Question
Hi Nithya,
I lost my grandfather recently and it has badly affected my 11 year old daughter.She says now she dreams of us (her parents) being dead and is totally heartbroken. Could you suggest how to deal with it?
R) Dear __,
What would help is if you held space for her feelings and emotions. So if she is expressing she misses him, allow her to share what she misses, what she is feeling and what thoughts she has. Validate those emotions and hold them with empathy without trying to move her away from them. This will help her work through the grief she is experiencing which is natural and normal.
After this process it will also be useful to have a conversation about life and death with your daughter. Take her for a walk in nature and ask her what she notices.
Gently point out to her and invite her to reflect on how the death of a cloud leads to rain, and the death of a rain drop leads to the nourishment of a seed, and the breaking open of the seed leads to the birth of a tree and the death of a tree to a richly nourished soil for other trees and flowers and fruits.
Notice how birth and death are inevitably interconnected like the in and out breath, and this is neither a good nor a bad thing. The real meaning of death is transformation; that is all. To prefer life over death is like saying I prefer breathing in, not out; or I prefer holding something, and never putting it down.
Death is what makes every moment and every relationship so precious and important. Change is what allows everything to happen. So have this kind of an open conversation with her without trying to get her to feel or think differently.
This creates a space in which a very beautiful healing is possible. It may not take away the pain of losing a loved one, but it will imbue it with a whole new meaning that releases a lot of the suffering.
I wish her and all of you peace of heart.
Nithya Shanti