Where my journey began: The power of thought

Towards the end of 2018, my beautiful Mum was clearly letting go of life, or life was letting go of her. Either way, it felt somehow very natural and definitely unchangeable. I saw then that we can't control what happens in life and that trying to leads to our suffering.

My realisations during this experience were life changing for me and worth sharing, in the hope that this may help someone else from suffering unnecessarily:

Thoughts

As I sat with Mum in the last few weeks of her life, I distinctly remember realising that how I chose to think about the situation directly influenced my feelings. If I felt it wasn't fair, or that I was being cheated too early, or that it was just too sad; I felt unfairly done by, cheated and sad.

Conversely, if I chose to recognise that life and death are both gifts that operate according to their own timing (without our influence), or that I was extremely lucky to have had my Mum close (in all senses), or that I could still feel happy about her and our relationship despite the situation; I felt peaceful, grateful and happy in that moment.

This natural realisation helped me to make the most of the time we had left together and feel much happier about life after she'd died.

I have since learnt that this is because of the power of thought. We all have thoughts coming and going all the time, but this is natural (and harmless) for all human beings. Most significantly, however, is the fact that thoughts have power only if we focus on them.

Most of the thoughts that come and go are not important and they certainly don't have meaning that we need to consider or analyse. Knowing this can lighten the load of our busy intellect, because we don't need to spend time and effort on the unhelpful thoughts that come, we can let them go by focussing our attention on the helpful, better feeling thoughts, or no thought. This is what I did (unwittingly!) during the period when my Mum was dying.

I remember feeling much more at peace with losing this most significant person than I would have ever anticipated. If I can experience this level of peace during the death of someone so important, others can too.

Perhaps even more impact can be felt from this understanding, however, if it helps us to live with less fear of what might happen in the future. Simply put, we can relax and enjoy life, knowing that we can be ok with whatever happens next. If we remain mindful that the contents of the thoughts that come to mind are not significant or meaningful, we can simply observe the thoughts without attachment and allow them to flow through us with ease. We don't need to scare ourselves by believing everything we think!

To be clear, it's not about avoiding or trying to stop certain thoughts or feelings. Rather, this is about recognising that the thoughts we give most attention to create our feelings in the moment, without changing what is happening externally. It wasn't about me trying to think positive thoughts, because thoughts come and go naturally. It was simply the recognition that where I focussed my energy (attention), impacted how I felt in the moment.

I will be sharing more on the Power of Thought in this blog, but this post is about how (& when) I first knowingly felt this for myself.

Acceptance

At the time, I remember feeling that my acceptance of what was happening was keeping me strong. I now believe that living life accepting each moment as it is, instead of how you would ideally like it to be, actually allows for a life of more ease in general. It's not about having strength to fight what life throws at you, it's about feeling ease, irrespective of what happens in life.

The distinction comes, I think, from appreciating that life is a miraculous gift, but it is also a mystery and we simply don't know what will happen next, and, most importantly, being okay with this!

Presence

I decided to use our precious time together wisely, bringing my full presence and love to the woman who had been my biggest support and influence in life.

My calm and loving presence impacted Mum palpably (the carers said how much more settled she was during her personal care when I was there) and the room felt full of love & also very natural and calm. This surprised me and was dramatically different from how I expected it to be with such a significant loss.

If I'd been stewing in my own anger and sadness, I believe that this experience would have been more unpleasant. Calm presence, accepting the moment as it is, and choosing the better-feeling thoughts that occur in honour of that acceptance makes you feel better, but also influences others around you.

I learnt so much in that time about life, love, the power of our thoughts and (real) presence. 

Love

Love was the overriding force during this difficult life experience. It is easy (in life) to get caught up in how things are not unfolding as we'd hoped and expected, but instead of concerning myself with those thoughts, I chose to use the time with her to relax in this feeling of love, respect and gratitude for her and our great relationship.

I love this quote by Rumi, the mystic & poet that said:

'Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes.

Because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation.' 

And now...

Mum died over 3 years ago and I've recently realised that I don't miss her in the normal, physical sense of the word, because I don't feel she is missing from my life. I still love her and think of her often and I feel her in my heart, which was something I found myself saying to her a lot in the last few weeks of her life. It turns out that I was right, it really is about the feeling of her and not the physical presence of her that makes me happy.

Of course I would love her to be fully alive still, happily involved in our family life, but since this is not an option, I'll take the feeling of peace, love and gratitude that I have access to whenever I think about her.

With my love,

Suzie x