Questions
& Feedback
About
Death and the Grieving Process
~
I read somewhere on a flyer that your son’s death
was a blessing or something like that. I think you wrote
it was the best thing that ever happened to you, isn’t
that just something you tell yourself to avoid the truth?
Katrinka
Helena: I understand that sounds extreme
and I have learned after talking to other parents who lost
a child that I am “too much” for some of them,
too radical or too weird. Embracing death and celebrating
life? How can she even have such a title on a seminar?
But if you want to talk about truth…the truth is that
many of the discoveries that I made (and continue to make)
in my inner process following my son’s death were
a complete surprise to me. I did not plan, hope, look for
or try to have an awakening or struggle to find a spiritual
gift or blessing.
I was just completely broken in a thousand pieces and I
had no clue what to do, so I sat there and watched my body
breathe, for months and months. I had no willpower to try
to “get over” or “deal with” any
of the intense emotions that were flooding my system in
waves.
As I witnessed and just stayed present in the moment, innocent
like a child, story after story was peeled off and the truth…”The
Truth”…was that in many moments I had to admit
that I had never felt better in my life. I had to admit
I was tingling from head to toe with love, bliss and ecstasy.
I had to admit I did feel a higher, loving purpose that
had been living my son and is now living me. (It always
had but now I could actually know it for real.)
Again and again my mind would present horrible thoughts
to me:
-It is your fault he died, because you were a bad mom, that’s
why he did drugs and died!
-Why did you have another baby, you should just give her
up for adoption right now, she will be better off that way!
-My life has been ruined; I will never know the kind of
love Jon and I shared!
-I want to die, this is too much, I can’t handle it,
I need to kill myself!
Sometimes it would be the stories of other people:
-Losing a child is the worst thing that can ever happen
to you! Especially a mother losing a son!
-One never gets over something so tragic!
Over and over for years when I inquired into what was really
true, those stories weren’t. Like when Katie (Byron
Katie, creator of the Work) asks: “Do you really want
to know the truth?” Not on one single occasion could
I find anything real or solid in the negative horror stories,
when I was really honest and present in my heart. I have
been opened to love beyond reason and that is the truth.
I don’t know why I was blessed to have this experience
when many other people in loss do experience it as a living
hell, I suppose my twenty years of meditation experience
paid off, that I did have the ability to look within, be
in the inner space and just stay in the moment. If I were
to have been caught and stayed in the stories in my head
I would probably have killed myself.
I was in hell too, a lot, it wasn’t a walk in the
park, if you read my book you’ll see that I had all
the dark, overwhelming, excruciating emotions that everyone
else experiences who lose a dear one. I was blessed to find
a way of inner alchemy that ultimately awakened me to see
that, in a way, my son’s death was a blessing. It
emerged spontaneously from within, it is not something “I
am telling myself” or try to hold onto to. My son’s
death is also the worst thing that ever happened to me.
Through my son’s death the awakening I had longed
for my whole life just happened on it’s own. Is it
worth the price? Not a day goes by without me wishing I
could have him back, he was a precious, precious gem and
we were very close, but we don’t get to chose what
attachments will be taken away from us, they leave when
we are ready to have our heart broken. Have you noticed?
~
I recently lost my daughter in a car accident and a friend
told me you used “The Work” a lot after your
son died. I don’t understand how “The Work”
could help with grief or the longing to get your only child
back?!
Peter
Helena:
It doesn’t really and I did not use The Work at all
for the first year and a half after my son’s death.
The Work (a process where you ask 4 questions, such as:
Is it true? Can you absolutely know it is true? to investigate
stressful thoughts) is not a process for trying to “mindfuck”
yourself out of your true emotions or question actual events
that has taken place. (Ultimately you could of course question
the solidness and absoluteness of anything.)
The Work is for inquiring into our interpretations and stories
about events that take place. “My daughter’s
body is dead and I am in deep pain.” There is absolutely
nothing to question about that, it is your reality in this
moment. Let it be as it is, allow the grief and the sobbing,
grief is a heart opening, natural process, that will help
you heal and nothing to get rid of.
Later, as the most intense fire of grief has faded you can
use “The Work” and begin to investigate thoughts
and concepts that cause you stress.
“Grief is bad and I should get over this.”
“I should have shown my love more when she was alive.”
“I should have stopped her from driving in the snow.”
“My daughter died too young, she should still be here.”
