcraft, are now subjects of experiments in science and are more accepted as everyday topics to talk about. There are more and more movies coming out which are connected to some kind of supernatural forces, talents etc..., not even mentioning how popular yoga has gotten. Just look around and see how many yoga classes are offered (in studios and gyms) in your neighborhood (not now, when still too many places are closed down, but you know what I am talking about). Many people actually connect yoga and meditation and actually, they are not right, in a way.

It is proven by research by now that people who go to a meditative state, their brain waves, heart beat and pulse slows down. On the long run these people are proven to be more balanced and show more endurance against everyday distress. I don't want to go into the pros of meditation (Google them if you want to know more about the topic).

What my goal with this blog is 1/ to approach the "what meditation really is and how to do it well" topic from a practical point of view, 2/ to help those people who cannot turn their minds off; whose minds speed 20 miles per second and cannot be in the moment for one second. 3/ to give some feedbacks to those who are already on the path but they are not sure about their practice.

Let's start: Meditation is really not a new thing. It is at least as old as humanity. It is a modified or altered state of mind. The point or the goal is to turn off the external and focus or just simply be within the internal. And there are surprisingly many ways to achieve this.

Mediation is like any other skills (art, cooking, singing, carpentry, etc). Nobody is born with being a master of meditation, but some people can learn easier to turn their minds off and learn faster than others to stay still. It does not mean they do not have to practice it.

Others want to meditate so badly; they keep trying but they feel it is like the unreachable fruit on the tree... They have tried a few times but it didn't work, so they drew the conclusion - it is not for them.

Let me tell you a personal story and I will connect it to our topic we discuss here. Many years ago I tried Kung Fu. It is the furthest thing from me to do, but I was curious and it was a good friend of mine who stared to teach Kung Fu, so I wanted to support her. Well, I felt the yin and yang, I felt the chi moving in my body during the class... I was in the moment and the flow and IT WAS AN EXPERIENCE, but after the second class I told the girl, it was not for me. She smiled and said: "I saw you. I saw you were almost in if not totally in a trance while others were doing the warm up as a challenge, sweating and already "suffering". You did every movement but you were doing Tai Chi, Qi gong and belly dance at the same time. I think you are done with Kung Fu. You might have done it in another life. You don't need this experience in this life." BANG!!!! It hit me so deep! Even if I couldn't see myself as a warrior, I knew I had lives as a monk and had to fight, so I know and knew at that time that I used to do martial art. So what she said made and didn't make sense. Since if we had learnt and did something in another life, though we have a "new body" in this life (in this consciousness) and our soul remembers, shouldn't we know how to do it then? If I had done it in another life, why it is not coming out now?

On the contrary of my Kung Fu experience, when I went to my very first belly dance classes visiting two different teachers, they both asked the same thing: "How long have you been belly dancing? Why did you come to the beginner level?" "Well", I said, "because it is the first time I am doing it. It is my first class" So my soul remembered and when I heard the music, my soul stated to move my body, but not on a beginner level, but on a level as if I had been doing it for years. It didn't end here. Once, one of the teachers put on a fusion of belly dance and Indian music. I started to dance as it felt right to me and I let my body follow the music. She asked me where I learned the type of Indian dance I just performed. I had no idea what she was talking about and the name of the style she mentioned did not even sound familiar. It was also funny, because anything she said about how special that type of dance was (the type of dance that was taught not "just for anyone" went in one ear and out through the other. Weird, right? You hear some music and you start dancing in a way you have never done before; someone can name the style you perform, however you don't even know what you are doing.... Then, when you are faced with this fact, you just shrug your shoulder and move on... Oh, and let me tell you, it took me years to put my Indian "roots" to the back burner and clear my Middle Eastern style.

So what is the difference between the Kung Fu experience and the belly dance /Indian dance experience? It was noticeable that I did practice both. I knew it was true about Kung FU (I had "memories" about it, sort of), but I didn't remember about being such a good dancer in another reality. Yet Kung Fu was suggested not to be forced :) and dancing was impossible to be stopped and held back, but I consciously chose to suppress Indian dancing. How does it come to meditation?

What my friend told me about Kung Fu and me, I am telling you. You might have experience having been a master of meditation in another reality. You could get into that altered state of mind in a wink. But in THIS reality, in THIS EARTHly plane, you have no access to this skill or knowledge. You know it is there, you know it is good for you, you vaguely remember it but you don't have access to it.

