Communicating with a loved one who has died

My celestial conversations added prayer and meditation as preparation for my journaling. I had a powerful intention of connecting with Mom in order to heal our relationship. I knew that my negative judgments were hurting me and my ability to heal my own grief. I knew other people had reached through the veil. I am a writer, and so was Mom. I prayed that we could reach each other through our mutual love of writing. And we did. It didn’t take too long to find out that Mom was more than willing to help me. She actually told me that she’d been trying to get through to me in other ways, but my negativity had prevented my connection.

When I prepared to write, it was a holy time for me. I picked a time when there were no distractions, early in the morning.  When I wrote, I could feel Mother’s energy in the pen as it hit the paper. It was clearly Mom but it felt even more loving and wise than I remembered the physical mother I knew. I would write word for word as if the words were imprinted on my mind. Only after there were no more words in my mind did I stop to read the entire letter. After reading it, I would ponder the meaning. Often the words I wrote confused me because they didn’t compute with the human mother I knew. Some letters were to my mother from me. Others were from Mom, and later, from our daughter Cyndi who also passed.

5. Do you continue to journal with your mom?

Yes, absolutely! I have four journals with her since 2005. I love to reread those books. It not only gives me valuable information to understand our relationship, but it shows the progress I have made from a guilt-ridden, resentful daughter to a grateful student of a very wise teacher who loves me unconditionally. The books are filled with practical advice, memories of her life, and encouragement to use every minute I have left on the planet to focus on love. I also have four journals with Cyndi. She writes with a very different energy, and yet she focuses on the same goal. “Love is all there is” she says.

6. What is the most important lesson you’ve learned through these communications?

The most important lesson I’ve learned through Mother and Cyndi is that Love is really the most important commodity that humans can accumulate on earth and the ONLY thing they take with them when they die. Unconditional love is also the hardest lesson a human can learn, but it is the most important. Opportunities to practice forgiveness lead us to the possibility of unconditional love. Some of the most difficult people and situations come to us to help us learn how to practice unconditional love. Souls come to earth to teach and to learn, I am told. The people who are the hardest to love are our greatest teachers. They present karmic opportunities to balance the scale of our own mistakes. As Mother wrote, “…if only everyone on Earth knew how much could be achieved by working toward a common goal: The Peace of God.”

7. How was journaling with your daughter, Cyndi, different from your mom?

Cyndi’s journaling, from the beginning, when she interrupted my mother’s response in a letter, was INTENSE. The energy was different from my mother’s and also very different from the human child I knew and loved. Cyndi wanted to explain what happened to her and to insist that I not blame anyone for her death. Both subjects were very hard for me to read, let alone accept. As she has continued journaling over the last 6 years, her focus on forgiveness and unconditional love has not abated one bit. If anything, she keeps coming back to those two spiritual goals for me, telling me over and over not to waste precious time on blame, judgment, or trying to control.

8. How does Cyndi feel about leaving her children?

She says, “That is where hell is.” Not being able to run back to them despite her painful life was hell.Witnessing their pain and the damaging things they were being told was hell for her. Not being able to protect them was hell. She gave me specific instructions on how to help them and assured me that she was coming to them in their dreams. The “hell” of not being able to hold them and console them was excruciating to write down, let alone read. She kept reminding me to spend time on loving them, not blaming anyone around her children.

9. Can you share some tips to heal a grieving heart?

Take all the time you need to walk the path of grief. Most of us think that we need to “get over our grief and get back to normal.” Grief is a process. It is open-heart surgery that requires a lot of healing. It also requires many tools along the way. Different strokes for different folks, even in the same family. I found that my faith was a great source of strength for me. Not everyone does. It’s okay to be mad at God or even the person who died. I found a great resource in grief counseling. My counselor respected my spirituality and also introduced me to EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and other tools for healing. I valued my Reiki and jin shin jytsu treatments as well as exercise to increase my endorphins. Of course, for me, Celestial Conversations became the greatest resource of all. It blended with all the other healing techniques and it was a private, inexpensive resource for me. I feel as if my soul has grown enormously. Creating more unconditional love in the world has become my mission.

10. How can grieving people work with you?

People can work with me directly through my workshops and retreats. Details are on my website. There is also a free downloadable meditation on www.celestialconversations.com so that anyone can begin to journal with their loved ones who have passed on. If you want your own Celestial Journal, go to Cape House Books and download the beautiful companion guide to my book. You can also email me at loanne@celestialconversations.com with specific questions. I love to hear how others have benefited from Celestial Conversations.