Grief as a Spiritual Practice: A Journey Through Love, Death, Grief, and Life

By Cathérine Denys

What happens when the love of your life dies after a quarter of a century of an ever-growing, ever-expanding, ever-changing life together? Instead of plunging into the big black hole everybody talks about, Cathérine Denys experienced something totally unexpected that showed her how to live with the grief.
Cathérine, whose greatest desire has been to live the most conscious life possible, shares that principle in an inspiring teaching memoir. After revealing how she nearly bypassed the encounter that turned her life around, she shares insight into the unfolding of a relationship as she traveled between Antwerp and Amsterdam, experienced life in a kundalini yoga ashram, and finally moved to Texas. When her husband was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer that eventually took his life, Cathérine details how she navigated amid her grief and used it as the perfect circumstance to take the next step for personal growth and change, while at the same time actualizing a joyful existence. Included are exercises and tools to help others handle their own story of loss and mourning.
In this poignant narrative, a woman explores a conscious way of grieving the death of a loved one while sharing wisdom and practical tips to help anyone on the same journey.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Nov 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9781982270261

Cathérine Denys

Cathérine Denys grew up in a small town in northwest Belgium. She studied social pedagogy and taught psychological and educational subjects in various schools. Prior to settling in Houston, Texas, with the love of her life, she lived for two years in an ashram in Amsterdam while she trained in various counseling modalities to support her on her consciousness journey. Grief as a Spiritual Practice is her first book.

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Copyright © 2021 Cathérine Denys.

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The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-9822-7025-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-7027-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-7026-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021912263

Balboa Press rev. date: 10/13/2021

CONTENTS

Introduction

Part I: Love and Death

Chapter 1 How It Started

Chapter 2 Did the Beatles Have It Right? Love Is the Start, the Way, the Tool

Chapter 3 Challenging Life Lessons

Part II: Grief and Life

Chapter 4 From Remission to Transition

Chapter 5 The Path of Grief

Chapter 6 Support in Grief

Chapter 7 Living with Grief

Part III: Tools for Self-Care and Handling Grief

Chapter 8 Energy Practices and Tools

Breathing Practices

Raising Energy and Vibration

Expanding the Energy Field

Protecting the Energy Field

Cleaning the Energy Field

Self-Care

Sleep

Meditation

Watching Your Thoughts

Softening into the Present

Giving Yourself Permission

Tapping

When Nothing Seems to Work

Chapter 9 Memorable Quotations

Afterword

This book is

dedicated to Robert Freedman,

beyond the barriers of the physical.

Here, then, is the truth of death: It is a joyous occasion for all and one that is filled with light, and if you can bring just a bit of that light into your heart as you grieve, you will most assuredly find comfort.

—Mike Dooley, Channeled Messages from Deep Space

For there is always light

If only we are brave enough to see it

If only we are brave enough to be it.

—Amanda Gorman, from The Hill We Climb

And did you get what

You wanted from this life, even so?

I did.

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself

Beloved on the earth.

—Raymond Carver, from Late Fragment

INTRODUCTION

I have learned that no situation has any meaning until someone gives it meaning. The way we give meaning shapes our lives in a certain way. Perception has power.

A situation can be seen as light or dark, happy or sad, full of opportunity or hopeless, etc. This is not reality; it is the way we have colored our reality. We are the painters, and we can change the picture. We are the writers, and we can change the story.

Moving to a different city or a new country, leaving friends and family and all that is familiar behind, can be given meaning by choosing to experience it as a new adventure, an opening up of horizons that allows us to grow and expand. A cancer diagnosis can be given meaning by choosing to see it as an opportunity to learn and to grow. The death of a loved one can be seen in the same way. It can be given meaning by our choosing to see it as the perfect circumstance to take that next step for personal growth and change.

Happy choosing!

43880.png PART I

Love and Death

CHAPTER 1

How It Started

Fall 1990

I remember so well that very first day of fall break, lying in Shavasana on the kitchen floor of my apartment in Antwerp, Belgium, with the sun coming down through the window, illuminating my face, in total peace with myself and my life. All of a sudden, this idea popped up—the idea that the moment had come to meet my life partner.

