In the days, weeks, and months after the death of my 35-year-old husband, I wavered between insane grief and an insatiable search for him, his essence. One moment I was painfully sad, the next moment I searched for his mind, spirit, body, soul – everything he was.
Even though I was brought up in a Greek Orthodox way, my religious background did not help me. Indeed, the immediate attempt to apply my belief to my dire circumstances deepened my doubts about what belief really meant to me, my two young daughters, and life in general, that someone we loved very much now called himself a place Heaven was life after death.
The trip that started on the day my husband died was the most important trip of my life. I hardly survived the first years after his death. Living in a routine day after day that took away my passion for life. A routine based on fear of the future and dictated by my ego’s need to “protect” myself by clinging to one place.
I hated my life, my future and every moment of every day. I was jealous of women whose husbands were still alive, envious of parents who brought their children to pancakes on a Sunday morning and led their perfect lives. I was a bitter, angry young widow. Dark thoughts filled my head – an ugly monster roared. Not a pretty picture and one I’m not proud of. But it is the truth. The years passed. The search and survival continued.
I threw myself into the world of brain research and discovered how the brain likes to grind grief and never let go of it. I discovered that studying the brain was the only way out of the pain in which I was rooted. I could do something with what I learned instead of just “waiting” in a never ending state of grief. So many books on grief advised “time to heal me” while telling me that “grief should last forever”. These two concepts made me angry because waiting for precious time wasn’t the way I wanted to spend my life. But this precise advice – this terrible advice that I received – spurred my mission to influence the world of grief with an action-oriented process.
Over the next few years, I not only got my own life back, but also helped thousands of others do the same. And yet a part was always missing. I have worked with so many people who continued to search for their lost loved ones – even after recapturing their own lives – even after they were successful again. I also continued this search.
In a way, it wasn’t enough to go back to a good life. Because after we went back into our lives and were able to ask questions like “How can I possibly continue?”, We were hungry to find the answers to even bigger questions. And one of the biggest questions that kept going through my head was: “Where did you go?
The deeper I delved into science and theories, the more I realized how much our scientists already know about the universe and how life and death and our perception of everything really work. But so many of these insights have not found their way to the masses. For example, there is substantial evidence – from personal reports on theories in quantum physics to discoveries that are accepted as facts in the scientific community – that life, as we perceive it, is only one of many dimensions that add up to one exist anywhere around us at any given time. And these different dimensions last far more than what you can see with the human eye.
It is now clear to me that we have gone far in our discoveries, but not far in our experiences, and certainly not far in sharing these discoveries. So here are five difficult but effective lessons I’ve learned over the past decade when I studied the science of life after loss – just a small highlight of what I wrote in my brand new book “Where Did You Go? ” A life-changing journey to connect with those we have lost:
- You have to survive the hardest days of your life
You are born with the ability to change your life no matter how much loss, sadness and difficulty you experience. You are born ready even though you do not feel ready. They are literally hardwired to reinvent and overcome themselves. You don’t even have to learn to do it, you already know how. You only need to focus your energy gradually and appropriately. Mourn with every little step forward, day after day.
This is your trip and you can write the map wherever you go. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t, that you should just sit around and “wait” longer … that there is currently no way out. There is a way! And you stand right in front of it.
Your life is your creation. When you start to know this – to really know this – you can have more control over your life and what happens in it from moment to moment.
- You are the main creator of your life experience
In a very real sense, your life is created every day by you and the people you want around you. This is important to know. You are the creator of yourself and your destiny in every moment. In a very real sense, what you want to experience and with whom you share each experience influences your ultimate creation.
In other words, you shape your life by choosing the type of story you want to tell every day. You can do it by responding to difficult and painful circumstances. By the way, you see the world and the people you want to keep in your life. Or, as Marc and Angel so perfectly said in their latest NY Times bestseller: “You are not responsible for everything that has happened to you, but you must be responsible for undoing the thought patterns that produced these results . ” What you concentrate becomes stronger in your life. It’s time to change your answer to what you remember and move forward with grace. “
- Death is not the end
Death is not death. If someone you love dies, it just means that they exist in a different way – in a different dimension that doesn’t look local, not geographic, not physical. You have access to this dimension. Every day. Every moment. You don’t have to wait for them to contact you. You can be the one who connects to them. And they want to connect with you too.
