Shelley Jo

Wyoming, United States

Honor your loss and transform grief into gratitude through heart-centered visualization and grounding.

English

For those enduring the deep sorrow that comes with the profound loss of a loved one, a relationship, a career, or any other significant loss, this meditation is offered as a space of holding, love, light, and grace. Grief is a personal journey, and each loss is unique to the individual experiencing it. This meditation respects your personal process, meeting you where you are, as you navigate this challenging time.
In this practice, you are gently embraced with the energy of grace and healing, allowing your heart and body the time they need to cleanse and heal. Through the release of pain, may you find space for healing and renewal.  May this meditation and visualization filled with your own healing intention help to serve as a balm for your grief, your heart, your healing and in transforming your grief to gratitude.
Music: Blessings by Liborio Conti

From Grief To Gratitude

Hello and welcome. My name is Tracy McCree and today we're going to be talking about how to transform our grief to gratitude. And I'd like to dedicate this meditation to my mother, Pamela Pinalt, who without her I wouldn't be here, obviously. And without her and the physical loss of her when she passed in May of 2019, I wouldn't have known about this. And as we get into it more, I wouldn't have been able to have my heart cracked open in this way and therefore expand my heart and find my way home to myself and to the light of my soul. So shortly after I lost her, we, my sister and my daughter and I went to a grief workshop and we met for like seven weeks or so. And on one of the first ones they said it's good to speak their name. So I'd like to speak her name and the gratitude that I feel for her. So thank you, Mom, Pamela Pinalt, for helping me find my way home to myself. And yes, as I explained, it was a very, very profound loss for myself. We have a very small, we have a very small family. It was basically my sister and I and my daughter and my mom. And when we lost her, it was, it was beyond devastating. So I want to say if you are experiencing a loss of any kind, that I am holding space for you and I'm holding you here in that profound loss. And we're going to move through. First, I'll speak a little bit about how this transpired and maybe some commonalities of whether it's a parent or whoever it may be that is a profound loss for you. So may my words comfort you. And if you can resonate or pick certain parts out that fit pieces of the puzzle of your story, I pray that it's able to touch your heart and fill in those pieces of that you feel might be missing and even in your heart. So I'm going to start by reading a definition of grief. And it has a portion of it that my friend would share with me, one of my best friends, but I'll read the entire definition. And it says, grief I've learned is really just love. It's all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest, grief is just love with no place to go. And my friend used to share that last part with me, one of my best friends, and I was like, wow, that's a profound definition. And when I lost my mom, this best friend that I'm talking about had lost her mom at a very young age. And I can remember saying to other people, I now know what it feels like to lose your mom or to lose such a profound person in your life. And I want to go up to each person that had lost their mom and hug them like a retroactive hug, like, I'm so sorry, I didn't know what this felt like. And I can remember seeing my cousin who lost her mom about a month after I had lost mine. And we were in the supermarket and I could see her like walking towards me at a distance. And we just walked up to each other. And I said, I know, you don't have to say a word. And I just hugged her for like, we probably embraced for about two to three minutes in the middle of the supermarket. And then we backed up and I said, I know. And then I just hugged her again. I said, it was like a club that you're now in that nobody wants to join. So I just want to honor your loss. And if it feels like this, and if you have parts of you that are resonating with this deeply, I just want to hold them here with this as I describe this. And maybe even put your hand on your heart and take a deep breath in. And we will get into a meditation, but I just want you to know that I'm here. And you're not alone with this. And it could be someone else that you've lost. That's a profound, profound loss. And I'm here for you. And I know I'm sitting in my house and you're sitting where you are, but I love you and you're not alone. And you will get through this. And it might not feel like that right now, but you will. And I want to honor my mom by now going into a meditation shortly, but also by saying that if I didn't lose my mom, you might not be hearing my voice right now because my heart was very closed off, which is kind of ironic because if you knew me, you would say, no way. Tracy's heart is like wide open and expansive, but I can tell you that after my mom passed, I started to do healing work and my heart completely cracked wide open when I lost her. And it allowed me access to the light of my soul. And it allowed me to do the work that I'm doing right now, which is guiding meditations and speaking to others and coaching others, helping others find themselves, find the light of their own soul and start their own healing journey. Yeah. And, um, I found my intuitive studies teacher shortly after I lost my mom. So, and it's, uh, it's ironic, as I said, because when my mom was alive, I had had some traumatic stuff revolving around religion and it was just my own journey with it. Right. So no, no, I don't subscribe to any particular thing and I honor other people's