This is such a timely topic for me because I’ve been feeling really down, missing Erik. His birthday and his death day are just around the corner so that doesn’t help. On the way home from an errand I just burst out crying. I think that’s a good thing because I’ve never really sobbed, I mean SOBBED, since Erik’s death. Nothing would come out. I felt like there was a sad woman inside of me hysterically wailing, but I couldn’t. So I’m working to release all the pain out of my heart. 

Me: Can we talk about the topic of loss today, Erik?

Robert: Oh my god! (Laughing) I can’t believe you just said that! Erik has been bugging me all morning saying, “Okay, Dude. Now, we’re going to talk about loss today.”

Me: That’s crazy

Robert (still laughing): And he told me everything he was going to say.

Nothing like getting notes before the test!

Robert: Erik’s picking in between his toes.

Me: Gross. Spirit toe jam. That’s nasty.

Robert: He’s very proud of it. Whatever.

Me: Let’s talk the loss of health.

Erik: Well, first, Mom, I want to talk about loss when it comes to death in general.

Me: Like losing a pet, child, spouse or anyone, right?

Erik: Yeah, and when I mean death, that doesn’t just mean the physical body. It can be the death of a relationship or the connection to another person and other stuff like that.

Me: Well, those are all separate things to me. Do you want to talk about death physically first?

Erik: Okay, but you’re going to see that it’s really all the same. There are a lot of people out there who suffer and grieve when someone they care about dies even if they know that that loved one still continues to exist, and the reason they do that is because—

Robert: He’s doing this drum roll.

Robert tries his best to imitate it.

Erik: –is because they’re attached to something, and, when it comes to death, they’re still attached to the physical body.

Oh, how I miss those hugs. How well I understand.

Erik: You’re still attached to not being able to hold that person, not being able to touch them. There are a lot of ways you can get beyond that, but the bottom line is you gotta work on detaching. You have to be adaptable to the idea that that shit’s no longer here and stop trying to be a dick to yourself by sitting there and obsessing over what you don’t have. If you’re always obsessing over what you don’t have, all you’re ever going to see around you is what you don’t have. You have to detach from that. Love is equal parts detachment and equal parts attachment. You have to detach from that and attach to something else. If it’s the death of someone or something you deeply care about, you need to create new attachments. It could be new friends. Once you’ve gone through enough grieving, get out of the house and make new friends, reconnect with your family, attach yourself to a new hobby or project, whatever. It takes some time, but you’ll see the pain surrounding that loss starts to fade.

Me: All right.

I think I’ll go outside and weed when I’m finished here.

Erik: Now, I can’t say it will all go away because, fuck, we all go through this. When you lose something, you’ll feel that separation and it’s hard to see, in life, that separation is an illusion. Sometimes that’s part of a lesson, and sometimes that lesson entails just recognizing your own stubbornness over things and your inability to adapt to something.

Me: Well, what do you mean? Can you give me an example?

Erik: Like stubbornness when it comes to grief, not being able to let it go and continuing to hold on to what no longer exists.

Me: Oh, okay.

Erik: That’s stubbornness, refusing to acknowledge the truth. You know a lot of people in your life who are just fucking stubborn, Mom.

Me: Oh, yeah.

Hmm. I can think of one or two in my own family.

Erik: And if you apply that attachment/detachment thing to anything you lose, whether it’s the death of someone or the loss of a friendship, a job, things like that, you’ll be able to move on in life. You gotta keep moving and not stay rooted in what no longer is.

Me: Well that’s easier said than done, Erik.

Erik: I know it’s fucking easier said that done, especially for me to say it being over here, but it’s the truth.

Me: Well, how do we do that? Do you just create that awareness; do you change your perspective?

Erik: You’re doing it already, Mom, in what you’re putting in the blog, reimagining your connection to me. You started thinking about my death in a more positive way.

I did do that (refer to “Healing Perspectives” post.)

Erik: Recreating the story from a different, more positive perspective works. For me, I would say that’s the only way that works, but I can’t say there’s only one way that works for everyone or everything. There’s a positive side to everything.