This was one of the greatest discoveries I made when writing my new book “Where Did You Go?” Have made. The loved ones you lost want you to say hello – they want you to speak to them. I know this can seem strange; I am fully aware of this. However, through my research and practice, I have learned that death is just a word we use to describe the end of a person’s physical life. Not the absolute end of them.
- The empty space is as full and real as you are
If you study quantum physics long enough, you will learn that your body, the table in front of you, the computer, the phone, the trees, and the solid things in your life are not really solid. They just look solid and firm. The truth is that the nothing of the space between the table and the chairs is the same as the table and the chairs. Nothing and nothing is one and the same. The empty space next to you is made the way you are made.
One of the reasons why this is important is simply that the empty space you perceive around you is not really empty at all – it contains far more than what the eye sees, including the loved ones you lost to have. You are still here, but you cannot see them with your physical sense of sight. Your eyes cannot see all the light that is present in another dimension. Your ears cannot hear all of the sounds there. The people we think we have lost are all around us here in the room. We really are not alone when we are alone.
- Nothing is impossible
There is really a deeper reality, a deeper level of life that we cannot see from here, and miracles arise here. Where healing takes place. Where everything is created in the space around us. And this deeper, more hidden reality is in many ways more real than that which we perceive with our (faulty) physical senses. And you can bring anything you want here from there. This just seems impossible to you at the moment. But that’s not it. Nothing is impossible!
Not believing this – not knowing it – is like trying to drive a car at night without the lights on. There are always impossible obstacles and objects in front of and around us that we cannot see immediately, but that does not mean that they are not there or that they cannot influence us. Please don’t forget it. You are the driver of this experience, which you call life, and you now know what you have to work on to turn the lights back on.
You have never survived the unthinkable
In the end, I know with certainty that life after loss can be the most extraordinary chapter of your life.
Because those of us who have lost someone we love now want answers to the bigger questions we never asked before. The routine of everyday life is not the same and certainly not enough. The basic answers to what life is all about no longer seem to fit. We want more, we are the leaders, seekers and makers of the impossible future. Because of our deep grief, our forced access to higher grain levels, and above all our closeness to death from the loss of our loved ones, we have an evolutionary advantage. Know that. Let it sink in. After such tragedies, nothing is the same as before. It’s time to live your life the way you’ve never dreamed of! The world is waiting for people like you to show them the way.
After all, you made it this far and my friend was not easy. You went through the unthinkable and made it, so I believe that you can do the impossible. The day my young husband died, I promised him that I would live my life as if it had two lives. One for me and one for him. Full of amazement, love, adventure and above all on the edge … the limit of my comfort zone! Tap new horizons every day.
Angel’s final remarks
In her first book, Second Firsts, our good friend and grief pedagogue Christina Rasmussen helped countless readers (including Marc and me) to manage and rebuild their lives after the loss. She merged both her pedagogical expertise and personal experience as a widow at the age of 35 to selflessly help others return to life after being lost. Although Christina had rediscovered the joy in her life after the loss and was now helping others to do the same, she struggled with a persistent question whenever she thought of her late husband: “Where did you go?”
Like so many of us who have lost loved ones, she continued to wonder what had become of her husband – and if there is hope to connect with our loved ones after death. Now in her second book, Where did you go? Christina is a life-changing journey to connect with those we have lost. It not only shows that the answer is “yes”, but that we all have the opportunity to reconnect with our lost loved ones while accessing a timeless awareness that can profoundly change our lives here and now.
Books about life after death generally fall into one of two categories: spiritually or scientifically. Christina, who grew up in a small Greek city where religion has permeated everyday life but fell in love with neuroscience and psychology while studying in Europe and the United States, combines the metaphysical with the scientific in Where Did You Go? Quantum physics and brain research to make the invisible visible and to shed light on some of our most pressing spiritual questions.
If you’ve lost someone you love, this book is a must for 2019! And yes, as Christina mentioned above, I know that the idea of reconnecting with a deceased loved one sounds impossible, but I ask you to open your mind and trust that death is just a gateway is at a higher level of consciousness – be ready to challenge your perspective. You will be amazed at what you discover in one way or another.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! ?
Now it is your turn…
If you feel like it, I would like to hear from you in the comments section.
What have you learned and how have you grown through the experience of losing someone you love?
Is there anything else to share?
Please leave me a comment below.
