Oh I'm sorry to hear this. January blues maybe? Well, here's the place to vent, isn't it?? And by the way I think the flower essences I've been taking have been doing wonders for me. I'm not sure if that's the case or if it's just coincidental timing. But they are really worth a try. A friend of mine mixed them for me and gave them to me as a gift. I don't know how it works but I can say that I started Monday and by Friday I really felt the fog is starting to lift from me. I feel pain, but it is not as constant. Today I was actually hungry like almost normal, which is really the very first time.



Yes, it's like a very simple dream I had about my cat Missy who died a few years ago. It was just her eating food. That was significant because she hadn't eaten for a month before she died. They do want us to know they are okay. I think sometimes they don't feel the need to send a message because it is so obvious to them! I also remember noises similar to what you are talking about after our family dog died when I was young. The fact that you aren't hearing them now seems to suggest they were really signs for you....



I guess until we go to the other side we may never understand all the reasons for everything. I often think of what Dottie said to me once. We know that it is meant to be how it is, because it *is* this way. If it were meant to be some other way, it would be and it's not, therefore this *must* be the way it was meant to occur.... the shoulda woulda coulda's don't really get us anywhere do they.....

>That's also really loving of your dad to hack away at that stuff for you. The ones who REALLY love you always make that >extra effort to try to help out in some way whenever they can, right? This has been another lesson for me, too, lately, >realizing all the times I took, and deeds I did, to help someone out, who didn't make the same kind of >consistent efforts for me. I'm still very grateful for what they did do for me, but on the whole, the scales >weren't balanced well enough to keep the relationship going. And I've now come to think I'm worth more than that, >period, so I'm not willing to settle for less in any important relationship.

Yah, F's Mom! We have to value ourselves. And those that love us value us too. When we don't have those people in our lives we have to show ourselves the kindness and self-respect we deserve. Sometimes there just isn't anybody else there to do it. But you *are* worth it. A friend of mine said that nice can be a 4 letter word, especially when we put others above us. She pointed out that being nice to self is an important thing! That sometimes, we women especially (and Bubba ) forget!!!

take care and hope you feel better soon!

Jan.

Hey Jan- Yea, as much as this longing we all have I would not change the time I had with Willy for anything.I guess we will have the pain till the end.I can't see it ever being fixed.............
Bubba..........

Yah, we miss them, let's face it. I cried thinking of Ziggy on Monday. It's just that we move on with other parts of our lives and the pain can become less frequent. I am learning how to let it pass through more quickly, just by accepting it as normal and natural and okay...

I have a friend whose cat got killed about a week ago by the neighbour's dog, then on Monday her eight year old large breed dog bled out and died in her arms.

She amazes me. Though she is sad about it she really deeply believes in life after death and she has an amazing coping skill. I invited her here to the forum because I would love to hear her coping secrets. It could be different also for those of us who don't have human children. My furkids are it and so it might be different for those with kids I don't know....

take care Bubba

Jan.

Love knows no bounds, no comparisons, and no rules. Love is what we give and take in, freely given from each other. Folks who had natural children and adoptive children will tell you that love can be just as strong if not stronger for the adopted ones as for the biological ones. What stirs our hearts towards each other's particular kind of love is a mystery. It is impossible to evaluate, compare or sort out. Perhaps with our furkids the love is more dependable therefor more fulfilling than any other human relationships, our own hearts truly know how to accept what our brains can not explain.
Many happy returns of the great love you are capable of.

There used to be someone here on LS who also had a child, but she loved her furbaby equally as much as her child, and still mourned for her loss for years, just as some of us do....and would get equally incensed if anyone dared suggest to her that it should be otherwise.

No, my kids' birthday on the 20th, and today is also Nissa's 2Y.,5 M. Angelversary.

