DIY Therapy: Life Death Cycle

D.I.Y. Therapy: The Life Death Cycle

Transition in our healing journey can trigger a hard setback, especially in regards to grief. This might be a death, the end of a relationship, moving to a new place, finishing school, or something else. Once we teach ourselves to understand that our life is series of cycles, new beginnings and endings, it's easier to navigate through transition.

The Life/Death/Life or renewal theme is found often in the book “Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph. D. This idea that we need to learn to be okay with loss, release, and death so we can grow stronger and wiser and so we can move from one stage to the next has been a large theme in my healing journey. For 17 years I was stuck in depression. I functioned, I grew older, but I didn't grow wiser. I couldn't let go of the trauma, violence, and grief that happened in my younger years. Instead of accepting those as lessons on my journey I tried to ignore the impact they had on me and my belief about life. Since then, I've learned that living in tune with the cycle of life gives me a greater connection to the earth and through that I connect easier with a deep wisdom that allows me to grow and flourish.

“To have the seed means to have the key to life. To be with the cycles of the seed means to dance with life, dance with death, dance into life again. The wild woman nature of women is the Life and Death Mother in her most ancient form. Because she turns in these constant cycles, I call her the Life/Death/Life Mother.” Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph. D

I'm lucky in a way because I was able to experience intense grief from multiple loved ones in a short period. Within four years I lost my parents, one of my closest friends, an older cousin, and a new friend. It was devastating! I felt like every time I was beginning to heal from one death that another presented itself. So, to say I'm lucky may sound weird, but it gave me great insight into the reality that we are all only here for a blip in history and we all must die. When I was younger and experienced violence and then grief over a friend's death by suicide, the joyful part of me died, and stayed dead for years to come. When I began to heal from my depression, I felt reborn in some way. I was no longer living this dark, ugly life with no light at the end. Instead I felt revived with a new joy for life.

Soon after starting that healing process, my parents died and with them a part of me died too. I no longer had the two people who created and raised me. After a long period of grief, I once again felt reborn. Whether you are transitioning through grief or any other experience, it can help to search inside those experiences for your new growth.

I have four questions that I offer you to journal and take action on. It is great to philosophize and dive deep into our wounds so we can heal, but it requires more than just journaling and talking about healing. We must take action or we won't be able to fully embrace our whole journey. Use your answers to make conscious changes in your inner and outer world.

1. What parts of my past are causing me pain or drama? 2. Why am I still holding on to those parts? 3. What would my life be like if my past self no longer controlled me? 4. How can I let forgive and release the pain into the past?

I hope this inspires you to release your traumas into your memory, forgive yourself and others, and be reborn into your next stage of life. This book has been a great resource and I highly recommend reading it on your healing journey.

Check out the Healing Journey podcast on Breaker.com.