Grief is about a loss or death that has already happened.

What is it that we are mourning? It's not always a death of a loved one. It can be the loss of something else. For example, it can be a relationship or a job, or a way of life (even when the change is positive and we're looking forward to it!)

Grief too is so often intensified by other griefs that we buried in the past because we didn't understand how to deal with them. When we ignore grief or bury it, it intensifies into anger and even rage.

The message of grief is about exploring and thinking about what you believe in. Was it Einstein who said energy cannot be destroyed, it can only be changed into something else? I was intrigued at reading some quotes from such a man (who is possibly the most famous scientist of all time) that showed what a New Age thinker he was!

I was privileged to help my husband give Reiki healing to his father as he was dying. It was a beautiful and peaceful death. Our hands were still running hot for some time after the signs of life were gone. Then the most amazing thing happened. The energy in my hands seemed to get a lot stronger for a moment and then there was a split second where there was this kind of a sound in my head. I have trouble describing this because there aren't any words that do it justice. It was a cross between a sound and a vibration and the most amazing, incredible feeling of intense joy. I have described it to anyone who would listen as "the sound of the angels singing".

I believe that I was privileged to see and feel for one tiny particle of time, where our souls go. And from that moment on I have had no fear of death. If that is what we are going to, then when it is my time - bring it on!

But it's not important what I believe in. There's little value for you in that. Grief is about YOU exploring what YOU believe in. You can set your intention to do that. Then you'll notice that you'll read something that will "fit" in your heart and feel good, you'll hear the words of a song, a line in a movie, someone will say something powerful or a an amazing insight will just "pop" into your head. You'll hear me keep saying that, because if you pay attention, your life is filled with ideas that help you to get it.

You can find ideas that might give you the answers that you are looking for, in a church or in your home or you can find them in the street. If you keep a note of these thoughts that "fit" in your heart and are consistent with who you really are and who you want to be, then you'll notice as you look back on the notes that there is a pattern emerging of what you believe in, that gives you great comfort in your time of grief.

You can use this process to explore about life, love and our place in the universe, why bad things happen to good people, why good things seem to happen to "bad" people. You can use it to explore your beliefs about all kinds of things including what happens to the soul after death.

I have found this to be the single most powerful thing I have done in my life -- explore what it is that I believe in about a whole host of things - and it has brought me great peace and joy. May it bring you great peace and joy too.

There's a beautiful story about someone's experience of asking The Questions about their grief, later in this book.

So ask The Questions about your grief:

2. What does my soul want me to know or do about it?

3. Has it all gone yet? Has all the grief gone yet? If it has not got smaller, if you have not found a measure of peace, then what you are thinking is not the message that your soul is trying to give you. If the grief has got less, but not gone altogether, then there is still something that your soul wants you to know or do. Keep asking the questions until it has all gone.

I have some ambivalence about that last paragraph. I know from first hand experience that it IS possible to ask the questions until you find peace and wonder, but I do feel ambivalence at making such a sweeping statement.