Why Grief Disrupts Connection
This is all, of course, from my personal experience and perception, so please don't take it as "spirit-'splaining" - feel free to dismiss if it doesn't resonate with you.
Just now, I was out on the porch talking with Irene, and whenever I focused my loving attention on her I got an immediate physiological reaction. My heart races, tears come to my eyes, and I feel things that are difficult to sort out. This is not something new, but it has become easier and easier to the point that it is basically something I can just do at any time.
The feeling itself is great, but it's like my brain is learning to process something it doesn't recognize and cannot coordinate with the physical situation. We talked a bit about it and I focused attention on her a couple of more times to try and figure out what it was, exactly, that I was feeling. Like I said, this isn't a new sensation. I've reported on it about as long as I've been writing this blog.
The sensation is like a euphoria of love, appreciation and connection. It's really quite amazing, but can be confusing, I think, because my brain doesn't recognize the physical situation as one that should be producing that reaction. So, it has - more so in the early days of Irene's transition - tried to interpret it as something more fitting to the situation, like sadness and longing.
I realized that as my grief, pain and sorrow dissipated, this sensation was more and more standing on its own and I was better able to isolate it from blending into those other emotions. I don't think grief, pain and sorrow so much "block out" our connections to our afterlife loved ones as much as they cause us to misinterpret that connection sensation as part of our grief, pain and suffering, sort of like looking at something through pain-colored glasses. This connection euphoria is, on its own, unlike other emotions to start with and, IMO, very easily perceived as a form of pain and sadness. I know that may sound strange, but it's only been after months of effort that I've been able to fully escape the pain and sorrow (take off my pain-colored glasses) and experience this sensation without the filter. It's really amazing, wonderful and yes, strange.
Irene said this is why many people can have such a hard time getting past the grief; buried in that grief is the actual connection sensation. I often thought about this as myself holding on to the pain and sorrow because those things were my connection to her; but now I see that mixed in with that pain and sorrow was my actual connection to her, a completely separate thing but being interpreted by my brain through both the pain- and sorrow-colored glasses and also interpreted in a way that felt appropriate to the physical situation.
This is also why letting go of pain and sorrow feels like one is letting go of the connection and it can panic or scare us; mixed in that pain and sorrow is the actual connection, virtually indistinguishable from those other emotions until they sufficiently drain out of the mix. The problem though, even then, is knowing that this other sensation is even in there because we generally don't have that concept - or even words to describe it - at our disposal, making the navigation of this process all the more difficult.
Adding to this difficulty, this connection euphoria is achieved by focusing attention - on our part or theirs. During grief, putting our attention on our transitioned love one can cause immense pain which can train us to avoid focusing on them, and to distract ourselves away from such attention even when it comes from our loved ones. I know that I actually feared thinking about Irene and our lives here because of the pain, which is why I started focusing on imagery and scenes of us in a happy afterlife instead of focusing on our past. Thus I was still able to think about her and visualize her in a way that mostly produced happiness and joy with a minimum of pain.
I think this habit helped me to sort out the difference between the connection euphoria and the pain, and helped me maintain a strong connection because I didn't have to turn my attention entirely away from her to avoid overwhelming sorrow. I didn't have to constantly distract myself, but distraction was a habit I did get into as a means of dealing with the pain (or even the potential for pain), although I kept it to a minimum.
Now, imagine your loved one on the other side knowing that if they focus their loving attention on you in your time of grief, that connection sensation is going to be interpreted as pain and sorrow and can actually turn us away from that connection because we don't understand how to perceive or interpret it. I think this is why we are often told by spirit that we must deal with our grief first or that grief can "block" our connection to them.
Sometimes just finding a useful way of understanding what we are experiencing can make a big difference. Please remember, I'm not claiming what I've described above about my experience is always the case or even usually the case. But for those who find this view resonates with their situation, IMO we can work with our spirit team and transitioned loved one to hone in on this connection sensation if we at least have a model to work with that gives us some ideas and conceptual tools to get started and help us out. We just have to be willing to brave the pain, assuring those on the other side helping us, building mutual confidence to help us find, isolate and empower that connection experience.