Glad the FE blend is helping. They most often do. I should do a new blend up for myself, actually - thanks for the reminder. Been too busy to even think about them in the last few months.
If you can find homeopathic remedies around there, Ignatia (leading remedy for acute grief), or possibly Staphysagria (depression, anger, self-blame, low self-esteem, can't hold in emotions, etc.), is also a good remedy for grief - one pellet each day if needed, or just one pellet and no more until/unless it 'wears off'.

What Dottie said is another way of saying you, and your circu*mstances, are exactly where you need to be right now, in the Big Plan, even when you think The Plan sucks royally...which I always take to mean this way:
To whatever degree you don't either believe or don't believe in predestination, wherever you are right now is still accomodating whichever turn in the road you took that may have been contrary to any supposed predestination and in the 'end', you'll still be on your right path as long as you practice some of the usual fundamentals.

Yes, very good point. I have never experienced having a strong bond with a child, though I did want this (maybe it will still happen in some twist of fate, I like to think). I agree that love has no comparisons. Whether I had a child or not I know my furkids would mean the same to me, so I don't mean to compare the intensity of the love. I just feel that perhaps when there are other strong bonds in one's life, especially from those who support us, the bonds that are lost are easier to accept. People sometimes come together and are closer in times of challenge - or they break apart like x-h did. Even though I have no partner or child, I am lucky to have very good friends. Having support really helps in healing. I also think some people experience that support based on whatever beliefs they have of connectedness, God, the spirit world. I think in general we humans are social creatures and when in times of despair, support from others can make or break us.

I have moments of feeling all alone in the world, but I know in truth I am not. Connectedness is the reality, separateness is the illusion.

Jan.

Sorry if I sounded like that was what I was suggesting! You can see what I posted above to Toonie. Actually when my first cat Missy died, I said to a friend that for me it was like losing a child. The friend said matter of factly "It's not the same as losing a child." and those words rang out for a long time to me. She had no idea how I felt and what my connection was with my dear Missy. Missy was my child, just as all my furkids are. My love for them is profound. As Toonie said, there are no comparisons.



I'm sorry that you are hurting. Sometimes there is no "fixing" it, just going through the process of feeling it.

I drifted off for a nap in the evening yesterday and I had a bit of a weird experience. My Merlin dog was euthanized in this house on Feb 27th 2006. I dreamt something about x-h's abandoning me, then felt the sadness of Merlin passing, as his spirit left his body. When I awoke it reminded me that it was the one and only time I saw x-h cry. I really thought he was a well-connected man to allow his feelings to show like that. It's confusing really that early in the relationship he did seem able to show some feeling, and now is able to cut himself off from all empathy towards me. But anyway, I only say this to you in that I've long accepted Merlin's passing and I know he is still well connected to me, yet the sadness I felt was so intense. I wonder if I was picking up on x-h's feelings at the time. I'm not sure what that was about.



Yes. I believe that our choices impact our lives. I also believe that wherever we are right now is exactly the path we are meant to face. The laws of cause and effect somehow always give us exactly the experiences we need to learn from no matter what we choose. If we take one turn and we haven't figured something out, it will come back at us in a different way.

What seems bleak and purposeless at one moment can be a twist in life that leads to great love and inspiration. There is always hope.

Jan.

Well, what the HECK?! I KNOW I'd posted a response back to you here, Jan, a day or two ago, and yet now I don't see it anywhere! I'm SURE I'd seen it go through before! Ah well, a re-try have to wait for now, cuz it was lengthier than this small bit below. But I will just quickly say that no!, I didn't think that was what you were suggesting, Jan, about the human child vs. furchild thingy. It was just comforting to me to hear this member support this equality....gad, hope this makes sense as I have no time to go back and read the whole exchange right now!

In the meantime, I'd just popped in to quickly add this highly interesting link (that I'd just been sent a few mins. ago) to the science part of the discussion, that some of you might like, especially Jan and Nemo's Mom.
Teleportation Milestone Achieved WHOA!
As if this wasn't 'wild' enough news by itself, I also noted that this also supports the theory of the quantum "light and information" that's received/exchanged, as they put it "through the intermediary action of a third" (in my example here, a third party, i.e. the practitioner) in the particular type of new 'energy' work that I do now! Wow...now we're really seeing all the dots start to connect in every sector! I'm in awe of the Universe that we're all a part of!