Here is a clue. Meditation is a passive or yin way of being. If you did nothing but meditate in another reality, now you need to experience the yang, the active, the crazy. You need to experience exhausting your mind, brain, body and soul in this lifetime so much that in the "next" one you will have the urge and longing for learning how to be still and receptive. And believe me, you will have discipline in that reality to sit still and let things come to you because you will be ready for it. Do I make sense? In that reality, you will be able to bring the two (yin and yang/ passive and active/ mediate and create) into balance. How many lifetimes do you need for this? Who knows.. It is up to you. :)
The conclusion, for anyone or everyone who cannot meditate at all or feels there is a block or something is missing: It is OK. This is where you are now. Be patient; accept yourself and your crazy mind. It will come. And read further, because you might be surprised what I have for you.

For those dear fellows of mine who are to start meditation or have been doing it for a while, I can suggest reading on and just putting this to the back file in this moment: Find the balance between self guidance and following external guidance. As you have already read your soul remembers. So if you are already "tasting" or doing meditation, the very best guide to follow is your inner compass, soul and inner teacher. More about it in a second.

Now, here is another thing: say, you (try to) meditate every day and you have different experiences, so you start questioning which one is the real one. Why was this morning mediation different than yesterday's. If you Google "types of mediation"...., well good luck not to feel overwhelmed. My mind was spinning and wowed by the headlines on types of mediation. I saw 6, 7, 9, 13 even 26 types of mediation. Gee!! I, personally, would not be able to read through 26 different ways to go to alpha or deeper... that is not me. But you may want to know precisely the differences between the types. Then I encourage you to go for it and research more.

What I have known for a long time is that there are originally two different types of meditation. Sounds simpler than 26, right? This is what I found on the internet:

"Zen meditation is similar to mindfulness in that it's about focusing on the presence of mind. However, mindfulness focuses on a specific object, and Zen meditation involves a general awareness. ... During Zen meditation, practitioners also dismiss any thoughts that pop into their minds and essentially think about nothing. " Google / Mar 21, 2019. I will summarize up the 6 six+1 types of meditation in a chart at the end of this blog. It will tell you the name, a short description and an example of it.

Instead of writing about things you can find on the internet, let me share with you another personal experience about how I taught myself to mediate without knowing what it was at all.

When I was a very young child I made a bedtime ritual that I did after my mom finished reading a fairy tale to me and right before I went to sleep every single night. I don't remember how I started it. My family members are everything but spiritual, so nobody taught me about "these things". But my dad was an anatomist. I don't remember, he would show me any anatomy atlas or pictures of the human body, organs, etc, but I had the knowledge about the different parts of my body on a high level. There is no other logical explanation (except my dad's influence) why as a 3-4 year old child did this: I laid in my bed, closed my eyes and went through (scanned) my whole body saying thanks to every part of my body for serving me..." thank you my feet for holding me, thank you my legs for making me run, thank you ... thank you my heart for circulating blood around in my body and I can feel happy, sad and love(d) ... thank you my eyes for helping me see trees and animals, etc...". Then I fell asleep. It is not the typical way how a 3-4 year-old goes to bed, right?

By the time I became a teenager, I left out the "thank you" part unfortunately. I don't remember why, but I went to sleep by relaxing my whole body part by part, like feet, ankle, calves .... up to my head and then I went to sleep.

The practice to relax myself before I go to sleep for years resulted in this: When I went to a yoga class or a workshop as an adult where we meditated the only thing I heard: "take a deep breath"... then nothing. Blank. Then I heard again "Take a deep breath, stretch your fingers and open your eyes..." How much time passed between the two? Maybe 5, 10 minutes or even an hour? I could never tell. Until I heard the magic word "stretch", I was sleeping like a baby on the chair. How many amazing experiences had I "missed" (or not, because they say you get and hear everything in your subconscious mind. Well, these amazing teachings stayed in my subconscious ever since...:))

Then I told myself: I know how to relax my body. It is good. Now I need to learn to stay awake/conscious! Period. Ok, but how should I train my brain? At that time, there was no internet in Hungary. I had a library phobia because I was dyslexic (still am) and I always felt too overwhelmed with those codes and numbers on the library shelves. I couldn't ask for help, because I did not even know the word what meditation really meant and I had no friends who were spiritual or did anything "out of the norm", like me. I had no other choice; I needed to become my own teacher.

I started to keep looking at one point and tried not to think about anything else, like looking at the clouds in the sky, or I found a stain on the wall and stared at it.... guess what, I fell asleep.