Me: Yeah, I imagined running up stairs to find you not with this sense of horror and dread, but with joy that you’ve left your body and the miserable life you were in. Then, instead of smelling gunpowder when I rounded the corner to go down the hall to your room, I imagined smelling the fragrance of flowers. I created this sense of happiness in my heart as I was reframing this story in my mind. Then, when I entered your room, I rushed over to hug your energetic body and told you how happy I was for you. I imagined you and I both feeling this amazing sense of euphoria. And, when I looked at your body sitting at your desk, I imagined feeling absolutely no emotional attachment to it. It was just like the car that drove you around in life. Changing my perspective helped so much, because I know you ARE happy now.

Erik: Being positive is so fucking empowering. Feeling disempowered is what makes us feel stuck. We have to take our power back, because it’s OURS. It always was ours. Always remember that your power is yours, and no one and no thing and no experience can take that from you unless you allow it.

Me: That’s true. So, I guess you have to sit there and ask yourself, “What is another more positive perspective I can look at in regards to this loss?”

Erik: Mm hm.

Me: It’s almost like an exercise.

Erik: Yeah, everything is part of a process. That’s why no one example is going to resonate with every single person. We’re all different, but there are some core things that cause empowerment. Positivity is really at the root that enables all the other things that you need to do to continue to be able to move on.

As Abraham Lincoln said, “People are just as happy as they’ve made up their minds to be.” There’s so much truth to that, as I can see from what Erik’s sharing here.

Erik: For some people, it could be just the recognition that you don’t deserve to feel the way you do. You deserve more than that. You deserve to see the value in yourself.

Me: But, as far as feeling like you don’t deserve to feel the pain of loss, you still are responsible for it, even if only for you reaction to that experience of loss. When you say, “I don’t deserve to feel this grief-stricken,” it sounds you’re taking a more passive roll in the loss.

Erik: Well, what I mean by that is that you don’t deserve to feel miserable. You can still take ownership of something, but that doesn’t mean you have to judge yourself for having done it. A lot of people do that. They go (in a whiny voice), “Well, this is all my fault, so I have to hold myself accountable.” They start judging their own feelings. That still keeps you stuck.

Me: Yep.

Erik: Just see it for what it is, recognize that it’s teaching you something, not just about yourself but really about the greater experience of existence. Then, you can move on. Nuff said. I had to get beyond this a little bit because one of the things that was starting to irritate me a little bit are people who are obsessed with getting to the other side. I’ve finally come to realize that sometimes it’s okay to think about that because, in a way, that makes you feel empowered; it helps you connect with something, but there’s a fine line between doing that and punishing yourself. Some people will use that as a way to deny what’s going on in their real life. They completely dissociate from their body and stop caring about this world, but you’re still focused on this reality on Earth. You have to create a balance between the two realities. You can look at the other side as the carrot or the reward or whatever, it really doesn’t work that way, and that can make it easier for you to get through this life.

Me: Yes, and I guess you have to realize that the past is the past.

Erik: That’s right. It’s no longer in your present! The past is no more once you stop focusing on it.

Me: Yeah, well you have to choose not to focus on it.

That’s like when someone tells you not to think about a pink elephant.

Erik: Right. The past only keeps its power if you keep your focus on it. The future doesn’t exist yet, not for you. Now, this sounds like a contradiction to what I said before about the past, present and future all happening at once. They are. But I’m talking about from your own personal perspective. You’re no longer in the past. You’re not yet in the future. You are permanently in the present, the Now. This is all the shit you have to remember, Mom.

Robert (to Erik): Yeah, thanks, Erik. (To me) Erik is giving me the thumbs up.

Me: Aww, Erik, that’s sweet! You can’t give Robert a hard time ALL of the time! You have to throw him a “nice” bone every once in a while.

Robert laughs about something Erik’s saying or doing that he refuses to share. Must be bad.

Robert: He’s just being bad.

Me: But you know you wouldn’t like it if he wasn’t bad.

Robert: Of course not, cuz he makes me laugh all the time!

Me: The spiritual class clown.

Helene Remøy, a Norwegian, has started making these nice little banners with quotes from Erik. I’ll post them from time to time.  Enjoy. Thanks Helene