Life being a full-body-contact deal… from time to time, life can take us down.
Cue the list of serious issues that our survival brain is most likely to tag as if they were an immediate threat to our life… and thus catapult us into the Collapse Response: The death of a loved one, the loss of a job, relationship difficulties leading to separation/divorce, loss of physical abilities (e.g., the ability to walk) due to an accident, loss of the ability to see or hear, etc. due to a worsening chronic disease or just old age, receiving a diagnosis of cancer or other terminal disease, etc. There are more, but this is enough.
For many this list, just by itself, is depressing. It may seem unimaginable that we could experience profound resilience after losing the use of our legs in a car accident. So too, when a loved one dies (whether parent, mentor, friend, partner, child) we may not be able to imagine how we will now go on.
This is not the only way people respond to loss – some experience the deep gifts they have received from those who have passed as a fullness... from which they are already sharing with others - and even the world.
But loss that stops us in our tracks, at least for a while… that too makes sense.
Doesn’t that seem right? Who would dispute that?
Surely our life will change when we can no longer call or visit our loved one.
Surely, upon their death, there is an almost physical sensation of an awful tearing of the emotional-energetic bonds we felt with them.
Surely, for a while there is some level of grief can be profound. They are part of being human.
But what if these utterly understandable feelings and experiences are intensified by the Collapse Response? What are we looking at then?