Ambiguous Losses: A Path of the Heart

What are ambiguous losses & how do we live a full life with them?

 We all have experienced ambiguous losses in our lives and there is healing in naming them, even to ourselves alone. Simply living a human life in a body is full of ambiguous losses. When we inquire, we find we have experienced more ambiguous losses than we realized and can see where the flow of life force in us may have been paralyzed or at least diminished. Awareness of these losses as ambiguous begins a shift of consciousness and a change of heart.

The pain of ambiguous loss is that we feel no closure, nothing feels final or complete. There is no certificate of death, no acknowledgement of the ongoing pain of the loss, and no certainty that the beloved will ever come back, that health will return, or that life will ever be good, happy, or that we will survive the trauma. Life as we knew it is over. This ongoing ambiguity is highly stressful and even debilitating.  Resilience is needed but often declines over time if the loss is not addressed. The grief process is frozen and without closure, and at the same time always present as a ghost in the field, an oozing wound, or a stone in the heart, perhaps easily triggered in unexpected moments and situations.  The functioning of many individuals and whole families is to varying degrees paralyzed.  Many with such losses grieve in solitude or the grief may be cut off, put on hold as there is no acknowledgement that something huge has happened and is continuing with no end in sight, no rituals or communal grieving. 

Naming and honoring ambiguous losses provides a container and makes it possible to come into a new and different relationship with the losses. The loss remains, the grief continues to be accessible and may rise up fully at times, and yet it is possible to come into a new relationship with it in such a way that we can still be happy, still have a good life.

·         Is there someone in your life who is physically present, but not really present? Does it seem that they are there, but not there?

·         Have you somehow lost, and are you missing and grieving a beloved child, family member, or friend who has physically disappeared from your life, for reasons known or unknown, and yet you still feel that their psychological/soul presence remains with you – that they are not there, yet intensely there?

·         Have you immigrated to this country leaving family and friends behind, not knowing when or if you will see those beloveds or your homeland again?

·         Do you dread the holidays, certain birthdays or anniversaries, and are you relieved when they are over?

·         Have you somehow lost your capacity to live fully, work, and enjoy life due to physical or mental health issues, aging, accident, or trauma?

·         Are you feeling the losses associated with aging?

There is more information on ambiguous loss at www.templeofthesacredfeminine.com

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I have experienced a lifetime full of ambiguous losses, though I did not know that term for them. This naming has created a container for me and I see that it makes a difference to others when they name and feel a container for their own ambiguous losses.  I have learned how to negotiate the territory of ambiguous loss and live without closure one day at a time since I was a very small child. Ambiguous losses have been my Teacher, my Sat Guru, in my healing and awakening process.  I keep meeting and embracing them as they arise.

I have come to see and feel Divine Arrangement is ever-present, even in our deepest losses, and Grace continues to provide us with enough courage, resilience, and opportunities to keep working with these losses and harvesting the jewels among the shards if we are willing to turn toward the ambiguity.  We have the spiritual help to come into new relationship with our ambiguous losses and give them a visible place in our hearts and lives.

Pauline Boss, the author of Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief, coined the term when she was working with the wives of men missing in action during the Viet Nam war. Having a name for these losses creates a container and reminds us that they are real even though they go unseen and unacknowledged by others, and even by ourselves.

"With ambiguous loss there is no closure;

the challenge is to learn how to live with the ambiguity."

                                                                                                            ~Pauline Boss

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I am offering a day of ceremony in Maryland March 21, 2015, so that, if you are called, you can inquire and name your ambiguous losses and have them witnessed and honored in the safe container of community.  We will work with some practices you can continue to use for meeting these losses, including clearing the ancestral field.  The ‘stretcher from Grace’ will be standing by.

Where you may feel a deep hole in your heart or emptiness because of your ambiguous loss, I can tell you that the emptiness isn’t truly empty—there is Divine Presence and Divine Arrangement within it, awaiting your attention.  My work with the deepest ambiguous losses continuously reveals this to me and to others. I have found that ambiguous losses offer us a path into the Heart and a portal to Grace.   

For full info, go to:  http://www.templeofthesacredfeminine.com/articles/2015AMBIGUOUS_LOSSMarch.pdf 

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I suggest you read Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief by Pauline Boss