Katie says: “When someone is in pain, you don’t
ask them questions, you give them what they need.”
As I stayed present to the reality in my broken, wide open
heart, stayed present in love/ grief, pain/bliss, longing/fulfillment,
helplessness/surrender and it was a beautiful, all-consuming
process. Later I did “The Work” and cleaned
out the last stories around my son’s death. Follow
your own timing and do what feels true to you.
~
When I did the Fire of Longing meditation for the first
time, it was so painful. It was excruciating to pull my
energy back from the person I was longing for and just focus
on the energy of the longing itself. Will it always be this
painful?
Margret
(In
the Fire of Longing meditation you focus first on a person
you miss and long for, which could be a deceased loved one,
the perfect partner who never seem to show up or someone
that is in your life that you long to experience more love
with. The next step is to let go of the form you long for
and focus on the energy of the longing itself, letting the
fire of longing fill you. )
Helena:
No, it should get easier, more soft and flowing as you keep
practicing. Over time, I think you will love the practice
because it opens you for a deeper, richer flow of love.
The pain you felt is your heart breaking/opening into a
larger flow of love, to love beyond form.
All our life we focus our attention on the outer forms of
others, projecting our love out to them. When we do the
letting-go-of-form practice it feels like we abandon and
stop loving these people, but quite the opposite is true.
You can love them even more deeply, in a more pure way,
when you begin to pull back those energetic threads of attachment
and focus on the essence of love rather than the form of
the person. My son, my husband, my home, my best friend,
those are all big attachments and it will feel unusual at
first to loosen them up.
His holiness the Dalai Lama has said that one goal of our
spiritual practices is to feel equally attracted to all
people. I am assuming he is not talking about sexual attraction,
but that an open, compassionate heart will extend love equally
to all living beings.
Longing is a natural essence in our heart center and when
we can focus on the longing, itself it becomes an opening
to God. So let the fire of longing burn its way through
your heart and dance with it, express it in all its fullness,
even the sweet torture of surrender. It is such a feminine
way to presence in the moment, to just open to the pure
energy of longing and express it, that practice brings us
to an intense state of devotion, devotion to all that is
sacred.
Often we neglect our longing because we think it pointless
to long for stuff we can’t get or for people who are
dead, missing that the point is not whether or not we get
what we long for but that we allow that open heart and beautiful
vibration to fill us and pour out to the universe.
About
the Fire of Love Teaching & Divine Passion & The
Temple Practices for Women
~
I am celibate and going through the Twelve Steps program
for my sexual/relationship addiction. I just feel so down,
empty and lonely and without any sexual energy at all. The
women in my group say that they have healed their addiction
and now have healthy sex with their partners, they enjoy
it, but it feels kind of dry and without excitement. I doubt
this whole process right now; it doesn’t seem worth
it to go through all this. Any guidance would be appreciated.
Susan
Helena:
You are settling into a warmer, more still energy as a woman,
a deeper resting in love, and yes, it feels less exiting
than playing the field or having sex that arises from sexual
excitement. If you simply replace addictive sex with many
partners to addictive sex with one partner it will feel
kind of dry. The inner shift must happen.
The opportunity for you is to open to a whole new realm
of experience in sex. I don’t feel like I have sex
anymore, I have whole body/heart immersions in absolute
divine golden passion with my beloved…or something
along those lines. It is not sex, like I used to have it,
even though if you would put a camera in my bedroom it would
look like we are having normal sex, the physical actions
are the same but the inner space and the energy from which
the physical merging is created is whole new, deeper realm.
To shift into divine lovemaking you need to let the old
sex drive die and it sounds like that is happening for you.
It is beautiful! Let it die out and make room for a deeper
layer of divine passion to flow through your body. And yes,
it will feel lonely and depressing at first to not invest
energy into your old games with men.
Stay with it, keep opening up through the Twelve Steps,
and slowly the empty space will being to fill with your
own essence and you will being to notice a new peace permeating
the space.
In the loneliness, put one hand on your uterus and one hand
on your heart center, letting a healing warm energy flow
into them, clearing the old sex obsession and opening the
space for a softer more loving feminine essence and passion
to flow up. In it’s own time, it will come. Please
don’t give up, you are in a prefect, beautiful place
of healing, breathe with all the emotions that come up and
keep opening your heart.
~
How do you hold onto the passion in a relationship, so that
it doesn’t die?