Actually, it was a bit silly to try this technique again. I don't know what made me think that this technique which put me to sleep 10-15 years ago would now teach me to meditate. When I was very young (3-4 years sold), my mom "forced" me to have an afternoon nap which of course I never wanted to do. We napped in the living room on the couch. She knew that I would sneak out and go to play, so she probably wanted me under control hoping that she would wake up if I moved... Well, most of the time I still snuck out and went to play very quietly, but when I wanted to be an especially good girl and I really wanted to put myself to sleep, regardless of all my atoms were on "go on mode", I was looking at one of her dolls on top of the bookshelf till I went to sleep. It was my go for technique; I always went to sleep by staring at one of her dolls. Now, 15 years later, I thought that was the solution. But things we keep doing over and over again will burn a deep path in our nervous system, creating a "reflex cycle". These are called habits. These are very hard to break. I made this Zen meditation technique to my "go to sleep path", which worked really well for many years. Of course, it was not the right way to learn to stay awake while I meditate.

The lesson from this little story is: if you are the type of meditation student who keeps falling asleep, think about if you might have the same issue like I used to have. If your mom used to read you night stories which guaranteed you fell asleep and you still go to sleep as an adult to a monotonous sound of stream, you might find guided meditation hard for you. A soft tone, usually woman's voice, is telling you what to do and imagine step by step might totally relax you and you go to dreamland. There is nothing wrong with it. You just need to revise the technique and find another way to meditate; meanwhile you rewrite this kind of technique for yourself step by step.

Going back to the journey how I self taught to meditate myself: after I realized that focusing on one point is not the path, I needed to find another technique.

Before I got better with my new meditation technique (sharing with you in a minute), I realized that I could turn off my mind and keep it empty for longer and longer periods of time. I did not stare at anything, I just started to say: "My mind is empty, my mind is empty, my mind is empty....." for a few times so it became a mantra that really cleaned and emptied my mind and then I could stay still in the nothingness. Ever since I have discovered this technique, it is still my favorite! I love that silence and emptiness.

This new technique to focus on the breathing and emptiness, made my first breakthrough. I did not know it was the fundamental goal and that I was already meditating. Now I know. (You see, how funny, I kept trying the same type of mediation (Zen). One way didn't work, I found another)

The second breakthrough came right after this first. This was the time I started to learn about the chakras and it was enough for me to hear once that they need to be clean and spin effortlessly; I "knew" what I needed to do. I didn't, but it came so easily and felt so natural that I still remember the very first time I did it (in this lifetime). I assume something triggered old memories and like in belly dancing the gate opened up and I knew what and how to do the steps. It is actually very simple and logical.

Our mind loves to be in control. So I gave my mind the power and permission to guide me through the chakras. I/my mind told me what color I should see and that I needed to breathe the white light in through the crown right into the chakra and breathe out within the chakra until it was clear...

If you know a little bit about the types of meditation or if you have ever done guided mediation, it is it. I guided myself through the meditation. Until today, It is the easiest way for me to meditate: "Inner guided meditation": telling myself what to do and imagine. Do I still fall asleep when I am tired....? Oh, yes, definitely. You would smile seeing me sitting on the floor with the wall behind me with my head tilted to the front ... "interesting way to meditate, right?"... But I accept that I have days when I just can't, and I know next day it will work, and usually it is true. Next day it is really strong and goes fast. I am awake and conscious. Very often, when I am done with (protection -I didn't write about it in this blog, but it is important), chakra cleansing, emptying my mind, I stay quiet, call my guides or ask for information and then I wait for the answer to come in. These are the types of meditations which bring a lot of insights, and very often tears of realization or healing. (This is called Higher self meditation or Channeling)

You can ask why I shared these personal stories about self teaching. Because, first of all, I think personal stories are the best way to teach you something new and make you feel better about the hiccups you make on your way. And second, I can tell you the same thing about meditation as I say to my belly dance students. "You know this dance, you just need to remember". Everybody is dancing in a way. When you are swaying your baby, you are dancing. When you are skipping a few puddles, you are dancing. When you hear your favorite music and start moving your hand and shaking your head and torso while you are waiting at the red light, you are dancing. (By the way, there is a type of meditation: Moving meditation, here we go: you dance, have fun and meditate)

It is the same with meditation. You know how to do it; you just need to remember it. You may say, "Wait a minute, you said in the beginning that maybe it will be in my "next life" when I will be ready for it, in this life, I need to experience to exhaust myself, so why do you say, I already know how to do it?" "Because", I would say: "You already practice meditation in a way, or you meditate much more than you realize". Just read on, we are very close to the finale with a few ideas about how you can practice meditation easily:

- Mediation is not strictly about repeating Sanskrit mantras or sitting still in the nothingness. When you are saying your rosary, it is a meditation. I have funny stories about how it went for me, but it is a truly beautiful way to clear your mind and soul. It could be a cathartic experience. (This is a kind of mantra meditation)

- When you are in nature and you forget about the world for a second because of the beauty of a flower and the perfection of its divine smell. Or another example: when you are looking at your child who is fighting to stay on the bicycle with the training wheels on, you see the determination, triumph and mindful concentration on her face, and you have tears in your eyes of love and grace to God that you can see this and experience it, you are in oneness with God. You are just pure love. You have no thoughts, no anxiety. There is nothing else in that moment but love and oneness with God. You are Love. That is an altered state of consciousness. It is the highest level you can go. Just to be and become love and light yourself, like God. Payers to God are thought to be the pathway to reach this level. We pray to become one with the Divine. However, the only shortcut to God is to be in the moment and "simply" become love.

