10/26/2013 0 Comments The Nature of Death, Dying, and the Afterlife - Why we don't need to be afraid. I am offering this post today in hopes of helping to alleviate some of the fear surrounding these topics. The views I share here are a reflection of my own beliefs resulting from the evolution and learning that I have done over the years regarding the subject. As I continue to grow, learn, and evolve, so too will my understanding of death, dying, and the afterlife, but this is where I am today. I offer this to you in an effort to convey a different perspective than the one that is usually shared. You will also notice that I use the terms "God", "Divine", and "Source" interchangably as I see them all as only different interpretations of the same energy form!
Death Death. For many of us, this is one of the scariest words in the world. Why? Is it because of the loss of control it represents? The supposed finality? Fear of the unknown or of what may be waiting for us after the fact? The fear of the pain and suffering that is often a part of the dying process? The sadness that we know is accompanied by the loss of a loved one? All of the above? Most likely it's a little bit of all these things. We live in a culture that is riddled with the perception that death is some ENEMY to battle, thwart or defeat, but nothing could actually be further from the truth! In living, the most NATURAL thing in life is death! Living organisms die. All of them. Things die everywhere. Every moment. No exceptions. Be agreeing to live, we have also agreed that we will die. Why then, have we in the West become so terrified of such a normal process? Allopathic medicine, religion, politics, media. Fear is a big industry. Spiritual people all across our planet have known forever that death was not an ending or some unnatural force, but instead a changing of forms. An evolution of sorts for the spirit. Source perceives death as simply as it perceives the wind blowing or a baby smiling. It is OUR narrow human context that has related death to being a punishment, or to being some call home from a greedy deity who controls us and decides who lives or dies. We exert much more control over our circumstances than we are led to believe. In my opinion, we make that choice completely within our own power . . . Dying I believe that we all CHOOSE our own deaths ourselves! There! I SAID it! I believe that when we die, it is something that we have orchestrated and executed (no pun intended) within our own spiritual power, and NOT in some plan that we have devised before birth and carried out in rote, either. No. I believe that we choose to leave our bodies and return to our most natural state (spirit / energy) for many reasons that are as numerous and varied as our individual earthly personalities are. I have witnessed many passings over the years involving both people and animals where the pattern leading up to the death is very obvious - and it is NOT always for some negative and terrible reason. As I said, the Divine sees death as just one of many ways to accomplish any number of outcomes. It holds no stigma with death and will assist us in making our transition whenever we require to do so. I know this with total certainty in my life. No, I have not had a near-death or out-of-body experience within this lifetime, but I have experienced something that led me to the same conclusions as many of those who have. Quite a few years ago, I was in a place where the sadness of the world was weighing heavily on me and I was feeling very dark. My personal life was fine and it was something much more collective in nature than personal. I was definitely not suicidal in that regard, but I thought constantly about the cruelty and horrors of what we humans do to ourselves on our planet and if God would have opened up a doorway to the otherside right in front of me, I would have stepped through without any hesitation at all. One day I was standing outside and thinking about how heavy the burden of life here was and a clear, crisp voice cut through my melancholy with the words "You better stop before you think yourself out!". I INSTANTLY had an understanding of what this meant! I had never considered this idea before! In fact, up until that moment I also bought into the idea that we plan our lives out previously to coming here. What I realized was that through my thoughts and my focus, I was inadvertantly bringing myself closer and closer to exiting my body and my life permanently. I was CHOOSING! I was in control and I had not even known it. I am postitive that if I had not heeded the warning I was given to change my thinking, I would have manifested for myself some terminal illness or met with some traumatic end. As you can see, I decided to persist - for awhile, anyways. Along with my own personal encounter with the nature of dying, I have seen the patterns that led up to many, many people and animals deaths. Not all were as negative as mine. Some are. I have also seen situations in which people have aspired to create change in the world with such zest and gusto that their deaths were the result. This takes place not because they have CONSCIOUSLY desired to bring about their death, but because in a universe where death is a neutral occurance, it just happened to be the most powerful and effective event to bring about the result they so desired. This is not a tragedy. It is simply the universe displaying it's connectivity. On the flipside, many beings will cause their