Naranja
Helena:
Don’t hold onto it; let it die when it dies. And stay
in the present moment and be open for a new wave of divine
passion to flow through and take over you.
Holding on to, attaching, to something creates a tension
and strangles the life right out of it. And that is certainly
true for passion (I am assuming you are talking about sexual,
physical passion), you need to let it go completely when
it is not there, not having a single thought in your head
about sex, like you never were to have sex again. Stay in
the innocent consciousness of the body and be open to another
wave to of passion to be reborn.
In our sexually obsessed culture there is such pressure
to always have good sex and always be horny and do it often.
We get pretty desperate to keep the little horny, exiting
feeling going, using sex toys and fantasy games. Meanwhile
completely overlooking and missing a passion so deep and
raw that it may scare us.
Have you ever abandoned yourself completely to something
you could not control while making love? Letting something
larger than your small self be in charge?
When we begin to move into that kind of love making, being
utterly naked in the heart and authentic in the moment,
not knowing “how to do it,” then we become vehicles
for a passion that never dies. It may leave for a while
once it is done with you, but it doesn’t disappear,
it comes back even stronger and more beautiful. And a deeper
physical urge will be felt; like you could eat your partner
alive so deep is your desire for them, which emanates from
your very core and not so much from a genital release place.
The inner feminine and masculine energies are intensely
longing to merge with each other.
If we stay more on the surface and have sex instead of making
divine love, eventually, over time the sex drive will get
dull. You will get bored with your partner because small
self-sex excitement can only take you so far. Some people
split up at that point, have affairs or you have an opportunity
to shift into a completely new level with your partner.
Christoffer and I learn so much from the ocean and the dolphins,
we just recently had a chance to return for a week to Hawaii,
without Leah. Christoffer came up with this ocean breathing
practice, exhaling as the wave crashes onto shore and inhaling
as it leaves, then he added that we bring the ocean waves
all the way into our bodies with the breath. We ended up
with such waves of intense passion I felt I had never desired
him as much in all our years together! Unfortunately we
couldn’t quite share it since we were on a public
beach; that is the only major drawback with divine passion,
it comes at very inconvenient moments sometimes. And other
times when the kids are finally asleep and the candles lit
it may not be there at all!
For the woman it is important to feel that you are not “breathing
down her neck” all the time, especially if you have
children. If the man is trying to “hold onto”
the passion and try to make sex happen a lot, it will just
feel as one more chore to her. Give both of you some energetic
space and trust that even more deep levels of passion will
keep unfolding between you, if your relationship is “right”
and you do have a genuine, real love for each other.
Women will sooner feel unfulfilled and get tired of surface,
genital sex than men (especially peri-menopausal and menopausal
women, we just can’t take any bullshit anymore!) She
will long for something deeper, more love focused that will
satisfy her on a heart/spiritual level, not just give her
good physical orgasms. If she doesn’t know how to
create anything different and her man stays in the same
shallow place, she will “loose her sex drive.”
She may get some of the hormone high back with drug therapy,
but then the real issue is not addressed.
So if your woman is over forty and starting to get pissed
off a lot and refuses sex, she is asking you as a man to
expand, reach into new places within yourself and take her
on in a completely new way. She is longing for you to embrace
all of her in a courageous way, the bitch and Kali energy
as well. The man needs to get really present with the feminine
and know that it shifts in every moment, what felt good
a minute ago or last time we made love may feel totally
off today. Watch your woman and notice what opens her and
notice what closes her energy flow. Be brave, go with it
in the moment.
Sometimes women get scared of their own inner power and
increased sexual passion that emerges in the menopause process
and shut down because of that. There is also an increased
sensitivity to everything so making love, having someone
enter your body, is such a big deal and it needs to feel
absolutely right and nourishing and if it is not, she is
just not willing to do it anymore. She will have a better
time making love to the flowers in the garden, giggling
with the grandkids or masturbating.
~
I am reading the Fire of Love book and I love it, but…how
do you see the divine in your partner? After 13 years of
marriage it just feels so hard to see the divine on a daily
basis.
Madeleine
Helena: I know, I know, I am having a very
hard time with that today also! Today I can just see an
annoying, square, pushy guy and I don’t like him!
So I am practicing the Separating into Oneness (in chapter
3)…just letting him go and pulling my focus and attention
back within myself, connecting with the divine within
myself. Breathing deep. Staying in my own business and letting
him be as he is.