Hi all,

I've been sick ALL week, I am completely behind on everything and all the threads. I don't feel like I am getting much better, but I did go to the doc yesterday and get some meds. Hopefully I will be feeling better soon!

Furkidlet's Mom- Thanks for that article on teleportation! That is really exciting stuff! I'll have to send that one to my family, too. It's so neat they are figuring out how to do all that stuff. Quantum physics seems to be going where no one would go before! It's so cool to live in a time when they are finding out all these things are possible. The transfer of energy also from one party to another... that does explain a lot! You'll have to keep me updated. So that is part of the work you do now? VERY Cool!! I was reading about your Nissa, too. That is so neat that you heard her jump down onto the counter several times. I think she was definitely saying "I'm here and glad to be able to do my routine again". I had a similar experience, sort of- The night Jasmine "saw" all those strange things, her and my cat Ivy both watched something invisible climb the cat tree at the exact same time. That would also seem to me that Ren was saying, "I can run and jump again!" Kinda of like they are so excited to be able to do those things again.

I had a friend's mother that passed away. Right before she passed, she started making comments. She said, "I can see my Mom", and also RIGHT before she passed, "I can dance and run again!". She then asked everyone to leave the room. When they came back, she was gone. Very interesting...

Jan- How are you? How are things going? Is the weather any better there yet? That dream about Merlin, maybe he was visiting you and letting you know he knows your sadness, and is there for you? Hard to say. I also really liked what you wrote, "What seems bleak and purposeless at one moment can be a twist in life that leads to great love and inspiration. There is always hope." That is so true! I need to paste that on my wall. Hope you are having a good Friday!

Hugs~
Ren, Zorro, and Nemo's Mom

Hi Nemo's Mom,

Hope you're feeling much better soon!

You asked, So that is part of the work you do now? I didn't mean I'm a quantum physicist or anything but just that the type of 'energy' work I do is all about using the stated "light and information", rather than 'plain' or 'just' energy, and that it transmits/utilizes higher frequencies that can take us into those other realms/dimensions, times or what-have-you, and thereby effect a healing....if one is willing to heal something. That article also, of course, speaks to how we can connect to our loved ones...no matter where, what state or even WHEN they are. That's why I found it so fascinating - everything is finally all tying into everything else, in our newer understandings of such things.

Very lovely about your friend's mother! I LOVE hearing stories like this that confirm everything for all of us! (and yes, humans in particular, often 'leave' when no one's around)

"Actually when my first cat Missy died, I said to a friend that for me it was like losing a child. The friend said matter of factly "It's not the same as losing a child." and those words rang out for a long time to me. She had no idea how I felt and what my connection was with my dear Missy. Missy was my child, just as all my furkids are. My love for them is profound. As Toonie said, there are no comparisons."



If I may interject as someone who has lost both a child of my body, and a number of furchildren. it isn't the same...but it is not less painful to lose a cherished furkid.

I don't think any loss is really the same as another. What I experienced in that comparison from my friend at the time, was that my feelings of loss were undermined because I had said that for me it was like losing a child. At that particular time, all I wanted from this friend was empathy.

I lost a child that was never born also. That was painful as well and still brings pain. No painful experience is exactly the same, I just think that we sometimes need to look behind and underneath the words people use to express their pain and hear the longing for compassion and care that is so much needed....

take care

Jan.

Hi Nemo's Mom

Sorry this is all out of order. I got mixed up and didn't realize there were other posts.

It's been a very weird time. I found out that our extension has not been granted a permit yet (a lot of confusing stuff between provincial and regional district regulations) but not only has it not been granted a permit, but x-h's rushed $8,000 bridge is actually illegal and needs to have a special permit. So in the worst case scenario x-h's rushed, expensive $8,000 bridge will have to be ripped down. I am waiting to hear...