deaths through their great sadness and unhappiness with themselves and their own lives. This is also NOT a tragedy. The only tragedy in these situations is that they felt they had to endure such sadness in their lives to begin with. Another aspect of death and dying that scares us is the fear that we will have to deal with pain and suffering in the time leading up to our deaths. No one likes the idea of suffering or of watching our loved ones having to suffer. Now THAT is scary! What I can offer to you in comfort about this is that I have witnessed firsthand that we exit our bodies before we leave them. When I was waiting at the bedside of a wonderful friend who was dying from end-stage Alzheimer's disease, her spirit appeared at the head of her bed. She looked so happy and when I told her that it was time for her to go and it was okay, she stated that she didn't have to go anywhere now because she felt better than she had in ages. I explained that this was due to the fact that she was outside of her body and recognizing the freedom of returning to the soul-form, but if she was to rejoin her body in an effort to remain in this life, she would be thrust back into the mental fog and loss of bodily control that had been the result of the disease on her body. I am not sure she was quite convinced at that time, but she did pass later that night. Our souls will also leave the body before encountering a trauma. That is why if you injure yourself or experience something very painful or terrifying, you may not remember it or feel like it happened to you - because in a way, it didn't. Once when my little dog was having a hypoglemic seizure and I was giving him a dose of sugar, I noticed that he had popped out of his body and was patiently waiting beside me. As he came out of the seizure, he disappeared to rejoin his body and on life went. Freedom from the bodily form is one of complete connection to the energy that we all originate from and is not a return to be feared by any means. It truly is heaven! Something else that seems to come up a lot in discussions concerning death and dying is the idea of dying alone. I can tell you that through my years of palliative work with both people and animals and my intuitive work, NO ONE dies alone. We are always attended by powerfully compassionate beings who are there to support us in the process. I have seen angels, guides, people, animals, and even the Being know to us as the "Grim Reaper" (who is NOT a malicious entity, by the way) that have all come to greet the person at their passing. Dying people will often stare off into space and many also mention seeing and communicating with long-passed friends or family as well, which is erroneously attributed to being a side effect of medication, but I can assure you, it is NOT. Please understand that they do not FORCE or coerce the dying individual to go against their will. They are only there to support the process, not to intervene. The Afterlife Ever since my earliest childhood, I have been aware of spirit and have never really doubted the existence of something continuing after this incarnation ends. I just know. I can give you lots of subjective information and countless personal anecdotes, but it really just comes down to each of our individual degrees of openness. We are ALL spirit comprised of the same Divine and universal spiritual-energy as each other and every other thing, but some of us choose to remain more open to the possiblities that brings up. As a consequence, that leaves those who are open more aware. It does not change the nature of who and what we really are, but it affects our ability to perceive it. There are so many examples of life after death and the impact that those visitations and messages have upon us. They comfort. They support us. Sometimes they even freak us out, but even then the point remains the same - WE CONTINUE ON PAST THE MOMENT OF PHYSICAL DEATH! I have shared my life with ghosts, spirits, and many other energies over the years and what they have all taught me is that there is no reason to harbour any fear! Our dimension, universe, realm - however you want to view it - is one based on love! We are Beings of love! Life equals love! Love is the formula for life! When we die, where we end up is a matter of personal belief. That belief may be accumulated through many lifetime experiences, or be more solidly rooted in the most currest one. Many cultures believe the state of our spirit during and immediately after passing is crucial to where we end up in our afterlife. I would also agree. I have seen many ghosts (sometimes referred to as "stuck", but in actuality, they CHOOSE to remain on our plane and could move on at any time they wish to) who do not make the crossing into the other realm of energy / vibration due to their own fears about doing so. They don't want to be punished. Well, who the heck does? The saddest part about that is that this is nothing more than a small, human-created belief designed to control our behaviours. God doesn't judge - only we do. With that being said, I have also communicated with ghosts who were perfectly aware that they could cross over at any time, but were staying out of a sense of obligation to a loved one. I saw this in a father who had commited suicide and wanted to "make it right" for his teen daughter, so he stayed. There are also ghosts who refuse to accept that their physical bodies have died. They too can choose to free themselves from this realm whenever