- You can look for mantras on the internet and see which one talks to you and makes sense the most. There are mantras about wisdom, clearing up blocks, protection, for love and or wealth and prosperity etc. You just need to keep repeating the mantra you chose while you are driving, cleaning, waiting at the cashier.... the good thing with mantras is that you can just keep repeating them. You don't need to bring your heart into it. It is a mind thing. While keep repeating your mantras, you will leave no space for bad thoughts.... The vibes of the words plus the meaning of your chosen mantra will rewire your brain and you will start to attract different opportunities into your life. It is definitely worth a try. I did this type of meditation for hours while I was walking on the beach in Galveston, TX. Oh, I loved how I felt after an hour of walking in the water and repeating the same few mantras. Honestly, it is the safest way of brainwashing. Repeating the divine words will leave your mind buzzing of emptiness but in a very good sense. I call it Divine brainwashing ... One of my favorite mantras is

"Ohm, ma ni mad me hum" The 6 true words... Google it! :)

- Deepak Chopra and Oprah do a series of meditations on a regular basis. Very generously, they offer the meditations for free to everyone. I love listening to their wisdom. I am wowed every single time how simply Chopra can express the truth. He always teaches a mantra, explains the meaning of it and then comes silence. This is when I always fall asleep. One of my friends told me this is the time when she does the dishes... Well, it may not sound very respectful, but she is open for thoughts that alter the way she perceives the world, and this is how she can maintain to stay awake, unlike me who wants to learn to stay conscious for a long time, yet I fall asleep. :) These are only two people. I wonder how the other few millions do these absolutely amazing meditations.

- Another way to train your brain to stop chasing thoughts after thoughts is for example you go for a walk. While you are walking, you start paying attention to every little details. How one foot is stretching in the shoe, do both of your feet feel the same in the shoes or one of them fills up the shoe more than the other? How do your feet touch the ground, do you feel any bumps or holes on the walkway? How about your arms: how heavy are they? etc... You see where I am going with this. This is meditation. You are in the moment. You are in an altered state of mind, you focus on the inner world and you are IN THE MOMENT. (This is called Mindfulness mediation or this activity can go under moving meditation)

- Actually you are also in meditation - which you may have never thought of or considered it as a meditation - when you are doing something, anything you really enjoy and you are in the flow of the action and the process, which makes you feel happy and fulfilled. You really feel "fully filled". You have no gap for thoughts or worries. You are in the process. You may not even think, or you may realize thoughts coming up, but you let them go without any judgment (that is Zen meditation, by the way). This is when you do not realize how fast time has passed. Everything disappears for a second, or for minutes or for hours.... you are in the creative flow of altered state of mind: you are meditating. Everybody has had this experience at least once in their life. If you think you never have, then it happened maybe when you were a child. You see, you can meditate. You have done it already (I told you when you stopped me for a second :)), you just need to repeat it if you really want to meditate in this lifetime.

So the very last thoughts about meditation for now: There is no way to do it in the wrong way. It is a journey and every moment, every meditation is an experience in itself. Accept it, embrace it, and if it is still not enough for you, find a class.

As I promised above, here is a summary in a chart on the 6 most popular types of meditation, what they mean and a practical example on how to do them - either from my stories or from my suggestions:

Meditation Chart

And my very last and final word of conclusion coming from above (channeling) when I was asking insights form above meditation:

"You are always in meditation. Meditation is your default existence, you just think you need to achieve it. Sometimes you catch yourself fall off the track in this or another reality. Immediately when you find your way back to oneness, you are back in your meditative state of being"

If you liked this blog, please like it and then share it with your friends who you know they cannot meditate or want to learn it. If one thought helps them on their way, we both did a good deed. I wrote this blog to help and you sent it in someone's way, who will grow by it. Namaste

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"I have Death Anxiety"

8/8/2020

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Thank you for everyone who sent a personal feedback about the last blog. I always appreciate honest feedbacks. Please remember: Asking questions is actually helping both of us. I will have more topics to write about and you will gain knowledge about topics you want to know more about.

