Before we work together, let me get to know you.  Inspire me with your transparency and truth.  The invitation is to deepen into your truth. These questions will set the stage for the work that is before you.

Instructions:
Do not read ahead to all the questions. Go through them one at a time, answer fully and then respond before reading the next.

Grief can be medicine for the soul!

A health of a community can be measured in our ability to grieve. Death, suicide offers us a chance to be human, to break out of our numbness or our heads in order to feel and emote; to remember we have hearts. We move from an ‘opinion’ of suicide and what he or she did; to emote and feel. Death and suicide can be a community building event and that way the one who has died has died for us…to help us remember who we are. Blocking our grief can lead to illness, depression or the spiritual and emotional condition of numbness or our own emotional death.

Some say that to grieve is a responsibility or an obligation for the health of a community. Some communities or families would hire professional mourners who would follow the families or communities death march and it was their job to wail and make a big show of their grief to help the family find their humanity and grief.

Grief can take many forms and may have many different layers….tears and sadness, rage and anger, compassion and sorrow interspersed with periods of numbness. It’s commons for us to be fluid and move through layers over time.

Home took his life a few weeks ago leaving a family and community in shock. We all have our responses to this event and your truth is your truth.

Yesterday, an old client contacted me that her boyfriend who I met once shot himself. I remember him as brittle and rigid and angry…and a man I could not reach or connect with as his walls were so thick.

In this short ceremony, we offer an opportunity to speak your truth in a couple of sentences; or in your silence. You will be witnessed as having a witness offers you an opportunity to go inside to discover deeper truths; and your truth is a gift to the witnesses. It builds community.

The water of life represents the replacement of the tears of our own grief; over Home or another who has died or left their body; or it may hold some magic that will allow you, if you are blocked to discover and experience your own grief now or in the future; it may be a stimulant to find yourself.

‘I drink this water to ‘replace the tears’ I’ve shed for the many suicides and losses I’ve had in my life….can name them. To speak of your spoken or unspoken love for the one who has died.

Or I drink this water of life with a prayer that it teach me or us to grieve so that I and my community may thrive.

Please…just one or two potent sentences that express your truth, turn and be seen by the community and then sit and be a witness for others. This is not a time for long speeches or to expand on your theories of death or suicide. Please, just one or two sentences.

A couple of decades ago, I began a process of examining my own shadow energies. I remember working with one particular shadow, the ‘nice guy’ and his opposite. Under my ‘nice guy, people pleaser’ was a passive aggressive, angry and insecure man who lacked passion and drive.   Uncovering these hidden aspects released power and purpose; courage to love; to take chances and find a joy that permeated much of how I live today.

Inner work requires that the true seeker examine and integrate all aspects of our selves or sub-personalities. Shadows are those parts of ourselves that we hide, deny, repress and usually fear. These unacknowledged and unintegrated parts show up as patterns or energies that may play havoc on our relationships, how we view our world and determine our success and ability to enjoy life and love. Shadows develop as part of our natural coping strategies starting in childhood. If, for instance we as a child had a dominating and angry parent, we may develop a natural disdain for anger. We stuff any of our own feelings of anger and aggression and develop a life long fear and judge other angry people. We may suppress our own feelings of the energy of anger as unacceptable while also repressing our drive to be assertive; be passionate. Other self-defeating belief systems may become ingrained and develop a ‘victim’ mentality in aspects of our lives. Shadow also contains energies of our magnificence and greatness. We may hide those for fear of appearing arrogant and we play small in our lives.

Transforming shadow requires that we compassionately and truthfully examine what is working in our lives and what is not working in our lives. Once identifying these shadow aspects the hard work of owning and integrating these energies in a productive way. It requires enormous courage to be that transparent while uncovering what I call the ‘undefended self’. While the work is often done in one on one sessions with a therapist or guide; the power of an evolving community of like-minded people is an exceptional way to integrate and heal the fractured parts.

How to discover shadow?
Often our shadow parts get projected out on others who we judge or abhor in another. Do you judge others harshly? Chances are you have in shadow similar traits that you repress and deny. Ask yourself, what of this other bothers me? How am I similar? It takes courage and a high level of commitment to take responsibility for what we project on another. Bringing in the dark material into the light of Truth will begin to transform that material into something that is useful to living a life of purpose.