journey and where they might go, whether it be religion or spirituality. So I just want to state that. But I myself had some traumatic stuff around it. And my mom used to say we'd be riding in the car and she knew that I had these traumatic things around religion. And she'd say, Tracy, you don't have to pick a religion, but you do need spirituality. And I was like, no. And I would, you know, like this little younger part of me would be like, yeah, like a little temper tantrum. And she'd say, okay. And she'd try again, you know, maybe months later. And I would say no. And then ironically, when she passed, I got a resounding yes. And my heart, because it cracked my, my heart wide open. And it led me back to the light of my soul and who I am and who I'm meant to be here on the earth. So again, that leads to gratitude for me as I, as the second part of this says, bringing our grief to gratitude and transforming it to that. And I'll just say, I'm just going to read a definition of gratitude. And it says, this is just one definition. Gratitude means thanks and appreciation. It's the warm feeling you get when someone helps you figure out a great solution to a difficult problem that you've been trying to solve. Though they both recognize the instrumental roles others have played in our lives, gratitude is different from indebtedness. So in this case, talk about my mom helping me figure out a great solution. I had this block in my heart because of the trauma that I faced. So sometimes, and you might find this as you move through your grief, when your heart cracks open, your loved one can help you from the other side. So these are some of the things that I wanted to share before we went into our meditation. And now I just invite you to find a comfortable seat. Remember, comfort is queen. Gently feather your nest, whether you're sitting on the floor or a cushion or chair. Yeah, just allow yourself to take a deep seat, maybe even a trust fall. I call it a trust fall into the universe. And just allow yourself to take some deep breaths here, deep cleansing breaths, maybe even an audible sigh on the exhale. So in-breath through your nose, audible sigh. Just do that a couple of times. Deep breath in, deep breath out. One more. Deep breath in. And as we take a deep seat here, I'll just do a gentle grounding. And then I'll bring us in connection with the divine or the universe. So as we feel our feet on the floor, or if you're cross-legged, you can feel our grounding cords. And that's a tree trunk-like image, secure around our hips, and maybe even up a little bit higher, and holding us here. And allow your grounding cord and the roots to descend through your legs, through the floorboards of your home, through the bedrock and the foundation, and the topsoil, all the rocks and creepy crawlies and the dirt and sediment. And your roots descend far and wide. And as they do, you can feel the heartbeat of the Earth Mother coming up your grounding cord. And it's just anchoring you here and slowing your breath. So take a deep breath in, a fresh, clean, clear Earth Mother energy up. And let go of anything not serving you. It could even be any sadness that you may be feeling. Anything that's ready to be transformed, let that go right down your grounding cord. Deep breath into that. Kind of let go breath down your grounding cord. And your grounding cord serves as a depository into the Earth. And it transforms and transmutes anything not serving you. And allow that fresh, holding, clean, clear Earth Mother energy to come up. And it comes up into your central channel, and it illuminates at your root chakra, which is right at your sit bones. And you you might even feel a sense of heaviness as I describe it. And it's your root chakra, right at your sit bone. It's ruby red in color. Just allow it to come up and illuminate the rainbow within your body. All of your chakras. And I invite you now to lean back into the beautiful waterfall of grace. And it comes in at the crown of your head, which is like a funnel, open just the right amount at the top of your head. And allow that beautiful illuminate light to come in. Cleansing your third eye, which is between your brows. You can feel your eyes softening behind the eye sockets. You can feel this light permeating into your brain. Cleansing any thoughts that you might be having. Sometimes when we're experiencing sadness or grief and loss, we can have looping thoughts. Allow that light to cleanse your head. And you're just receiving now. This is your time to just receive. And it comes down your third eye, down into your nose and throat and your ears. And it's your divine center at your throat chakra of speaking and listening to the divine. And sometimes we might even hear messages from our loved ones that have passed on. And they can do this in a lot of different ways. Through a song on the radio or a billboard or a license plate or a reoccurring number on the clock that we see or in a Cardinal that flies by. And we see and hear these messages, allow this divine light to come in and out through these power centers, through your throat. And sometimes it's that you want to scream or yell, or sometimes maybe even just sing a song that reminds us of them as we allow our tears to flow. Just allow anything that's coming up here to either go down your grounding cord and be transformed and transmuted or come down your eyes to cleanse your body and just soften your shoulders here and kind of bring your shoulders back to allow, broaden your shoulders, allow that light and that waterfall of grace to come into your heart. Which again, at the beginning, I was speaking how love and grief is love in that definition with nowhere to go. And when it has nowhere to go and it's in our heart, the center of our heart, it can crack our heart open. So allow this light to go into those places