By Raj Lehl
I feel adrift…and I can’t find an anchor
We feel the physical effects of gravity. When we get out of bed, we know our feet will be pulled down to touch the floor.
Similarly, we are energetically anchored by our parents. We grow in the earth of our mother’s womb from a blueprint infused with all the experiences, thoughts, feelings, traumas, and joys supplied by seeds from both of our parents. Containing the thoughts, feelings, memories of their parents before them. And their parents before them, stretching back generations since man began.
That is the earth we grow from.
A tree that grows tall from the ground, retains its roots to survive, so physical distance from our parent(s) and time do not prevent us from feeling their departure when they pass.
Like an invisible fabric covering the family, when there is a tug at one end, it will always be felt at the other.
Whatever our age, life stage, whether they were loving and close, or had a more complex relationship with us, or none at all, when we lose a parent, it is felt deeply in every cell of our body. We can feel like we are losing essence, or a part of us is leaving. We may wish to leave with them. The everyday can feel meaningless. The world is different.
We search for our anchor, but it cannot be found.
It is a rite of passage. Losing a parent’s material presence on earth can be extraordinarily painful and indescribable. We can look for them in crowds, that familiar face knowing it can’t be them, we still search.
Doing a seemingly mundane task, emotion can rise and surge like a wave then subside. Without control.
But in time, remembering that our parents exist in our physical and energetic selves, we can find the anchor we are looking for within us.
This was originally posted on Raj’s blog: Grief: Losing a parent – Raj lehl