Growing through loss

When I heard the news of my friend’s son passing, it brought back the memories of the loss I have experienced two years prior. I remembered the horror, the desperation, feeling of everything being unfair, and helplessness… I could relate to her loss as an aunt who lost her nephew but I would never know how it might be for her as a mother. I went back to that deep emotional place and traced my steps back from the depth of the Ocean of Grievance towards the surface. During my experience, I managed to find my way up to the surface and learned to breathe again but I knew that I was no longer the person I was prior to the grief. I made a conscious decision at that moment to create a safe space without shame or guilt for her live through her own sadness. I did not to try to make her feel better. That was not the time. I knew that when you experience such a loss, the need is not to have someone to make you feel better but just to understand the depth and the dimension of the grief that you are going through…

I have done many grievance and transition coaching since then. I became very fluent in speaking grief and skilled to help people swim up the surface from the depths of the Ocean of Grief.

Tomorrow, we will celebrate Mother’s Day in the most countries around the world. I decided to offer this piece to all mothers and women who are experiencing grief relates to the motherhood. While some of the women have chosen to experience the motherhood in the terms of “normalcy and as expected” by defined through the cultures around the world, some of the women are contributing to the concept of motherhood by encountering inability to conceive or to carry the babies, or having to face with death of the child sometime after the birth.

If I could somehow elevate the ones who are having such difficult experiences, up to the level of perception that reveals our efforts towards writing human history and our evolution, then one can understand that each and every act we do in this life is contributing to that history. If all of us have chosen to have the same experiences then we will miss the whole definition of the concept. In order to understand something fully we need to relate to it in every aspect and through every emotion, joy, happiness, bliss, grief, sadness and all. Therefore as hard as it is, some of us do need to teach the others how it is to lose a child or never being able to bare one. From that perspective healing can begin…

During the grievance coaching I often offer two main things, one is to learn to have respect to the choices of other human beings, regardless of what they are and on the surface whether they look like a choice or not such as having a terminal illness. And the second one is to understand the experience from the altitude of heaven not from the farsighted experience of life. Because there are some things look very different when one gets up to that high altitude. I also offer a lot of safe space for the client to experience the feelings of shame, helplessness, guilt and whatever is raising the surface until they fulfill their purpose in one’s growth.

Today, as part of my offering with this blog, I wanted to offer these techniques who are enduring the grief related to motherhood. My prayer is to offer some relief to those who are growing through grief as it is one of the most challenging one to my experience.

May your Mother’s day be blessed, enriched and filled with love no matter what your relationship to concept of the motherhood is.

Namaste,

PS: I am offering special price for Grievance Coaching 5 Pack to honor Mother’s Day until June 15, 2015. During the Grievance Coaching Sessions we will discuss the object of grief, how it relates to your life and how it serves to your growth. In addition we will discuss how you learn to relate to your life after such a major loss as a brand new person.

Tijen Genco, PCC, MS, MBB

Genco Coaching

Executive and Life Coach