One of you wrote to me: "I really appreciate your writings. I personally don't believe in "the things" but I am curious enough to read and think about what I have read. I really enjoy your blogs. There is one thing I cannot make peace with; and that is death. I am terrified of it and when someone from my family passes over, I am just crying endlessly. I don't know why. Do you have a few ideas about this topic?"

Well, I actually do, and I really and truly appreciate her honesty that even if she is not a firm believer of these invisible forces and how they influence our lives, she keeps reading my blogs. I hope I will be able to give her and anyone else who has issues with death (and who doesn't) a few "make sense" or "feels right" or "feels familiar" thoughts in this blog.

A quote and a rough translation from Plato: "We don't even know about death whether it is not the very best thing it can happen to us, yet we are afraid of it so much as if we know for sure it is the worst thing of all"

The topic of death is really a double edged sword. It is as she said: 1/ being afraid of experiencing death and 2/ accepting the fact that someone we love is gone. We will never see touch, talk with her or him again. It is a very sad and scary concept to our human ego ad psyche. And plus, talking about death is a very fragile, intimate topic; so it is hard to talk about it in general. Everybody perceives death in a unique and personal way, just like everybody individually experiences "life" itself. We have friends who are kindred spirits and have similar values about life matters. It is the same with death. There are people who think very similarly or even had very similar experiences with death.

Again, since it is a very fragile topic and there are tons of materials out there about all aspects of death: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual, let me come with the attitude of a psychologist and a psychic in this blog. I will leave the emotional and personal part out of it. This blog will reflect mostly the mental and spiritual aspect of death. So please don't feel offended if something hits you or you totally disagree with it. Each paragraph that is coming up is worth to be detailed in a separate book. This means, I can only touch the tip of the iceberg. It will not be a short blog, but I promise, it will be worth to read it. You will find information in this context that you may hardly at all or will not find anywhere else.

Let's start. Being afraid of death is a double edged sword, as I mentioned above. The person who asked me about this topic is afraid to die and she cannot deal with the feelings and pain of someone passing away. Usually the two overlap each other. In order to really know what is happening during death, the best thing would be to sit in a simulator. You could watch and feel everything regarding to death knowing that it is just a simulator and anytime you push the "STOP" button, the program will be over and you will get back to your normal state. But we know it is not the case; so for now we only have resources of books, interviews and personal experiences about anything that is related to death (form being in agony, having a terminal illness, through hospice, through the burial ceremony and the emptiness and pain that is left behind; and we need to start /continue our lives without having that person or pet around we loved so much.)

The first and most important thing to be clear about is that we humans are afraid of things we don't know because we have no control over them. We don't have control over many things, actually most of the things in life (weather, earthquakes, hurricanes, economy, viruses, spouse's thought, kid's behavior etc), yet we can "make more or less peace" with these things; except death. Death is something dark, painful, and horrible. If I ask you what image you have about death, most probably you would see pictures of a man with a hood over the head with a scythe in his hand in your mind. A scythe was a tool used to reap, or cut grain or grass representing that we will be mowed down like grass at the end of our life time. (Not All) Churches loved to use these scary images of death in order to make sure that people would be humble enough to pay taxes and serve the church well so they would not need to deal with this omnipotent creature. In contrast, being a nice servant to the church, they would go with the Angels when their time is up. Even reading the word of "angels" makes us feel better doesn't it?

So in short, death has always been a hot, scary and dark topic and there have always been forces who wanted us to be afraid of death. Again, it is not hard to create scarcity and be able to manipulate humans since we are generally afraid of what we don't know and have no control over.

Another thing is good to keep in mind that fear is a learned behavior. There have been many, many experiments in the field of Psychology how animals were trained/conditioned to be afraid of certain images or sounds. An example from life: if your mom was afraid of frogs and mice, it is very likely that you will be afraid of them too. But for sure, they will not be your favorite animals. This is very similar to death. We have not heard anything good about it, our cultural DNA is programmed (for example owl or a crow is a sign of death in almost any culture) that death is the worst thing that could happen to us.

What we don't consider, either because we forgot or because we don't know about, is that from the very beginning of time, up till about the 19th century, cultures and tribes were celebrating the Black Madonna. They had a statue of a dark female figure (very often in the house as well) and on the agora that was worshiped and celebrated. People at that time understood the rhythm and the cycle of life and death.

They had animals and very regularly they lost these animals either because of a disease or they needed to kill their animals to survive. They had their favorite dog to guard the sheep and it got old and passed. They spent days by planting the seeds, but something disastrous happened and the entire crop was gone. They were living with and in nature. They knew the Nature of Life and Death: they knew and accepted the fact that spirits come and go.