Just now, I was out on the porch talking with Irene, and whenever I focused my loving attention on her I got an immediate physiological reaction. My heart races, tears come to my eyes, and I feel things that are difficult to sort out. This is not something new, but it has become easier and easier to the point that it is basically something I can just do at any time.
The feeling itself is great, but it's like my brain is learning to process something it doesn't recognize and cannot coordinate with the physical situation. We talked a bit about it and I focused attention on her a couple of more times to try and figure out what it was, exactly, that I was feeling. Like I said, this isn't a new sensation. I've reported on it about as long as I've been writing this blog.
The sensation is like a euphoria of love, appreciation and connection. It's really quite amazing, but can be confusing, I think, because my brain doesn't recognize the physical situation as one that should be producing that reaction. So, it has - more so in the early days of Irene's transition - tried to interpret it as something more fitting to the situation, like sadness and longing.
I realized that as my grief, pain and sorrow dissipated, this sensation was more and more standing on its own and I was better able to isolate it from blending into those other emotions. I don't think grief, pain and sorrow so much "block out" our connections to our afterlife loved ones as much as they cause us to misinterpret that connection sensation as part of our grief, pain and suffering, sort of like looking at something through pain-colored glasses. This connection euphoria is, on its own, unlike other emotions to start with and, IMO, very easily perceived as a form of pain and sadness. I know that may sound strange, but it's only been after months of effort that I've been able to fully escape the pain and sorrow (take off my pain-colored glasses) and experience this sensation without the filter. It's really amazing, wonderful and yes, strange.
Irene said this is why many people can have such a hard time getting past the grief; buried in that grief is the actual connection sensation. I often thought about this as myself holding on to the pain and sorrow because those things were my connection to her; but now I see that mixed in with that pain and sorrow was my actual connection to her, a completely separate thing but being interpreted by my brain through both the pain- and sorrow-colored glasses and also interpreted in a way that felt appropriate to the physical situation.
This is also why letting go of pain and sorrow feels like one is letting go of the connection and it can panic or scare us; mixed in that pain and sorrow is the actual connection, virtually indistinguishable from those other emotions until they sufficiently drain out of the mix. The problem though, even then, is knowing that this other sensation is even in there because we generally don't have that concept - or even words to describe it - at our disposal, making the navigation of this process all the more difficult.
Adding to this difficulty, this connection euphoria is achieved by focusing attention - on our part or theirs. During grief, putting our attention on our transitioned love one can cause immense pain which can train us to avoid focusing on them, and to distract ourselves away from such attention even when it comes from our loved ones. I know that I actually feared thinking about Irene and our lives here because of the pain, which is why I started focusing on imagery and scenes of us in a happy afterlife instead of focusing on our past. Thus I was still able to think about her and visualize her in a way that mostly produced happiness and joy with a minimum of pain.
I think this habit helped me to sort out the difference between the connection euphoria and the pain, and helped me maintain a strong connection because I didn't have to turn my attention entirely away from her to avoid overwhelming sorrow. I didn't have to constantly distract myself, but distraction was a habit I did get into as a means of dealing with the pain (or even the potential for pain), although I kept it to a minimum.
Now, imagine your loved one on the other side knowing that if they focus their loving attention on you in your time of grief, that connection sensation is going to be interpreted as pain and sorrow and can actually turn us away from that connection because we don't understand how to perceive or interpret it. I think this is why we are often told by spirit that we must deal with our grief first or that grief can "block" our connection to them.
Sometimes just finding a useful way of understanding what we are experiencing can make a big difference. Please remember, I'm not claiming what I've described above about my experience is always the case or even usually the case. But for those who find this view resonates with their situation, IMO we can work with our spirit team and transitioned loved one to hone in on this connection sensation if we at least have a model to work with that gives us some ideas and conceptual tools to get started and help us out. We just have to be willing to brave the pain, assuring those on the other side helping us, building mutual confidence to help us find, isolate and empower that connection experience.
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