There used to be a time when I was very focused on meeting someone. Each time I met someone new, I immediately questioned whether the person might be the one. This caused me to tense up and not be present at all. Interacting with someone who is not really present is not pleasant, so people turned away. The longer that went on, the more I started feeling desperate and needy, continuing to put out the wrong vibes. I stayed single.

After several years of frustration over not meeting that special person, I realized that I might as well enjoy the flexibility and freedom of being single, be spontaneous in the moment as things occur, and accept any invitation on the spot if it interested me.

I embraced singlehood and enjoyed it to the fullest.

Yet that morning at the end of my yoga practice, to my own surprise and completely out of the blue, I expressed to the Universe that I was ready to meet someone. Little did I know that very soon my life would flip 180 degrees.

I had just accepted a job in a school for vocational training, teaching psychological and educational subjects I had never taught before. It was fall break, and a week of freedom lay ahead of me. I intended to use this time to prepare as many lesson plans as possible. So, when Frie, a friend of mine, called and asked if I would join her on a trip to Amsterdam for a couple days, the duty-oriented part of me got the upper hand and I declined. Traveling to Amsterdam to celebrate was not part of the equation.

We talked for a while. I wished her a good experience, and then we said our goodbyes. I went right back to work. Yet the idea of staying with a mutual friend, exploring the city, and meeting a lot of people from prior workshops at a full moon celebration kept on popping up in my thoughts. So, on an impulse, and before I could change my mind, I called Frie back and told her I would use the first three days of the week for schoolwork and then join her for a minivacation.

I was now able to fully concentrate on preparing as many classes as possible. On Thursday morning, my friend picked me up, and we drove to Amsterdam. Upon our arrival in the city, we settled into the apartment of Frank, our mutual friend, and caught up on each other’s lives.

The next day, the three of us went out to explore the city. However, someone forgot something, and we returned to the apartment to find the light of the answering machine blinking. I never would have guessed that pushing that button was going to change my life.

An American friend living in Amsterdam, Robert Freedman, had left a message.

We called him and asked if he was interested in joining us for the day. We met in the city and had a wonderful time walking, talking, exploring, and sightseeing. Robert was tall, robust, and bigger than life. He had long, curly dark red hair, gentle brown eyes, a mustache with a short beard, and a big smile.

Later in the afternoon, we paired up to do some grocery shopping for dinner. Robert immediately grabbed my hand. He and I had a magical time together. Whatever store we went in, we found what we needed. We returned to the apartment, where the four of us cooked together and then enjoyed a wholesome meal. Frank left for a prior engagement, and Robert spent that evening with Frie and me, talking and sharing, until he left and we went to bed.

I, however, could not sleep. I kept thinking about Robert. I had met him in September, a month and a half earlier, in an Inner Peace Playshop, a workshop for personal and spiritual growth. I liked him very much and thought he was interested in somebody else. Now, after this day together, I could not get him out of my head. I decided that the next time I saw him, I was going to tell him how much I had enjoyed spending time with him.

Saturday morning after breakfast, Frie, Frank, and I left to explore a different part of the city. We walked along one of the many canals. On both sides of it, houseboats were moored, one after the other, mostly dark, some quite small and simple, others big and elaborate, and some even containing gardens. Cars drove by, people passed by on their bikes, and people walked, some hastily and others taking time to absorb the beauty and surprising uniqueness of Amsterdam, the city of water. And suddenly, on the roof of a boat, I spotted a heron. It took my breath away.

In Antwerp, there was a time when I lived close to the city park. During my many walks and runs, I became aware of a heron living close to the pond in the middle of the park. I loved sitting on a bench and watching this majestic bird gracefully move around. And oh, the pleasure when it would fly, moving its gray-blue wings in total harmony. It gave me goose bumps every single time. And here I was, in the middle of the city of Amsterdam, no trees around, yet I saw a member of this bird species I had grown to love. After the magical day and evening I had just experienced, this heron felt like a good omen.

In the afternoon, my two friends and I returned to the apartment to cook an early dinner before driving to a village on the outskirts of Amsterdam where we would meet for the full moon gathering at a barn.

