Tag Archives: healing

death, inspirational, relationships

Grief: accompanying others

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If I have only one line to say when someone just recently lost a loved one, its hard to pick the best. I know that to me most of the things people said to me when I lost my daughter meant they were wordless so whatever came from their mouths wasn’t about the worlds, but about the empathy and about the inability to find the right words. I know that because I feel the same when I see someone who has just lost their dear ones.

What did I do to cope? I just let it all come in, welcomed all feelings and emotions and rage and sadness to take over, yet remaining myself. I did feel like they would tear me apart from inside, and I felt physical, mental, spiritual pain 24 hours. Yet I trusted that I couldn’t do otherwise, I couldn’t hide it nor push it away, and so the only way was to accept them and know that they would become a part of me. Life was never going to be the same. I had been stamped with a stamp on the forehead that I thought would never touch me. Yet I embraced it as I embraced life itself. Because this was a part of me now and for ever. 

So what do I say? Allow whatever comes through you to happen. Just allow yourself to feel all those feelings in a conscious and deep way. Theres no other way out. It made me weak forever, and in that weakness I realized my infinite strength. I did not succumb to those so that means I survived. And If I could survive the unsurvivable then that means that life does heal and there is nothing in the world that happens to those who are not ready. I saw this all as a blessing and was grateful for that pain, for that loss, for that falling apart. It felt as if my physical body was changing skin, my chest with a heavy emptiness, my heart physically broken. And in that void I realized God. And God chose me for this because I was strong inside and I could allow myself to be weak. And I breathed that all deeply in and out, not pushing it away by breathing shallowly or refusing to breath in, but by breathing in that pain deeper and deeper and deeper. That was the healing. And If I did it, then anyone can do it. Sinking sinking farther within with a conscious deep breath. Until the pain subsided and life went forth. ONLY at its due time. Without that pause, that lingering in the void, the feelings can trap us. Life will move again around other things – meaningless they might seem then – and joy will reign again, after the healing has happened. 

And what about what others say? mostly they will say the wrong things. Just empathize with them. Your heart is broken and that is why it is now bigger and full of kindness, and others cannot imagine that. And please remember that every person has their own way to grief and needs to be allowed to grief their own way. 

There was this one saying that really supported me all the way through:

“Let sorrowful longing dwell in your heart.
Never give up, never lose hope.
Allah says, “The broken ones are my beloved.”
Crush your heart. Be broken.
– Shaikh Abu Saeed Abil Kheir, aka Nobody, Son of Nobody.

In the pitch black darkness you can find a blinding light. It is not a light to be seen with the eyes, but it is the true light of the soul. 

Maybe this is my line. 

May we all find that light over and over again in all of our little or big darknesses, that is my prayer.

PS- mothers and family members around the world have started many different beautiful projects after the loss of a dear one. Check out Ben’s Bells, spreading kindness all over. 
And thanks to my dear sister Nirvair Kaur Khalsa from Tucson who told me that story and gifted me the beautiful book Tear Soup, which I highly recommend (and I keep some copies at home to gift in such cases)

– In service of the divine in all,
Sukhdev Kaur

 
conscious parenting, death, inspirational, trainings

On death and dying in life

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“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other—that man, that woman, that child is my brother or my sister.” – Mother Theresa

Sat nam dear family,
Last weekend in the Kundalini yoga teacher training level 1 I was sharing the teachings on death. A question came up for which I was not prepared and my answer was not very deep. Since then I want to elaborate more on my own experiences with death, and I take this opportunity to share it with all of you.

I die every day with every breath. Every night before going to bed, I prepare myself to die. I let go of every thing, every experience that happened in the day. I die when I allow these to take over: all my thoughts, all my praises, all my glory and my shame, all my errors and shortcomings, all my lessons to learn, all my attachments, all my ego, my greed, my anger and my desires. My limited self dies when I let go of these.

I died many times when as a young brave fearless woman committed many mistakes. I am forever thankful to my Guru for keeping me under his protection in these times. I died little deaths every day when I retreated from the world, either by disgust or by unconformity with this world, with the reality of how it is structured and the banality under which it runs. I die every moment I see injustice and all I can do is trust Guru takes care of it.