they want to. When a spirit makes the crossing into the higher vibrational energy (whether sooner or later), it becomes aware of all of the aspects of it's life (lives, really) and how they relate to everything else. A sort of debriefing takes place. Healing happens. Punishment does NOT - unless that is what you expect to find for yourself there. The realm of spirit is one of energy and so what you intend is made manifest for you (as it also is here on a kind of lower vibrational scale) and it can be for you what you wish. It comes from you and YOU decide. Spirit is fluid, constantly in motion and responding to your beliefs. People are often confused about what spirit communication is like and if they have not recognized some dramatic event, assume they have never experienced it. Wrong! Spirit communication is way less Hollywood and way more community theatre! Spirit communication is generally simple and subtle. It CAN be delivered with a "bang", sure, but it is usually less extreme. A dream. A song. A "random" out of place thought. A breeze. Those are all avenues for spirit to get our attention. They are ALWAYS with us. Honestly, they are able to be CLOSER to us than they ever were in life, but we just don't notice them.The problem is that we are not usually looking, and if we are, we tend to dismiss it anyways. No wonder we are afraid. We are walking around on the earth with our eyes squeezed tightly shut and our hands behind our backs! THAT is the only REAL reason have for grief! We must choose to open our eyes and we will see we don't need to be afraid or feel alone! We never did because we never were! Well, I hope that this has helped to give you a glimpse into my life with death, dying, and the afterlife and that it has helped to dispell some of the more common reasons we hold onto our fears of them. If I have offered you any comfort, insight, or a perspective you may not have thought about before, than I have fulfilled my obligation to the urgings of spirit on the matter. Well, until they teach me something new, of course! Peace, joy, love, and light to you and may you live your life unafraid! Melinda! ^_^
0 Comments
10/23/2013 0 Comments You are your own miracles! If I were to ask you right now whether or not you believed in yourself, you would imagine that there would be a few different possible answers. In all actuality, there appears to me to be only one for everyone and it's an emphatic YES! This may seem to be untrue at first look, but when you stop and try to really be aware, it becomes clear.
In that small moment immediately after the question is posed to you, and before the subconscious mind reacts with some negative admonishment, that pure, REAL part of you answers with a resounding "YES!"! Our Souls OBVIOUSLY know that we are unlimited Beings and that we are capable of creating the most magnificent of lives for ourselves, but the problem is that we refuse to admit it! Why? Well, because the world we live in has convinced itself with it's outward turn that it is EXPERT at deciding what is and what is not possible. This is simply not true. Our world is shaped from the inside out, so every time we change a thought or shift perspective, we have already altered what is "possible"! What IF we actively chose to believe in ourselves? What would happen? Would our support systems fall away leaving us scrambling on our own? Would all of the things we grasp onto so tightly be torn away from us? Quite the contrary! When we can live our lives with the basic understanding and realization that we ARE amazing and that we DO have the ability to create wonderful and fantastical things, we will become our own MIRACLE MAKERS! The difference between SAYING that you believe in yourself and FEELING it is one of pure faith. What do YOU think you could achieve? Could you do ANYTHNG, or are there limitations you place on yourself based solely around what is "logical and rational"? Belief is really not rational nor logical - it just IS! I have never met Henry Ford, or Donald Trump, or Jay-Z, but I am willing to wager a guess that the only difference between them achieving their goals and you achieving yours is their unwavering faith in themselves to get there! Their BELIEF that the future was open to them and that THEY were the only deciding factor was the key! What is keeping you from sharing that level of faith in yourself? Just because you HAVEN'T had it happen yet, certainly doesn't mean you WON'T or CAN'T make it happen! The potential is YOURS to uncover! I believe in you - now it's YOUR turn! Today is as good a day as any to begin to view yourself as the limitless, miraculous, and DIVINE Being that you truly are, so . . . what is stopping you? Make a plan, SEE it happening, FEEL it done, and no matter what resistance you may encounter from your subconscious or from others around you for believing something that appears unbelievable, maintain your faith in an unwavering way that allows you to see yourself in the way that the Universe already DOES, and just remember how many things are acheived everyday that were at one time believed impossible! Peace, Love, Joy and all your dreams come true! Melinda! |
AuthorThis is my Blog! I also love to share my thoughts on Facebook, so if you enjoy my ramblings, feel free to connect with me there too! Archives
December 2015
CategoriesAll Acceptance Afterlife Belief Coping Death Dying Grief Healing Intuition Manifesting Miracles Self Improvement Self-improvement Soul Spirit |