In every tribe and village in almost every culture, there was at least one (usually a single) woman who was living in the very last house in the village. She was considered weird and had a fearful reputation. Yet when someone was fatally sick, or wanted to abort a secret baby, they knocked on her door. When someone died and the house was not in peace afterwards, when the spirit should have left, they knocked on her door to calm the spirit down and send it away.

Last thing, back in time, there were ceremonies held that supported emotionally and spiritually both the passed over person and those who stayed here. This blog does not give me enough space to write about these rituals and the meaning of the rituals of death, but one thing is sure. Traditions, attitude and knowledge may have changed during the centuries; we may be less emotionally connected to our inner world, but the fact of how life changes after a loved one passed on hasn't and will never change.

The other thing many of us don't know about is that many people have had a " near death experience". This is an excellent expression: "near death" ... near because they get very close to the boundary of life and actual death from where there is no way back. Raymond Moody wrote tons of very precious information about this topic. He was one of my favorite authors when I was writing my thesis in Psychology on this topic. The reports and interviews with these people are very useful and surprisingly similar which can give us some hope that there is still something after life. Our soul will not die, even if we leave our physical body behind. These people who have had a near death experience are usually declared dead. The machines show and detect no signs of life. Heart and brain waves are off. "Done". Yet some people come back and a few of them talk about experiences of love, peace and light to the extent that nothing on earth comes close to that experience.

According to Moody and other experts in the topic, each of the people who had a near death experience and remember what happened while they were "dead" said in one way or another that they had met an angel or a light being (many say it was Jesus or the Virgin Mary) that was so loving that the person who was considered to be "dead" could not resist and wanted to follow this loving being. They were able to see, feel, follow and talk to this Light Being and they were able to looking back at their lives and family at the same time. To cut it short, all the people who have had near death experiences were sent back to their body. Some came back voluntarily (knowing they have unfinished businesses on earth), some were forced back by this loving not judging force of love and light.

Those who remember these experiences and remember their conversation with this being usually go through a major change in their approach of life. They were made to understand what the real purpose of life is: LOVE! Any and all aspects of love: feeling, giving, receiving, showing, unconditionally and unselfishly. This does not mean that these people become saints after their near death experiences. They are human beings meaning they have good and bad days, they fall off their tracks, but they never forget that feeling of being loved and cared for without any judgment. Many of these people were interviewed and all of them said they were not afraid of death any more. They got to know there is something on the other side.

So what is going on then? What are we afraid of then? First of all, in our world of technology, computers and busy schedules we got out of balance. We are not connected to our inner universal wisdom of life and death. We got disconnected from the elements of life and death. You see, we haven't changed too much or enough. You learned in history classes that ancient people buried their loved ones with food, tools, cloths sometimes even with pets or spouses to make sure they had everything they needed on the other side.

Basic things have not changed regardless of time in history, now or then. You cannot have a phone call, face time, Skype or zoom with grandma on the other side. We feel lost, helpless and we have no purpose in the other person's life any more. Then life situations keep remind us: we have a family gathering and the chair where granny used to sit is empty now. Maybe she was the one who cooked the best chicken soup and baked the best cake on earth.... These meals and cakes are not on the menu any more. I know you get what I am talking about; I don't need to get into more details.

This is the point when we can talk about mourning, the fear of losing someone and grief. Psychology talks about the five stages of grief (Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, in her 1969 book, defined these 5 stages of grief in her book "On Death and Dying").

"Denial: The first reaction to learning about the terminal illness, loss, or death of a cherished loved one is to deny the reality of the situation. “This isn’t happening, this can’t be happening,” people often think. It is a normal reaction to rationalize our overwhelming emotions.

Anger: may be directed at our dying or deceased loved one. Rationally, we know the person is not to be blamed. Emotionally, however, we may resent the person for causing us pain or for leaving us. We feel guilty for being angry, and this makes us more angry.

Bargaining: This is an attempt to bargain. Secretly, we may make a deal with God or our higher power in an attempt to postpone the inevitable, and the accompanying pain. This is a weaker line of defense to protect us from the painful reality. The normal reaction to feelings of helplessness and vulnerability is often a need to regain control through a series of “If only” statements, such as: "If only we had sought medical attention sooner…", "If only we got a second opinion from another doctor…", "If only we had tried to be a better person toward them…". Guilt often accompanies bargaining. We start to believe there was something we could have done differently to have helped save our loved one.

Depression: There are two types of depression that are associated with mourning. The first one is a reaction to practical implications relating to the loss. Sadness and regret predominate this type of depression. We worry about the costs and burial. We worry that, in our grief, we have spent less time with others that depend on us. This phase may be eased by simple clarification and reassurance. We may need a bit of helpful cooperation and a few kind words.

