Loss and Bereavement – Homeopathy helps you through the myriad of emotions you experience in a situation of loss or bereavement. Loosing something or someone is not always a bereavement but the feelings are the same. Whether you are bereaved or experiencing loss you will recognise the same reactions.
Signs of Loss and Bereavement
The signs of loss and bereavement are as varied as we are, we all express our emotions differently. When you feel a loss in your life you find it is impossible to sleep. This is because your mind is whirling, you just can’t relax. When you don’t relax, you become tense – tense people don’t smile, life is endured, there is no delight in anything. All of this leads to exhaustion as a way of life.
The lack of sleep increases irritation levels, which are already heightened, this can extend to bursts of anger. Your tolerance is non existent because you are so tired. Alternatively, you cry at the drop of a hat or are totally unable to cry at all.
At this point, your friends don’t recognise you, as you are not the person they are familiar with. They find your moods are changeable and unpredictable. You don’t understand what they are talking about because you are in your world of pain and that is all you can see and feel. To cope, you look for distraction. This leads to a project that you become immersed in – better that than acknowledge what is going on in your head. This is your way of avoiding the loss or bereavement, you put all your energy into this one thing and avoid the obvious.
Ultimately, you do not look after yourself well which leads to lots of minor ailments and illness’.
Potential Losses
Many life experiences create a sense of loss. For example, life stages trigger change which leads to loss. Consider, a mother who feels the loss of her child starting school, then going to “big school” and becoming more independent. This continues so when the child leaves home for University or into their own home, Mother feels she has an empty nest.
The development from child to adult is exciting and again, creates the potential sense of loss. As a child ventures into the world, they are no longer protected by the safe and secure home space. The innocence of youth is lost. Finally, they mature enough to have to earn their own living and provide their own home. No more security and comfort on a plate!
In adult life, both sexes may experience the loss of their youth and can go through a menopause or andropause. For some women the loss of the ability to have another child is a real marker of a life change and a lost opportunity. At the same time, men who have provided for a family may want to recapture their lost vitality as they mature.
Relationships and friendships do not last a lifetime for everyone, so this is a sad time for people. The loss of a job or career, your home or a beloved pet is devastating. Such situations can leave people frightened, unable to cope and utterly bereft. There are many more examples I could use but this highlights a number of times when loss may enter your life.
The degree of reaction
As can be seen there are a multitude of reactions to loss and different personalities will react to the same circumstances in different ways. Some people will take the death of a family member in their stride and others will be devastated by their child leaving home. Equally, the same person can experience the same type of loss twice and react differently in each situation. This is where Homeopathy performs so beautifully, it allows each expression of grief to be supported according to the specifc and unique symptoms of the person being treated.
Loss and Bereavement – Homeopathy Helps
Your heart is at best bruised; at worst, it feels so broken you don’t know how it will mend. Good Homeopathic remedies can bring you though this situation gently and bring you back to your life.
To demonstrate how Homeopathy helps you through loss; I have summarised three key loss remedies.
IGNATIA
Particularly important to a Homeopath is the remedy Ignatia which is commonly known as the “funeral remedy”. Ignatia is given this name because it addresses the immediate grief, the crying and the changeable moods.
It is the remedy that takes us through the initial shock of the loss and supports us through to a more accepting place. Those needing Ignatia will often feel the sensation of a lump in their throat. They also need to swallow on a regular basis.
This is a remedy for changeable, violatile moods; one minute silent and brooding, another they cry and express their loss. Those suited to Ignatia have very high ideals and do not tolerate contradiction well.
These people try to hold in their emotions which leads to lots of involuntary sighing as they release what they can’t verbalise. The gap created by the loss is often filled with food, the person just wants to fill that gap any way they can
NAT MUR
Moving on to the next stage we use Nat Mur which is the chronic version of Ignatia. These people often cannot cry, they hold their feelings so tightly within because they simply cannot deal with their reality. Nat Mur have an absolute desire “not to be hurt and not to hurt”. The opposite is true too they may want “to hurt and not be hurt”. Nat Mur people are incredibly sensitive and have a great fear of rejection. To counteract this; a common response is to build a mental brick wall behind which they hide. They do this as a denial of their feelings
A keynote for Nat Mur is that they dwell on past diasagreeable circumstances. They play scenes over and over in their heads, it is a silent grief where they cling to their idea of how things were particularly in a failed romance. What is happening is that they idealise the person to be their perfect partner and they feel no one else could ever be good enough to replace them. In the same vein, they will only recieve consolation from the “right” people, they need to maintain some control of their situation and will not reveal their emotions to just anyone
AURUM
Aurum is a powerful and very deep acting remedy that supports people through the very darkest times where life is not worth living. A person needing Aurum is melancholic and depressive, this can escalate to suicidial thoughts and a lack of desire to live anymore. Aurum people have an absolute sense of right and wrong so any contradiction of their view is totally unacceptable and the response will be explosive anger. This dutiful and overly responsible person is always busy driven by a strong ambition and desire to be the very best. People needing the remedy have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility and often feel they have neglected their duty in some way.
For an Aurum person it is literally like the sun has fallen out of the sky, there is no light only dark. tThey experience a lack of confidence which in turn leads to delusions of failure and a great oversensitivity. This oversensitivity expresses itself through taste,smell touch, noise and music. They will react to anything and everything. These patients are very serious and closed off, they are not social people and have few friends.
There are many more remedies to support you through the loss and bereavement process. Grieving is a journey and each person goes through it at their own pace. Grief is defined by stages; denial, bargaining, depression, anger and acceptance. The stages can be repeated and do not follow in sequence. If you are experiencing grief give yourself time and seek help and support.
The Alternate View
Loss presents an opportunity for growth. Depending on the personality involved the positive is embraced from the beginning. In my view, many people learn a great deal from such situations and often through processing an event they grow and develop. So, I see loss and bereavement as something that can expand our horizons and make us stronger people.
Working with Patients
It is my privilege to work with some amazing people. Saul whose testimonial is to your left is one of those people.
Saul came to me to deal with his grief which was deep and profound. However, through healing the grief we found other deep issues that had been buried or ignored for years.
Saul worked with me, reaching into those difficult memories and emotions. Using Homeopathy Saul healed these emotions.
Saul has developed an amazing life and is a fulfilled and happy person.
