Any words for me tonight?

More on death.

Okay.

You keep feeling that others think you take death too lightly, when the fact is that they take death too heavily.

That's good to know.  :-)

Sure, you miss them.  Sure, you think of the one who has passed.  You want to turn to them and share something, but they aren't there to share it with you and that makes you sad.  You feel the momentary sadness, then release the feeling, by not letting it bring up other feelings of sadness and loss.  Just feel this moment's sadness, and let it pass and move on to the next thing in your life.

But what about mourning?

When people mourn they do two things: 1) they mourn the loss of the "what if?" or the dream, and 2) they allow the momentary sadness to connect to and bring up all the other sadnesses in their life, so they keep the sadness alive by chaining one sadness to the next, to the next, back to the first, then next.  So if you can stop the chaining of feelings, you can stop the lingering sadness.

But what about the "what if?"?  I had a friend imply that I was a very cold and odd person when I said that I didn't have any "what if?"s for my sons.

To some extent, it's human nature to build a story around a person, especially our children.  In the story, they grow into who we wish for them to be.

   That's perfectly fine and harmless.

   The problem arises when we try to force the child into our story, but that's another topic. (Read more)

This is one of the many conversations I have with a voice in my head.  Who or what the voice is, I have no clue.  All I know is that when it's feeling in the right mood (or I am in the right mood) it has some interesting things to say.  I am in plain text, the voice is in italics.

What useful things can you say tonight?

   Life is a phase, a process that is a smaller part of a larger whole or larger process.  So don't get too caught up in the apparent seriousness and critical nature of your circumstances, because in the long-run, nothing here on Earth is critical, or not more critical that failing a high school English test.

   Sure, you want to be a good person and do the best you can, but given the overall picture, it's one English test in the context of the whole of your Earthly life... not that big of a deal.

   What changes when you are able to take the whole of your existence with a grain of salt?

   One piece of change is that Unconditional Happiness becomes a true option for folks.  Humans can't be truly unconditionally happy if every event in their life is a crisis.

Death?

   Sure, you miss the person, but death is not a crisis, only a transition to a place that's much nicer than the limitations and strife that are the backbone of your Earthly life.

   An analogy... (Read more)