where you feel this grief coming out of your heart and allow the light to soothe your heart. It's coming down the front of your heart, soothing the grief, soothing the tears, soothing the time that we don't have with them physically anymore, soothing your heart and filling into these places with beautiful divine grace. And also at the back of your heart, picture a hand of the divine and the seat that you're sitting in or chair becomes a hand of the divine at your back. It starts at the back of your heart and it goes down to where your solar plexus is in the back, your sacrum and your sit bone. And that divine light cleanses your heart and your central channel. And it reminds you that you're not alone. So just take some moments and I'm going to just bring in this divine light coming in at the crown of your head, just slightly lean your head back and receive the divine grace. And just breathe here and let go of anything not serving you, any grief, any sadness, any feelings of loneliness, deep breaths. On the in breath, let the out breath go. Just silently repeat that in your head as you breathe. But just keep breathing here. Letting go of anything that's ready to be transformed and transmuted. And may you feel the hand of the divine at the back, body holding you here. And just take some time, maybe rub your heart, put your fingertips or your hand on your heart and just kind of go in a circular motion. Bringing in that divine light into the places that are raw, that are open, filling in those places with divine light and letting you know that you're not alone, that you're so held here. And now we'll think of an intention and it could be more than one. And maybe we want to bring in something that reminds us of our loved one or the thing that we lost. It could be something else, it could be a partner, it could be a job, anything that causes us grief, the death of anything. If it's a profound loss, maybe we could think of our last really fun moment with them and bring in the joy of that, bring the snapshot of that moment. So whatever our intention is, if it's joy or gratitude, maybe we have gratitude for that moment. I want you to picture a beautiful sunny day with this person and picture the sun coming down above you. And right above your head, the sun comes and it turns to a golden liquid. And we're going to pour this intention into the golden liquid. So if it's joy or that smile on their face or gratitude, think of that intention and we're going to pour that right into the golden liquid. And that's going to come in right at the top of your head, right at the top of your head. Cleansing your third eye again, going into your brain and softening your eyes. Down your face, you can feel the warmth of the sun, of this beautiful golden liquid intention into your ears, down your throat, like a warm, soothing cup of tea. Picture this beautiful golden liquid of intention, liquid sun and gold down into your heart, really allowing it to go slowly here to all the areas of your heart, ventricles and the arteries, the capillaries, all throughout, pumping throughout your heart and allow it to go into every organ slowly, your liver and your spleen, your intestines, your stomach, your gallbladder. And as it permeates through all these areas, anything not serving you is just going right down your grounding cord to be transformed and transmuted and allow it to really cleanse your heart and to fill in those places where it cracked open, this beautiful intention and the love that you feel for them, permeating with joy, gratitude and peace and love. Continuing down to your stomach, to your pelvic bowl area, to your sacrum, it's cleansing your central channel, your solar plexus, your sacrum, all the way down into your root chakra, your sit bones, down your arms, and you're moving your hands, just feeling this warmth. Maybe even just put your right hand on your heart and again, just go in a circular motion. Just integrate and bring in this joy and gratitude and love and peace continues down your legs into the soles of your feet. And this radiance just continues to flow through the crown of your head, the radiance, the sun, the golden liquid filled with your intentions, and may this continue to flow into your head, into your body. Just allow another round of this coming in, really concentrating in your heart area and take some deep breaths as you breathe in this golden liquid again. And on the in-breath, letting go of anything not serving you as you take in this intention and fill in those places in your heart. Do that gentle let go breath, let go. And as we feel so held by the earth mother below and receiving the radiance and the light from the divine above and this golden liquid, I ask that this continue to permeate in your body and to integrate at just the right time for you. And I ask and pray that each day you may remember how loved you are and how held you are by the earth mother, by the divine or the universe or God or whatever, your guides and angels, and that you can come back to this moment anytime and know that you are so held and you are not alone. May you continue to transform your grief into gratitude and feel the loving glow of this divine liquid permeate your heart center and your entire body with joy and love, peace and grace. And as we come out of the meditation, continue to maybe rub your heart, wiggle your fingers and toes and I invite you when you're ready, you can take some time here if you need to, to just gently open your eyes. I'm so grateful that you went on this journey with me today. Transforming grief to gratitude and I know this is just one day in the moment of that, but you can come back to this at any time. I'm so grateful to be of service and I pray that this serves you and that this helps you in your journey of transforming grief to gratitude. I love you. Namaste.