I grieve, oh I grieve for that comfort zone, for that ignorance which is sweet and does not question anything. I grief and remember how life was so easy being unconscious. When I wouldn’t challenge myself every day to become a better person. When I would just be a passive animal wandering in the earth without purpose nor connection to the me within me.

I died along with my precious daughter Vida, the moment she left her body as a newborn, far away from me. Oh how I wandered around those blue ethers, acquired a wisdom which is deeper than the deepest ocean. I wandered like a ghost around her memory, around my empty hands and empty womb, around those moments of bliss she brought me. I wandered and found God, Brahm himself, who told me I should come back and live again in this world, celebrate her memory and the futility of life itself, attaching myself a the feet of the Guru where all is forgiven. In every cell of mine, through deep deep pain, I was reshaped. Oh it hurt. Every single cell hurt more than death itself. Every single cell shook and vibrated with an unknown caliber to me. I was reborn into this life, back from where I was left, with a new mission, with a deeper connection to God.

And I forgot. I forgot all these times I died and my mind wandered away with my ego. I did not honour the beauty and the effort of all these beings who helped me die in my limited being so I could live in my limitless self! I was angry to anger itself for ripping me off my most profound experience within this lifetime.

So yes, I have died. I have died and keep on dying until I truly and infinitely die in my ego, die in my selfishness, die in this time and space. I die with every challenge and I am grateful for each one of these deaths. For when I truly go, I will already know the path and will not need to kill each of these inner monsters in those three seconds, when the film of life runs through my eyes.

Yes I die. I die every time I am grateful. I die when I let go of my limitations. I reform myself again and again and again every time I take on a challenge and turn it towards God, coming out victorious in my soul, in my heart and in my infinity.

For peace is found at the end of the path, not at the beginning. To begin with, we need to work, work, work, sweat from work so that we can liberate others with us, when the time comes.

Jinee Naam dhiaaiaa gae masakat ghaal, Naanak te mukh ujlee ketii chhuti naal. 

In humble gratitude to the divine in all,
Sukhdev Kaur

conscious parenting, inspirational

Those first three years…

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Being a mother is one of the greatest gifts I have ever come to experience. Life has a “before”, and an “after”, never ever will life be the same than after giving birth.

Building a strong foundation for my child is the most important thing in my life the first three years of his life (and beyond of course). Learning to listen to his cues, and being there for him to feel safe 24/7 is just one of the greatest sacrifices and blessings as a mother (my husband would also agree). It does mean that many opportunities in the professional life, in the ‘fun’ life, in the holiday life have to either be dropped or wait. I am very proud to say that I’m there for my child any time he needs me. This strong relationship and building of foundation starts with a strong and loving breastfeeding relationship. I can see already the wonderful results of breastfeeding my 2.2 yr old. Also, I know that the sacrifice I made of staying at home with him (and still for one more year at least) has helped me set the priorities in my life, and reassures me that I have indeed given 200% of me to him. I won’t regret any decision I made now, because I have had the opportunity to enjoy him to the max.
There are some mothers whose intuition points the same way. Yet leaving a job is not easy. Money wise and etc. so many fears, habits, comforts to confront. Yet I would say- trust your intuition and drop those fears. Money will come, and if you need to drop some other things, like belongings and such, it’s a big big energetic cleansing. After all, if you see the big picture, what are all those houses going to serve you after you leave this world? It’s the values, the goodness, the service you bring to others that will leave a living legacy of you. We spend so much time of our lives working our energies off to get the property so we are prisoners in our own homes full of loans. We miss the opportunity to spend those precious moments with our loved ones for a set of unbalanced priorities. Yes, having a roof and a place of your own is important, but never as important as to miss those moments with your children. Those first three years. It’s gold! It’s the most beautiful, pure diamonds, because those smiles, those jumps, those laughs, and those healing kisses will become their consciousness. That will stay forever with them. The house can be burnt or sold, but those healing kisses will resonate even then. When your time comes, you will depart in complete contentment and peace.

