Do you find yourself going through massive change in your life? The kind of change that creates major energy shifts because a vacuum has been created. The unexpected change that occurs when you’ve lost someone very close to you that had some control over you like a spouse, parent, sibling or even a grandparent. An energy shift that leaves you almost paralyzed because the overwhelming freedom is imprisoning.
When a dominating, controlling, doting or authoritative loved one that played a significant role in your life passes on, the change can be totally destabilizing. While they were alive, you had developed some type of balance with them even though it may have been far from equal and now that energy is totally gone from your life. Whether they were controlling and demanding or loved you so much they were so overly protective and smothering doesn’t matter as much as realizing that an energy vacuum has been created. Your sense of balance, security and self confidence might have left right along with them leaving you in a vacuum of imprisoned freedom.
Recognizing the Vacuum
Once your loved one is totally gone and you finally feel like you’ve made it past the urgency of what to do next and the initial mourning stage is when the vacuum really sets in. This is when your mind starts to play mental pin pong. All of the “should haves,” “would haves” and “what’s next” start racing through your mind. If allowed to continue, this mole hill of thoughts will rapidly grow into a mountain of insurmountable options paralyzing you from moving in any direction. Since your controlling loved one is no longer there to tell you what to do, whether it was in your best interest or not, the vacuum leaves you bouncing all over, just like an out of control ping pong ball. An elderly couple I once knew found balance in their 76 years of marriage by constantly doing battle even over the smallest things. They rarely agreed on anything but that was balance for them. When one of them passed on, the other, knowing balance only by disagreeing, arguing or being contrary, used the same process on her care givers. As you might already have guessed, that did not work well for her or the care giver. She was now at a loss because the vacuum created through the passing of her spouse left her totally ungrounded and out of balance.
Three Steps to Re-grounding Your Energy
When you lose a close loved one, even if it is not a traumatic event in your life, re-grounding is necessary to help move beyond the loss and mourning stage. Losing a loved one is extremely draining of your personal energy. Great care must be taken to reenergize self and give you solid footing so you can move forward in-control in your new world.
Step One: Recognize that you’ve gone through a great deal of energy loss that has created an unbalanced vacuum in your life. If you were the actual caregiver in the process you have not only suffered emotional loss but a great deal of physical energy loss as well. You cannot deal with this unless you first recognize it exists. Perhaps there was some type of emotional abuse due to the loved one’s illness or simply an over bearing personality that you’ve dealt with for months, even years. If you were overly loved and doted on, you became dependent on the loved one for security and self-confidence. Either way, because much energy was lost in the process, you need to acknowledge it and take action.
Step Two: Taking action means you need to assess exactly what type of energy was depleted. Was the energy loss physical, mental, emotional or all three? If you are tired and ache all over, it is physical. Allow for extra sleep and pay special attention to eating highly nutritious meals. If you cannot concentrate and stay focused, you are mentally drained. Give yourself ample mental downtime by listening to music, taking long showers, aggressive gardening or playing mind numbing games. If you cry at the drop of a hat or go on eating, sleeping or shopping binges you are emotionally depleted. Make a “gratitude list.” Use a tablet or a journal and start listing everything good in your life. You can start with simple things like you have enough food to eat or clothes to wear. Keep your list handy and add to it every time you think of something knew. Add no less than three things to it everyday for three weeks and you will rebuild your emotional energy.
Step Three: Start something creative. Immerse yourself in something new that taps into your creative side as soon as possible. When dealing with a loss you are overworking the logical left side of your brain creating your life to spin even further out of balance. By beginning a creative project you use the right side of your brain and start to ground yourself, bringing balance back into your life. Right side brain activities include: painting, writing, sculpting, singing, drama lessons, knitting, crocheting and dancing to name a few.
Dealing with the loss of a loved one never is easy. But dealing with the aftermath energy drain can be dramatic, devastating and debilitating. Recognizing this imbalance, re-energizing the various areas of your life and realizing you need to do something creative will go a long way toward grounding you so you can bring joy and peace into your world.
Download “Dramatic Change Requires Grounding Energy” in PDF Format.
© Pat Heydlauff, All Rights Reserved
Pat Heydlauff, president of Energy Design, uses Feng Shui design principles to eliminate chaos and stress at home and within oneself. More than a Feng Shui expert, Pat is a consultant and speaker who helps remove clutter and negativity while encouraging personal growth, improved relationships and prosperity. Her new book, “Feng Shui: So Easy a Child Can Do It,” shows how to achieve a better tomorrow. For information on her consulting, speaking and artwork, call: 561-408-2708.