Living in divine love a daily practice in shifting your
focus, you need to do several “quickies” a day.
Take a few moments here and there to return to the divine
within and practice looking out at the world and your partner
from that place. It may take some time and effort to shift
the place you are looking out from within, we get stuck
in habits and familiarity, especially after 13 years together.
Christoffer and I had the advantage of practicing this teaching
from the beginning of our relationship, but that doesn’t
mean you can’t do it. If an awakening into our own
true nature can occur at any time, we can certainly create
that shift in our relationship at any time.
Continue doing all the practices in the book, it is not
enough to only read about divine love, over time they open
up and ground you in a new reality where you can more easily
return to truth, clarity and the freshness of the moment
if you get lost or feel stuck in old relationship patterns.
Practice pretending that this is the first time you meet
this man, the first time you have dinner together, the first
time you make love, the first time you ever talk about a
certain issue…treat him like you did when you were
dating: like a free, unique, beautiful man. Take your leash
off him.
Letting something go (a conflict or issue) and then starting
over, completely from scratch with a beginners mind is a
wonderful practice when you feel weighed down by failure
and hurt. We did a mistake, we fucked up, let’s just
start over, letting the past moments of conflict and struggle
go.
Also all the practices around death (chapter 9) are powerful
for seeing your partner’s deeper gifts and returning
to the present moment.
~
What do you feel is the most important ingredient in a really
true, loving relationship?
Daniel
Helena:
I don’t know if there is one, single thing I could
point out. Something I have been noticing and feeling into
lately is that the relationships around me that I feel are
healthy and happy have one thing in common. The couples
are willing to give everything for love, to “go for
broke” as Stephen and Ondrea Levine says. To give
up being right and keeping an image of perfection and to
just allow love to be in charge. To just be madly, deeply,
truly crazy about each other, just because it is fun!
Those couples are willing to madly adore each other, to
hold nothing back and just see their partner as “the
best thing since sliced bread,” the most beautiful,
amazing, incredible man/woman on this planet. They don’t
see their relationship as a business bargain, where you
negotiate needs and make agreements. They don’t hold
off, waiting for the other to love them first or love them
more, they have the guts to go for love, now!
They see and understand how precious it is to have met someone
who they can share love and passion with and they allow
themselves to revel in it, to celebrate it. Fully knowing
that their partner is not perfect, because noone is, seeing
their flaws and shortcomings they choose to love fully anyway.
Kind of like a crazy, Rumi-inspired intoxication…
Of course then they next question is always, well how do
I do that? How do I get intoxicated with love?
There needs to be a willingness, an openness toward something
larger than your own limited identity. And you need to have
the courage to be vulnerable and perhaps a little uncomfortable
as you venture into a new area of self expression. Get out
of your lazy chair and your lazy attitude towards your relationship,
give a little! (Or a lot!)
You need to give space for divine love, enter the practice
like you would a daily meditation or prayer practice, except
now the focus of the practice is madly loving your partner.
Some rose petals, Rumi or Rilke poems, red wine, chocolate,
lit candles and massage oil can go a long way…pretend
you are in a Temple and your partner is a living incarnation
of a Temple God/Goddess and shower them with your love and
devotion. Dance together, dance for each other, pray to
each other, create your own love poems for each other, whisper
everything you love and adore them for…
Take at least an hour a week of devotional temple time with
each other. Christoffer and I take turns creating a sacred
space for each other (after Leah is in bed) and be the temple
initiator. We have so much fun coming up with new ways to
surprise, pleasure and love each other. It completely shifts
the focus from the daily responsibilities of work, service
and being parents, an hour or two of temple time feels like
a long vacation, and it really helps keeping our relationship
and family strong and loving.
Just found a David Deida quote that I love:
“Unguard your heart, over and over, even when you
don’t want to – especially when you don’t
want to. Continue practicing many short moments of total
surrender.”
~
Can you suggest some Sacred Love Practices I can surprise
my wife with?
Bill
Helena:
Oh, yeah, I’d love to do that! Some ideas:
•
Sensual, non-sexual massage
• Sexual massage, following her directions exactly
• Transforming your bedroom into a temple; spread
rose petals all over the floor and light a million candles,
lead her in blindfolded and then…
• Make or buy a delicious dinner and then slowly feed
her.
