Grief Process Techniques

"The way to stop reacting out of our inner children is to release the stored emotional energy from our childhoods by doing the grief work that will heal our wounds. The only effective, long term way to clear our emotional process - to clear the inner channel to Truth which exists in all of us - is to grieve the wounds which we suffered as children. The most important single tool, the tool which is vital to changing behavior patterns and attitudes in this healing transformation, is the grief process. The process of grieving."

From Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls

"We are all carrying around repressed pain, terror, shame, and rage energy from our childhoods, whether it was twenty years ago or fifty years ago. We have this grief energy within us even if we came from a relatively healthy family, because this society is emotionally dishonest and dysfunctional."

In order to do the inner child work we need to be willing to do the grief work.

Emotions are energy and that energy needs to be released through crying and raging.

We need to own our feelings about what happened to us.

We need to own our right to be angry that our needs were not met.

Grief is energy that needs to be released. We need to give our self permission to feel our pain, sadness, & rage. We need to own and honor the feelings.

Part of grief work is simply owning the sadness and the anger.

We need to own the grief about what happened to us as children - and then we also need to own the grief over what effect it has had on us as an adult.

"It is when we start understanding the cause and effect relationship between what happened to the child that we were, and the effect it had on the adult we became, that we can Truly start to forgive ourselves. It is only when we start understanding on an emotional level, on a gut level, that we were powerless to do anything any differently than we did that we can Truly start to Love ourselves."

Grieving is a very different experience from being depressed.

While we are grieving we can still appreciate a beautiful sunset or be happy to see a friend or be grateful to be sad.

Depression is being in a dark tunnel where there are no beautiful sunsets.

The deep grieving work is energy work. Once we can get out of our heads and start paying attention to what is happening in our body - then we can start releasing the emotional energy. When we get to a place where the emotions are coming up - when the voice starts breaking - the first thing I have to tell people is to keep breathing. We automatically stop breathing and close our throats when the feelings get close to the surface.

At that point the technique is to locate where the energy is concentrated in the body - it can be any place from head to feet - much of the time it is in our back because that is where we carry stuff we don't want to look at, or in the area of the solar plexus (anger or fear) or heart chakra (pain, broken heart) or chest (sadness) - then the individual breathes directly into that place. Visualizes breathing white light into that part of the body. That starts breaking up the energy and little pieces of energy start getting released. These balls of energy are the sobs. This is a terrifying place to be for the ego because it feels out of control - it is a wonderful place to be from a healing perspective. Empowering the healing is going with the flow - inhale the white Light, exhale the sobs. Sobs, tears, snot from the nose, are all forms of energy being released. You can be in the witness watching yourself and controlling the process at the same time you are in the pain and releasing it.

By controlling the process I am referring to choosing to align self with the energy flow, surrendering to the flow, instead of shutting it down as the terrified ego wants to do. It is very hard to learn this process without a safe place to do it, and someone who knows what they are doing to facilitate it. Once you have learned how to do it then it is possible to facilitate your own grief processing.

The anger work is also an energy flow process. The bat (tennis racket, bataka, pillow, whatever) is lifted over the head as you inhale and then as you hit the pillow you expel the energy - in shout, a grunt, a "fuck you", a scream, whatever words come to you. Inhale, exhale - open your throat to say whatever needs to be said.

Own your voice. Own the child's voice.

It is vitally important for us to own our right to be angry about what happened to us or about the ways we were deprived. If we do not own our right to be angry about what happened in childhood it greatly impairs our ability to set boundaries as an adult.

"We need to own and release the anger and rage at our parents, our teachers or ministers or other authority figures, including the concept of God that was forced on us while we were growing up. We do not necessarily need to vent that anger directly to them but we need to release the energy. We need to let that child inside of us scream, "I hate you, I hate you," while we beat on pillows or some such thing, because that is how a child expresses anger.

That does not mean that we have to buy into the attitude that they are to blame for everything. We are talking about balance between the emotional and mental here again. Blame has to do with attitudes, with buying into the false beliefs - it does not really have anything to do with the process of releasing the emotional energy."

It is terrifying to face healing the emotional wounds. It takes great courage and faith to do the grief work.

The only real way to do it is with a Spiritual Program.

Recovery is not "self-help" - we are not doing this work alone.

Our Spirit is guiding us. The Force is with us.

"There is no quick fix! Understanding the process does not replace going through it! There is no magic pill, there is no magic book, there is no guru or channeled entity that can make it possible to avoid the journey within, the journey through the feelings.

No one outside of Self (True, Spiritual Self) is going to magically heal us.

There is not going to be some alien E.T. landing in a spaceship singing, "Turn on your heart light," who is going to magically heal us all.

The only one who can turn on your heart light is you. The only one who can give your inner children healthy parenting is you. The only healer who can heal you is within you.

Now we all need help along the way. We all need guidance and support. And it is a vitally important part of the healing process to learn to ask for help.

It is also a vital part of the process to learn discernment. To learn to ask for help and guidance from people who are trustworthy, people who will not betray, abandon, shame, and abuse you. That means friends who will not abuse and betray you. That means counselors and therapists who will not judge and shame you and project their issues onto you."

Therapy that fosters dependence and does not include emotional release is not very healing.

"Psychoanalysis addressed these issues only on the intellectual level - not on the emotional healing level. As a result, a person could go to psychoanalysis weekly for twenty years and still be repeating the same behavior patterns."

"Our mental health system not only does not promote healing - it actually blocks the process. The mental health system in this country is designed to get your behavior and emotions under control so that you can fit back into the dysfunctional system.

Drugs that are designed to disconnect you from your feelings block the healing process. Mental health professionals who need to have you see them regularly in order to be financially supported, need to have you be dependent upon them, need to keep you a patient in order to survive."

Learning is remembering.

Teaching is reminding others that they can remember too.

No one outside of you can define for you what your Truth is.

Nothing outside of you can bring you True fulfillment. You can only be fully filled by accessing the transcendent Truth that already exists within.

This Age of Healing and Joy is a time for each individual to access the Truth within. It is not a time for gurus or cults or channeled entities, or anyone else, to tell you who you are.

Outside agencies - other people, channeled entities, this book - can only remind you of what you already know on some level.

Accessing your own Truth is remembering.

It is following your own path.

It is finding your bliss.

next: Inner Child Healing Techniques