The prospect of our own death is naturally very frightening. We fear the separation from our loved ones, the loss of self, and the physical pain that we might endure.
Yet while your pain is temporary, for the bereaved, the pain and suffering can last a lifetime. Life, for them, will never again be the same. They must learn how to cope with the changes that death brings.
Suddenly they will be thrown into an unfamiliar world of instability and negative emotions. Anger, guilt, confusion, depression, resentment, worry and fear will engulf them as they being their journey through grief.
At the time of death, the focus of carers and family members is most frequently on the dying. Little attention or education is given to prepare those who are about to experience the loss.
All too often, the bereaved are left to figure it out for themselves. Suddenly their world is changed, and with little or no guidance they must learn how to cope and adapt to a life in which the person who offers them love and support has disappeared.
Often individual fears regarding death generate a barrier to discussion and action. Sadly this limits your ability to explore the opportunities for love, healing and liberation at the time of death.
A Legacy of Love - Realising the Gift in Goodbye will help you combat and overcome these barriers, describing the steps necessary to transcend your fears, thus encouraging others to do the same. This book explains how to prepare everyone for their experience of grief, encouraging you to select mentors who can provide ongoing guidance and emotional support so that you can extend your love far beyond the end of this lifetime.
Grief is what we experience when we lose what we love. We encounter this not only when someone dies, but throughout our lives, when we lose anything we love - a job, relationship, pet, home, our health, or any object of our desire.
Yet when the person who is our primary source of love dies we experience a more intense grief. A physical and emotional pain develops as the bonds of love between us dissolve. In the absence of this guaranteed source of love the bereaved experience an empty space in their hearts. Unless this void is filled with another source of love their grief may continue for years resulting in great pain and suffering.
Each of us has a unique way of expressing love, care and compassion. While this can never be replaced, you can provide a continuation of love, you can leave a Legacy of Love and help your bereaved to better support themselves.
This is especially important for those who do not have solid alternative sources of love, such as good friends, other family members, a spiritual source or a strong sense of self-love. Their experience of grief will be extreme, and something from which they may never recover. Those without a continuous source of love are often those who suffer major depression and attempt to fill the absence of love with drugs, alcohol, addictions and obsessions in an attempt to escape the pain. The way to cure the bereaved of this pain is with love, the most natural medicine of all.
By reading this book, you will learn how to prepare everyone for death. You will discover how to settle unresolved differences and minimise the effects of grief to reduce suffering and promote healing. You will learn how to prepare your loved ones for grief and be able to teach them what should expect. You will give them the tools to cope with the emotional and physical onslaught of their loss.
This book presents a step-by-step guide to creating your own Legacy of Love using the gifts in goodbye, which are each described within a chapter, using simple exercises, examples and creative techniques:
• Don't Mention the D-Word!
• Getting to Grips with Grief
• Your Legacy of Love
• Defining Wishes
• Life Story
• Sacred Spaces
• Magic Moments
• Good Guidance
• Future Surprises
• Musical Memories
• Life Celebration
• R.I.P - Rest in the Present
Creative and practical techniques are offered to help you understand how you can use stories, music, film, pictures, events and letters to create a Legacy of Love . And you are given practical information and creative ideas to plan a celebration of life that captures the true essence of your existence.
You will also gain an understanding of how life, once you have accepted death, will become more meaningful and fulfilling. Finally you will learn how to live a more loving life in line with your higher purpose, and discover how to seek inner peace in the present.
In doing this you open new channels of communication with your loved ones, deepen your relationships and find that your fears surrounding end of life issues lighten. Discussions regarding death, illness and loss will become more comfortable, as spiritual and emotional growth transpires.
Those who have created their own Legacy of Love find they experience a deeper satisfaction with life, connected to the universal source of life and love; they are liberated from the concept of physical separation.
Having explored, documented and completed their own circle of life, they find great comfort in knowing they have done as much as possible by performing this final act of love.