So on one hand this is not what I need right now at all... on the other hand with all the pain I've experienced over the last couple of months, I feel kind of numb to it all. Someone said to me today that you reach a point in pain of surrender. That's where I'm at.

I did some inspirational public speaking at a group - this is the benefit of not giving a s**t about anything is that I've become very brave and unconcerned about how anyone might look at me or what they might think about things I say! And the nice thing was that several people came up later and said how much they learned from it and related to it. Human feelings are universal it seems, if we allow ourselves to feel them! And again, it was mentioned to me that the worst and most bleak and dark moments of our lives can lead to great and bright roads with amazing adventures that we may have never dreamed about before the pain. Someone else said that his greatest learning was through a time of deep, deep pain.

How are you doing? I still need to check out F'Kidlet's links. Maybe I will do that tonight.

take care and thanks for asking about me!

Jan.

Hey F's mom - those links are gone now, so if you find another, let me know. I'm looking for it now, but not sure if I've found the right one.

Interesting stuff...!

Jan.

Exactly my point, that ( with all due respect to the friend) she might ave looked past the language, and her own value judgment to see how much you were suffering and in need of comfort.


Dayna

I think I found it: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1...ntary&hl=en

Hi Dayna... yes... all pain is painful, however it is experienced...

take care

Jan.

Hey, Jan,

I just clicked on the link I'd given (right in my quote box in your post) and it's still the same page I'd given. I see the various video boxes there yet, all in a row. The whole show starts with one and goes onto each successive one. So that should be the right site......Oh, but I see the one you've found is the original one I'd watched, so there ya go!

I just realized this week, too, that I'd forgotten to answer your question about "What is SRT?", so here's a link to the main Cdn. site for it: SRT therapy. You can also link from there to their "practitioners" page, and I see there's an advanced one in Victoria (prob. the closest to you). There's also a good article on it by another therapist I'd emailed, who used to write a weekly column in one of our papers here: Elizabeth Atherton-Reid on SRT. As a note, this kind woman also agreed to write a column on animal loss one week, at my request. (I thought we could use that kind of educative effort from a "respected professional" in this redneck area)

About that lack of empathy from your friend, you might be interested in this article I'd posted about awhile back: How Grief Relates to the Work of the Soul. So though they may feel different in some ways, they still produce the same chemical reactions inside and that's part of what people should be responding appropriately to when someone's had a loss, ANY loss. (think I'm losing my mind, though, as I could have SWORN I'd had a discussion here on LS about what could go on a T-shirt or something, regarding these findings...must have been on another thread somewhere)

Hi F's Mom

The link you gave "looks" the same, but the content was disallowed when I clicked on it. But anyway I watched the other one. It's pretty scientific, but it does make you realize the ideas of anything being solid or "real" are not being supported by science... I followed some of it, the matter, and anti-matter, but that bit about the cat being dead and alive at the same time and the poisonous substance went right over my head. But I get it enough to realize that those scientists don't really get it either because there is more to the picture than is easily explained in our black and white human way.

I will check out the stuff on SRT also.

People say lots of stuff when someone is going through grief, and not usually intending to hurt... just they don't have any idea how to respond. Also we tend to live in our heads instead of listening with our hearts. I think having gone through my "stuff" is just making me realize the deep need we all have for compassion and understanding.

Everyone processes pain individually and some people can have what others would call a life crisis and can acknowledge it and move through it quite quickly. For others it takes longer. Then there are those that deny all feelings about these "situations" - I would rather be one to acknowledge than stuff it all down until I had a heart attack. But many people are trained to "control" their feelings, which often meanings denying they exist. I believe that television is one of today's biggest non-prescription drugs. Just zone out and forget all your problems... Not saying that *all* TV is bad (I work in that industry) but it sure seems to work a bit like alcohol or drugs on some people....

take care - talk atcha soon!

Jan.