The second type of depression is more subtle and, in a sense, perhaps more private. It is our quiet preparation to separate and to bid our loved one farewell. Sometimes all we really need is a hug.

Acceptance: Reaching this stage of grieving is a gift not afforded to everyone. Death may be sudden and unexpected or we may never see beyond our anger or denial. It is not necessarily a mark of bravery to resist the inevitable and to deny ourselves the opportunity to make our peace. This phase is marked by withdrawal and calm. This is not a period of happiness and must be distinguished from depression."

Note: to save myself time, I copied and pasted all the content of the 5 stages of grief from the website: https://psychcentral.com/lib/the-5-stages-of-loss-and-grief/

These phases are interchangeable. It is not something that we really can control. It is a natural and genuine flow of our psyche. Sometimes we skip one or two of these stages. But psychology also realized that people who suppress the steps and keep living their life as if nothing has happened, people who don't honor their own emotional process of grief, eventually they will need to pay the price of untruthful grief. When they face smaller losses and downfalls in life, suddenly all the suppressed emotions, depression, anger etc. will erupt as a volcano and hit in a way that was not expected.

So it is totally normal to cry for long hours and feel empty and the urge to contact that person already on the other side. You may feel really accurately that two of you have unfinished business. You need to know yourself and give enough time for yourself to let that person go. Keep in mind that until you hold your ties strongly to that spirit, she cannot really leave the earthly plane and you will have no energy and capacity to deal with the people who are here with you, your family. That is not fair to them, either. Then you will feel guilty for not being there for them. Actually, if people knew how hard and miserable they make those spirits' lives on the other side by holding them here emotionally and mentally (keeping a picture around, constantly talking to them, asking their opinion on certain matters etc), they would let them go much faster. It is just the uncertainty and our control freak ego that wants to know that that person on the other side and we (here) will be fine separated.

So the solution is to know where your boundaries are. If you are not sure, you can always seek for a professional's help. I think of a psychologist; at least just to see if you have a "complicated grief disorder" or you are OK and you can forgive yourself for crying weeks after weeks. If you feel you steel need to tell something or hear something form that person, you can always find a medium and she will connect the two of you.

Probably you didn't know that the ancient Greeks created a room to make it possible to a person in this life to connect to someone on the other side. They made a special room in which there was a door with a window in it then another windowed door behind it and another etc. The person who wanted to connect with the spirit on the other side sit in front of the first door which was lit in a certain way and after a short while, the person on the other side became visible and they could have a conversation and finish their business. So you see, letting someone go has been an issue for thousands of years (we haven't changed a lot, right?). The key, again and last time, is to learn to let things and people go.

The other side of the sword is when you are afraid of dying. If you visualize that your body is put on the cremation table or "you" will be buried into the ground can be very scary, dark, painful and depressing or hot and flamy. Many people think that by death, their consciousness will be gone too. They think their body will be in the ground and then it is blank; there is nothing, and that is really the end.

What these people don't know that we borrow this body for this lifetime. Everybody has had a dream or a feeling, a déjà vu that things have happened before. People often have a feeling that they had been on the same place before where they are standing right now, for the first time in their life. Why do we have these feelings? Where are they coming from?

How about your soul? The soul remembers!!! Our soul (different from our ego) remembers where we lived, who we met in another lifetime. When we have these feelings or visions about something that had happened before, though we know it was not in this lifetime, are signs that there is something more than just the here and now with the past in our memory and the anxiety of the future. How is that possible that millions of people who have had near death experiences say very similar things about the places and beings they met that were not in this life?

Our soul knows that there is something after life. When I was writing my thesis about the symbolism of death for my Psychology degree, almost everyone at the department was shocked. Most of the teachers asked me: "Why are you writing about death? You are not depressed or are you?" You know the next question a psychologist would ask: "Do you want to talk about it?" :) I said: "No, I am not depressed. I know it is a taboo topic. Most of us are afraid of death. I want to see beyond the veils and find out what people know about death without knowing about it! That is why I will use symbols and archetypes and will not ask anyone directly about death." And I did. And let me tell you, my thesis created a big storm in the department, because the result reached way beyond the boundaries of psychology. The conclusion was (after interviewing about 300 people from all different fields of life and occupations) that we know somewhere deep inside that life does not end at the end of life :) We know inside, we just need some help to get in touch with our wisdom that Einstein verbalized so well: "Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only change forms" in other words: energy will not disappear, it just transforms.

If we are energy, not our body but the part that makes our body move. Not the heart, or muscles or the nervous system but the one that makes you get out of the bed, have goals in your life, feeling (un)fulfilled in life, seeking for the truth.... That part knows that there is a continuum on the other side of the veil. And we just think that only a few can peep behind that curtain. But nope. All of us have that skill. You just need to remember how to use that skill.

