
Dear kin,
This subject is strong for me in these times due to my own personal loss and where the world is at.
When I look at acute sensitivity and strong mental health issues, grief is more often than not so deeply intertwined it’s hard to know where to start from.
In researching mental health and different ways of viewing the named disorders, I have found over and over again that grief is never far behind and more often than not at the core of many of our wounds.
Grief is being experienced deeply and widely at the moment. When we lose our human rights, it’s a deeply felt loss. A loss we grieve and mourn for. Honestly, if I was a woman in Afghanistan right now, grief would be my closest and constant companion. The journey of grief includes all emotions, and yes rage has its rightful place within grief as well.
As I shared in my last post, grief came knocking at my door and already I feel the societal pressure due to me being a counsellor and having ‘the tools’. It’s assumed I should easily rise above it, see the good in it all and move on to being in a happier place.
This doesn’t make the journey, which is what grief is to me, any easier. The collective pressure is heavy. When I hear my mobile ring from someone I know, I can often hear in tone that the voice at the other end has a little expectation in it, hoping that I have bounced back and am fine now. As for most people, the subject is very uncomfortable.
Fortunately, I do have a few close people that understand that my grief is a journey and will take time to ease out and I am immensely grateful to each one of them for that support in just validating where I am at.
Otherwise, as I mentioned, there is an expectation for me with all my skills to be over by now. It’s not far off three months.
I remember my mother when she was alive telling me that when people are in grief they are very busy initially with the funeral and all the legal and paperwork to get moving, and then by the three month mark, they are often emotionally and physically exhausted and thats when the world moves on and everyone forgets. My mother was always the one to call them around the three month mark. She was right. That has been my experience previously and currently. I am very mindful to carry on that 3 month call to others in her name.
Via society, it’s assumed that we should be over it. The three-month mark is when we are ‘meant’ to move on and you’re allowed maybe a year to grieve quietly to yourself. However, depending on the level of grief and what is weaved within it, it can hit extremely hard at the three month mark and for some the 12 month mark as we see the world moving on, couples, families laughing together, and this can lead us to feel even more isolated and incased by our own sense of loss because we are now meant to be over it.
It is important to understand that grief doesn’t always stand alone by itself as a lone walker on the journey. It can come with other elements that make the journey more difficult. Trauma can often block the journey of grief. It halts its progress along the path. The grief then becomes ‘Complex Grief.’ This is referred to as a state in which one has prolonged grief that doesn’t seem to lessen over time. What I see in both my clients and my own personal walk, is that trauma is what makes it complex.
I have met grief before and the heavy hit of it, however, this time it came with a massive dose of PTSD, due to the circumstances of how it happened. The ptsd amped it up to a much higher level of imbalance, and yes, I had a few moments where I was worried about my wellbeing.
Something happens inside me when I become really concerned about myself. It’s as if the inner survivor in me kicks in and says, we have to face whatever this horrible frozen feeling is and get to the other side or we won’t survive.

Believe me, the resistance to doing this was HUGE! I knew that every time my memory travelled back to that traumatic time in a flashback of sorts, I crumbled and felt my child self wail in despair. I knew that if the adult in me wanted to avoid it, so be it, but I sure as heck won’t leave my inner child behind in despair.
Knowing that I was not able to do the work, the healing, the clearing on myself because there was so much resistance, I put my hand up and reached out for help. I have always been very fortunate in finding what I call ‘spiritual surgeons’ in different avenues of healing.
I personally need two things in my therapist. I need them to be expert in their chosen techniques, both via theory and experience, and be able to hold energetic space for me to do what needs to be done.
As my shamanic teacher often said to me. ‘Odette, you can go to the depths of anywhere, as long as you’re contained.’ What that means to me is if I feel safe with the person that I am being guided by, I can face anything. And in this situation it again proved to be true. With good containment, I got to the core of the PTSD, shifted it and it has not returned. When I did shift it, the next few days were a bit of a weep fest as I felt suddenly unplugged, however, the relief that I was no longer frozen along with the tears of grief were very welcome. So if you are not healing from your grief, it may well be due to having other things woven within it.
Other forms of complex grief can occur due to having to be there for a toxic or demented parent or partner who lashes out, or pleads for you to take them home or end their life, or having to step up for someone who did great harm to you or having to be there for a dying child.
This doesn’t make grief an easy ride and it’s a very challenging ride all on its own. This can then spill over into family dynamics where no one sees eye to eye and no one knows how to support each other. And then of course we have murder or suicide and all the unanswered questions that make closure feel impossible. Grief can be an incredibly complex journey for many.
In the western culture, we are in general taught to fear death and everything to do with it, so when it arises, the faster it’s over with the better. It’s often how we are taught to deal with heavy emotions as well.
Looking at the mental health issues that are escalating at a massive rate, we are reacting to a society that has lost its way and putting priority on what can take and consume rather than what we can build and share. The Wetiko is seeking to divide and disconnect. Open any page of the news and you will see it’s doing exactly that.
Personally
Grief tells us that we are now physically divided from the person who died.
Grief tells us we are disconnected from them, their physical presence.
Within the Wetiko (collective mind virus)
We are being forced to divide and take sides
We are being forced to disconnect from others.
Add trauma
We are feeling deeply disconnected and the divide between us and others is a giant chasm.
Feeling highly sensitive can already make us feel divided and disconnected. Grief is natural and we need to honour it within our own stories and take our time along the path in what we are mourning. However, complex grief can block our way and make everything harder.
You may not want to go there, the resistance may well be very ,strong which means there is a strong charge there. Take your time finding the right therapist. They may specialise in REM, or Cellular Trauma healing, or Shamanic Soul retrieval. Find what suits you. I find someone who has some lived experience (see if you can relate to what they have written or spoken on) along with good training can often be the best therapists.
If you can’t do that for whatever reason, reach inside, to your inner sanctuary and spend time cuddling your inner child, validating them regularly and often, and intentionally breathe yourself back through a soft rain from those wounds and merge with what is returned with intention.

I’m still on the grief journey, weaving my way down the road at my own pace, but the path is now free from blockages and for that, I couldn’t be more grateful.
Blessings
Odette
(c) O. Nightsky