• Initiate a poetry reading evening in your garden/bathtub/hot
tub/bed
• Sit down in silence with eye contact and take turns
sharing the deeper gifts you see in each other
• Do any of the Fire of Love-practices together
• Give her an hour of unlimited sharing time, to speak
all the things she would like you to hear (making sure you
can actually hear and receive them)
• Hire a house cleaner and let her come home to a
clean house
• Paint her body with body paint while you tell her
everything you see that is beautiful
• Give soft healing with your hands, gently laying
a hand on her womb/yoni or breasts and just let them rest
there in love and presence
• Tune into what your woman loves and create something
around that; take her to an art show, botanical garden,
opera, wine tasting or…
• Take her on a “tantric” shopping experience
(you look for hours without buying), where she tries on
beautiful clothes that you pick out for her. Give her an
abundance of compliments and then you don’t buy anything,
the gift is your loving attention and outrageous compliments.
(If you have a lot of money you can buy stuff too, but it
is not necessary.)
• Give her small, feminine and unexpected gifts, for
no reason at all.
Actually the Temple Manual is great for men, it is full
of sacred practices you could share with your woman and
it will give you a deeper understanding of what your woman
is longing for. For a woman the deepest felt things are
your true presence, time and energy and the fact that you
have been planning and putting some thought into creating
something beautiful for her. Your honest heart expression
will mean a lot more than stuff you buy (unless you are
married to someone like Carmela Soprano, haha).
And just to balance things: Women, you can use most things
on this list for your men and add one important practice
that most men loves: the practice of dressing up, dancing
and expressing Aphrodite for you man. See my article: “The
night I stripped for my husband.” Men love us showing
off our beauty and feminine softness, they are definitely
into visuals, so this could be the most appreciated gift
you could give your man.
Temple Feedback:
“Thank
you for Friday night. I read the Temple manual and feel
so grateful for it; the work you put into creating it, the
grace and empowering beauty it inspires. My husband skimmed
through it this morning and shared with me how impressed
he was and how he was able to be with himself as his "sexual"
mind was aroused, noticing that and then asking himself,
"What else, if anything, is there?" And he felt
the heart and depth of it. This is changing our relationship,
supporting us in opening to our god/goddess selves and sharing
that. We have been working with expanding our love and sexual
energy which has brought up shame and guilt, hurtful behavior
and deep ego unveiling.”
Danielle, California.
“Helena,
I feel so blessed to experience your gift, all the wisdom
and depth and love you brought…I can’t put it
into words…incredible appreciation.”
Tschai, California
“I
longed to be with women in a more sacred way. Temple offers
the presence and sacredness I desire as well as a supportive
group that allows exploration and growth. This is the dance
I have been craving…the dance of the sacred feminine…my
true nature.”
Deep Gratitude, Michelle, California
“Helena,
you created such an authentic and loving connection that
is incredibly transforming. I felt safety, trust, love and
strength at a level I have not felt before. It is a homecoming.
Heartfelt thanks.”
Margret, California
Feedback for the Fire of Love Book:
“Hello
Helena!
I just came back late last night from the East Coast, I
couldn't sleep, so I read from your book. I really resonate
with it and the place from which it was written. Thank you
for giving voice to the teachings so simply, clearly and
beautifully.
Loving you.”
Ursula, California
“You
did such an incredible job not only of healing your past
destructive behaviors, heart-opening losses and authenticity-reaching
heartaches, but also of making your experiences of the past
ten years boldly real, yet so deeply touching, my gratitude
cannot be adequately expressed.
I know what you have endured, as in many ways our lives
have followed a similar road. You may wish to look me up
via the Net "Anne Kaspar," and see the journey
I followed for many years.
Can just imagine how amazing Leah is and will always be.”
Blissed be, Annie, New Mexico
“I
haven’t even started reading the book and it seem
to radiate a healing energy from where it is standing on
my kitchen counter with it’s flaming warm cover. Friends
that come over see it immediately, are pulled in like magnets
and begin reading…and then they are gone…I think
I bought the book for my friends.”
Sun hugs, Christina, Sweden
“I’ve
read a lot of book on relationships and spirituality and
this is the best one! It’s clear, simple message is
very personal, alive and so human. Couple’s who want
to use their relationship for awakening should leave this
book on their bedside table. To me the book is a direct
transmission from Divine Love.”
Brita from “Celebration of Being”, California
Back
to Articles List
|