Participants of the Inner Peace Playshop would gather regularly as a community around the time when the moon was full to support one another and to share, dance, eat, and enjoy one another’s company.

Robert called and asked if he could join us again for dinner and then afterward hitch a ride with us to the meeting place.

Upon arrival, he immediately expressed that he wanted to tell me something, which is exactly what I was about to say to him! I shared how I had enjoyed and treasured the previous day in his company. When it was his turn, he told me that the moment he saw me at the workshop in September, he fell in love with me.

Upon hearing that, I felt as if veils had been lifted from my eyes and sparks of energy were bouncing around, flowing between us in such a way that it was blatantly obvious to our friends in the room that something was going on. We had eyes only for each other and stayed in each other’s company throughout the gathering. That evening, reflecting on all that had transpired earlier that day, I thought the heron from that morning seemed like more than just a good omen. Even now when I see one of these birds, I feel embraced by the quiet anticipation of something good and new coming into my life.

Years later, on a school trip to Canada, I was in a store that sold Native American products. On the counter was a basket of small pebbles with animal symbols on them. I was browsing through them, wondering if I would find a heron, and bingo! I felt that same warmth as that night in Amsterdam.

The day after the full moon gathering, I wanted to get back to Antwerp by noon as I had organized an afternoon concert for Cindy, Robert’s sister, giving her an opportunity to share her music and sell some CDs. The concert was to start at three o’clock. I had met Cindy at the same workshop in September, where she was responsible for the music, which is considered an integral component of healing and personal growth within the Inner Peace Playshops.

The obsessive-compulsive part of me likes to be on time, and in this case, with my being the organizer, on time meant being there significantly in advance to make sure all was set up properly. Both Cindy and Robert were going to join Frie and me for the trip back to Antwerp. After lots of delays, with growing anxiety on my part, we finally left.

We arrived five minutes before the concert was to start. It took place in a beautifully renovated dojo, a gathering place for martial arts, this one used mainly for tai chi. The Universe, with a lot of help from my friends, provided. Everything was set up, and about a hundred people had gathered to hear Cindy sing and lead us into singing as well. The concert was a success.

Afterward, we went for an early dinner at one of my favorite spots in the city. At the end of the evening, Robert took Cindy to the railway station and told her, I am the Freedman who is staying with Cathérine tonight! Thus began the relationship that totally turned my life around.

My sweetheart was incredibly smart, gentle, kind, strong, spirited, funny, graceful, and talented with a huge, warm, and mesmerizing singing voice. He was the best hugger in the world, along with being generous, loving, and lovable, as well as a great schmoozer. He was sharp, bright, playful, attentive, wonderful, open, intuitive, devoted, dedicated, and on and on.

Robert was born and raised in Houston, Texas. I was born and raised in a small town in the northwest of Belgium, right at the French border. Our relationship basically took place in Amsterdam, Antwerp, and Houston. For the first four years, before I immigrated to the States, a lot of traveling was going on.

The first two years of our relationship, we traveled back and forth between Amsterdam and Antwerp from Friday to Sunday evening. Ah, those Saturdays in the beginning. We stayed in bed all day long talking and sharing our lives, then suddenly we would look at the clock and scramble out and to the store before it closed, not to open again until Monday morning. Or we stayed at the table after breakfast and talked, looking up things in dictionaries and atlases.

I spent the two weeks of my Easter vacation of 1991 in Amsterdam with my sweetheart. One day we took the train to Zandvoort-aan-zee, only half an hour’s ride from the city. We walked through the dunes, and to my uttermost astonishment and delight, the dunes were filled with tulips popping out of the sand. I had never seen anything like that before, nor have I ever since. We took pictures of each other there; one of these is still one of my favorite pictures of Robert.

That same vacation, we visited the biggest flower exhibit in the world, the Keukenhof in Lisse. All day long we walked among the tulips, daffodils, narcissus, hyacinths, and orchids inside and outside. The flowers that stuck with me the most were the hyacinths, which happened to be Robert’s favorite flower. We were lost in a world of color and splendor, and