So yes, not all experiences in life will be beautiful. Most will be challenging. But when you build up your strength of heart, and your soul-intuition (intuition is very different than the voice of your ego-mind), you will live in the moment without judgement, in constant forgiveness and compassion, so that every challenge and accident will become the greatest learning and healing. And by the way, breastfeeding is one of the biggest healing opportunities we have as mothers- it is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to heal the destiny of our children, specially if they had a traumatic birth, and also to build that strong connection with their own infinite.

To finish this post, I want to share with you Yogi Bhajan’s Five Forgivenesses:

– forgive God that he separated you from himself and created you as a creature
– forgive your destiny that it is as it is
– forgive the distance and the environment which are always challenging and the cause and effect which are happening
– forgive your capacity, your ability, your duality and your divinity
– forgive yourself that you have to go through it. That is most important.

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Your child wants you to be present

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Sat nam dear family,
I have been lately so concerned on getting Theo to sleep well, trying to analyse different methods for baby sleep (cry it out, no-cry sleep solution, all kinds of advice..) without really feeling that any of these is the one that works for us (didnt even feel like trying out any). It has been really hard to get him to sleep lately, taking over an hour and he’s whining, eventually crying…
Today I found the key. 
He is sound asleep after 20 minutes of pure pleasure.
What I did?
I breathed differently, and it all changed. I didnt feel anymore like I wanted to escape from there, I was present with Theo and enjoyed putting him to sleep, and I was there voluntarily instead of feeling like dragged in to do it. And I felt intuitive and creative enough to make up a new fun sleep routine which we both enjoyed.  
This new routine was: go to bed, dim the lights, sing our lullaby (while continuing with the rest until he sleeps) change diapers, massage with lavender oil, put pijamas on, (allow him to be and move while doing all this, all this time I was consciously expanding and coming down into my grounds mentally and physically), breastfeed, after a while he didnt want to breastfeed anymore, sat up and played a little bit (and I allowed it calmly which was something I didnt do before, and it was great – he actually always sees and tries to reach the water bottle so I decided we “put the bottle to sleep” together), then I laid him on the bed and pat him from head down to his toes while singing for a good 3 minutes (not just 5 times… to let his energy down, and I saw him start to calm down), and breastfeed again, this time after a bit of kicking and moving around he settled down calmly and sound asleep after a few minutes.
It was all a combination of what I did physically and mostly what I did energetically. I changed my feeling of “wanting to be somewhere else” (having 10s other things to do waiting for me: emails, work, dinner…) into choosing to be in the moment with him and enjoy it. That was it. That was the golden key which I had been looking for! 
Your baby wants you to be present. All babies need physical contact and all are fighting to get it, thats why they wake up at night, want to be carried and held, play with you, sleep close to you. Since our minds are somewhere else, we are not fully present with our children they get our presence only partially, and they keep yearning for more. The moment you start giving (constantly) full presence, the less your baby will be needy for you and the less you will feel dragged into the parenthood and everyday duties. When we give only partial presence to our babies (and also to husband, even to ourselves!) they become needy, whiny and grumpy. We are actually teaching them that in life, you can only give partial attention and presence to others, so they start acting the same way. The challenge lies in accepting and living the full presence of oneself, which at the beginning can be scary (am I really that great and divine? can I really just be and not do-do-do all the time?), and as we start expanding that awareness more and more into every day, into each breath, the simpler all gets.
As easy as a baby sleeping (parents will recognise the paradox in this)
The breath that helped me was to inhale while expanding into myself (if visualizing my lungs and chest grow sideways, not vertically), and exhaling coming back inside (like a reverse fountain, downwards and into my core/ground, not exhaling my soul out and up away from my body). Hard the first few times, but I started to enjoy it more and more and Im sure this is something that will stick to me for the rest of my life.

The hardest practice is not to run away. Can you BE while doing all the things you do? Can you dedicate your life to being present, regardless of where, what or how you are? 
Such is my prayer that you and I live in constant applied awareness
In humble service,
Sukhdev K