Now, here is even a more spiritual aspect of fear of death. Most of us have had other lives. Please just believe in it till you read this paragraph and then you can not believe in it again :). So let's assume we keep coming back here to earth because we want to learn something. Do you remember from earlier in the blog what the final conclusion was to all the people who have had near death experiences? It is love (to learn to love unselfishly and unconditionally). But anyway. We have had so many lives and most of them ended in a very tragical way: accident, you were killed, persecuted, died from the pain of being tortured. As I mentioned before, the Soul remembers! Of course, when life or a certain type of death is getting close to you, you freak out! Your soul remembers. Your ego is smart and pushes things into the unconscious so you can live your life. Can you imagine living a life and keep seeing movies in your mind or having feelings of other lives' failures or victories... It is already so hard to focus on the here and now; then how we could handle knowing about all of our lives and methods of death. How about if our unconscious and ego would not be in charge and everything would flood you over? Very often when someone has an extreme fear of death is actually the result of a tragical death experience in another life. Just let's stop for a moment and answer to these questions: What is the way of dying you fear the most? The one you go crazy about and would do anything to escape that type of death? Why is that type and not another? Have you ever thought of it? Very often it happens that someone starts having an anxiety of death at a certain age of her life. Maybe, it is because she is at the same age as when she died in another life. Very often we are afraid of the pain that led us to death in another life and not death itself. So we are afraid of re-experiencing that pain, madness, suffering etc our Soul remembers and is afraid of.

What is the Solution? Look for a soul or a life coach. A therapist may not be able to step over her professional boundaries. Many people love it and nowadays it is very popular to take a "Past Life Regression Session". I personally really do not agree with this technique, but if you are up to opening the lid of Pandora's chest ..., go for it. I am a psychologist and I believe in the wisdom of our EGO and unconscious... you will remember spontaneously what you need to when you are ready... To force it...; it is like forcefully open someone's third eye. Be careful, and chose wisely who you trust to share your inner chaos with, and who you give your hand to in order to lead you out of the dungeon you are in. You know the answer inside!!! Thank you for being open; now you can go back to your original "I don't believe in other lives" point of you. This is how long the paragraph lasts :).

The very last thought about death: There is a very interesting aspect of death that nobody really talks about but it is present in our everyday life. It is when we ourselves go through our evolution: go through some stages or phases in our lives. Losing a job, a friendship, a house or a car, and the worse: your health and get diagnosed with a terminal illness ... Anything we have had an emotional connection with, and is gone now, can create an avalanche of new happenings and life situations in our life.

These changes require a lot of adjustment, grief and all the 5 stages I mentioned above to go through, before we are able to integrate to the next level. We do all of these things by activating the elements (wood, air, fire, earth, metal, water and ether) within us (more about it maybe another time). These life situations are a kind of near death experience. How many times we die inside by going through a divorce, a betrayal of someone we loved deeply, being laid off etc.. These are very similar to the stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) and to the experiences we have before death. Plus, we always have an Angelic/Divine presence more than ever during these tough times of our life. It is just a question whether we see them and accept them or we are blind the same way the spirit who attached to us and blind to see the light. You need to call their attention to follow and go through the tunnel.... (If you don't know what I am talking about, read my previous blog "Be Aware Of Unusual Feelings And New Habits"). Isn't it that we have at least ONE person who guides and leads us through these very rough times of life? Isn't it that this person is showing us the light and supports us with their unconditional and judgment free love? Isn't it very similar to the experience those people reported coming back from the mouth of death?

OK. I stop now. Because I could go on and on. I hope this marathon blog was in a way useful, educational and eye opening, say soul awakening for you. I hope you will make one step away from your fears and will get a better view about your emotions regarding death. If you still feel you need help and you feel inside it is me who can help, fill out the form on the "contact page" and let's set up an appointment; otherwise please share this blog with your friends. Can you name three people in your life who have issues with grief or someone who is afraid of death? Then share this blog with them. Maybe it will help them.

I have much brighter topics in my mind to share with you in the future, so lets' leave the "other side" behind and focus on this life. :)

Please leave your comments here and post your question you would like to read about!

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I am Heni and I am a born Psychic and Healer I spent more than 10 years in college and university to become a Psychologist, and Family Counselor. I have been trained and got certified in several healing modalities like Aura Soma, Feng Shui, Physic Healer, Akashic Reader, Medical Intuitive, life coach. I am here to help you to overcome your challenges in life with the double gift of finding the root of the real issue with my psychic abilities and helping you come out from your negative life experience through coaching. These articles will give you little notes and thoughts on useful topics.

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