* So maybe everyone should just use YOUR link, since it works better and has the whole show in one. *

This is the easiest explanation I could find on Schrodinger's virtual/imagined cat experiment:

"Here's the point of the experiment: our act of opening the box and observing the cat -- taking a measurement, in other words -- is what puts the cat definitely into one of those states.

There are many points, actually: the effect of measurement, the idea of uncertainty, the fact of indeterminacy. But probably the deepest and yet simplest point is this interesting view of the world: reality takes shape only when, precisely when, we sense it. Until then, it's uncertain. That's the Principle.

Is there reality without observation, existence without consciousness?

Schrodinger's cat showed that the laws of physics might answer that last question with "no". That may be too extreme a view for most people's tastes, people who believe reality surrounds them without needing to be looked at. Then again, Schrodinger's cat wasn't real himself. "

It's sort of like that question about a tree falling in the forest if no one's there to hear it fall.

I also saw a TV show long ago that followed some aboriginal tribe (in 'Oz" I think it was) whose people truly believe (among other neat things) that there is NOTHING BUT POTENTIAL beyond, say, a hill, until one climbs to the summit and looks over the edge. That's how they lived their lives, which were, 'coincidentally,' very long and healthy overall, and they used, naturally, shamanistic-type methods for healing things. I delighted in the thought that maybe these so-called "primitive" peoples might have a much higher, truer and closer-to-Source understanding of how things really work, than so-called "civilized and intellectual" societies do. I was glued to the screen, it was so fascinating, and this show was LONG before things like The Secret, et. al., made their way into the mainstream.

"...they don't have any idea how to respond." Well, I think some don't, but some have a definite, and rigid, idea, which they're simply not about to give up with or w/o a fight. And some are just plainly not real thinkers, like one of my Aunts, who said quite bluntly to me, "That's just CRAZY to be that sad over a CAT!" Meanwhile, she herself still carried sad emotions over her own last cat, who'd 'left' this world well over 20 years prior. So, a hypocrite who wasn't even bright enough to realize her own hyprocrisy. On top of that, she obviously didn't even realize that, in effect, by her chosen set of words, she was calling me "crazy." In that moment, no, I could not drum up any compassion for HER, even knowing enough of her background to have made some good guesses about why and how she'd react like she did. I was just plain hurt, and angry, and quit talking to her as a consequence of her chosen action. Even IF her real motive came from love (to 'make' me stop hurting), it was a heckuva stupid way to go about it!

This is also one of those examples where it's very hard for me to even see someone as a "mirror" to myself, of something in myself that needs healing, because I AM a compassionate person for the most part. However, I do usually find it almost or entirely impossible (depending) to feel any real compassion for those who commit brutal crimes, even though I also realize that my own thoughts toward THEIR acts are filled with the same kinds of brutality.....hence the mirror effect. So I know that needs healing....but exactly how, on a lasting and deep level, I'm not sure.

Yes, it's hard to feel one's feelings all the time, but I've come to be grateful for being a HSP (Highly Sensitive Person) and I, too, would rather be this way than cut off from things. My joys are also higher then, than those of 'cooler' types, and I'd rather have that than not. But ideally, I'd MOST rather find a balance in between the two, as that's an easier way to experience this world.

ONE MORE ADDITION: And then we have the 'in-betweens', as I call them. Pretending...or fooling themselves...to be so spiritually high up there, and right IN the healing professions, more's the pity. Yet their words belie their real atti tudes. For example, I just received this note from one: "My mum's cat used to sleep perched round the top of a plant pot. It's lost its marbles now unfortunately." I can't help but notice the word It, along with the blithe terminology of "lost its marbles," esp. when this woman knows well enough how I regard animals and how sensitive I am to their fates, etc. Another 'cool' type, whose true motives for 'helping' others has more to do with ego and making wads of dough and a big name for herself than about just HELPING people out of the goodness of her heart. And, another example of how I fail to see the mirror effect in this exchange.