Healing Grief & Overcoming Loss

Remembering & Honoring

Grief is probably the most difficult thing to bear in life, yet it is something that each person will have to face at one time or another, for one reason or another. Grief has a life of its own, and a rhythm of its own, which may be different for every person. It is an emotional roller coaster ride that runs the full spectrum of emotions: one moment you can be sobbing, then laughing, then angry, sometimes all triggered by the same incident. It can sometimes feel like you are losing your mind because the heart takes over and seems to have a mind of its own. The more you try to resist grief, the more painful it becomes because it is not just an emotional response, it also produces physiological and chemical reactions in the body - therefore, the more calm, patient and peaceful you can become, the easier the process can be.

There is a season for everything in the cycle of life, and although we don't like to talk about it, death touches us all. Time does lessen grief, but the journey varies from person to person, which can be very challenging and stressful if other people in your family or household handle grief differently than you do. In cases where tragedy is the cause of loss, the level of shock can be so great that it adds a whole new level of emotions.  It is important to note that one is not alone in the pain, even though it can feel that way. Death is a part of life, and it can and will change one’s life. Dealing with it appropriately can be healing and can even be experienced as a rite of passage that stretches and evolves the heart and soul, giving one even greater strength and courage to face life. Death is a form of transformation for all involved - for many, it is best to stay sheltered in a coccoon for a time before you can emerge transformed as a butterfly.

What is important to remember is that grief is for the living, not for those who've passed. Death is actually a birth: for the soul it is not an ending but a new beginning as our loved ones have passed into a higher dimension of love and light, and they are always with us. However, the grief we feel is for our own loss of their physical presence in our life. The soul is eternal, and transcends time and space. We will all see our loved ones again, for we have made contracts and have promises to keep with one another to serve each other in the eternal evolution of the soul. Those who have touched others will live on in their hearts until they can be together again, and again, and again....

Crystal skulls are very gentle and powerful tools for healing grief… they often come to people in times of loss and transition to support peace and healing.

Overcoming Loss with Crystal Skulls

These Crystals and Crystal Skulls can give comfort in times of loss and can facilitate communication with higher dimensions: 

Agate - a gentle, calming stone that promotes tranquility, brings harmony and helps calm depressive or agitated states. Allows you to accept the things you cannot change and gives courage to change the things you can. Blue Lace Agate crystal skulls bring peace, happiness and hope for the future; they access higher spiritual planes, and facilitate communion with Angels.

Amethyst - facilitates communication with one’s guides, connection with the divine, and communion with higher realms of consciousness. Amethyst enhances psychic abilities and may help you communicate with the spirit world. It supports emotional stability and inner strength, and can help overcome the suffering of personal loss. Amethyst dispels fear and anxiety, and alleviates sadness, grief, depression and anger. It helps you to adjust to any loss you have suffered, absorbing pain and grief and offering spiritual protection and comfort. It induces tranquility, promotes sleep, and soothes any negative emotion.

Jet - facilitates rapid personal growth. Jet supports psychic experiences, enhancing insight and clarity. It protects sensitive people from negative energies, and helps release negative patterns and emotional attachments. Jet is a powerful healer; it can help ease the pain of headaches and migraines, and can speed healing of injuries. It absorbs negative energy, alleviates grief and depression.

Larimar - is a stone of joy and peace that can help ease grief. It can dissolve energy blockages from the past. Larimar facilitates Angelic contact and communication with other realms. It quiets the mind, promotes serenity, calm and relaxation. Larimar can be held as a worry stone, or used in the home or workplace to promote a tranquil atmosphere.

Healing Grief with Crystal Skulls

Crystals resonate at higher energetic frequencies that can support our wellbeing on all levels – physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. Crystal skulls can uplift our energy, bring us peace and calm, and assist us through life’s challenges… These stones can be especially helpful and supportive during times of grief and loss, and in gaining clarity for new beginnings:

Apatite - increases motivation, creativity and intellect. It clears confusion and frustration, and eases sorrow, apathy, anger and irritability. An Apatite Crystal Skull supports self-acceptance and self-confidence, removing negativity about oneself and others. It heals the heart and emotions, releases grief and guilt, and uplifts your spirits. 

Jade - alleviates depression and instills feelings of serenity and tranquility. It reduces stress and is powerful for relaxation; it also improves sleep. Jade promotes courage and wisdom, and also relieves grief, trauma, and loneliness. Jade soothes the mind, releasing negative thoughts. It is also a protective stone that wards against negative energies. Jade can help attain goals and dreams, and encourages you to become who you really are.

Lapis - quickly releases stress and anxiety, bringing deep peace and harmony. It also strengthens ability to concentrate and improves physical strength. Lapis can help to shake away distress and painful memories. It helps to change life for the better and promotes new interests. It may alleviate insomnia and vertigo, and overcome depression and fatigue.

Moonstone - can help soothe the emotions, it is a stone of joy that will balance the emotional body and allow one to let go safely. A stone of optimism, it can work wonders for the bereaved. Rainbow moonstone promotes calm, balance, harmony, compassion and inner confidence. Placing rainbow moonstone under the pillow can promote restful sleep.

Obsidian - has healing properties that protect the very sensitive from depression as it blocks negativity of all kinds. It is an ideal protector and stabilizer for gentle-hearted people. Obsidian dissolves emotional blockages and ancient traumas. It promotes qualities of compassion and strength. It is especially helpful in times of grief. It vibrates calmness and security, and stabilizes the energies of everyone around it. Black Obsidian is protective and provides support during change

Rhodonite - assists to release repressed grief or denial, allowing a person to move on. It promotes calm, builds confidence and alleviates confusion. Holding it soothes the nervous system, calms stress and anxiety, facilitates relaxation and brings a sense of well-being. It can help mend a broken heart, healing trauma, self-destruction, codependency and abuse issues. It is a stone of compassion and forgiveness, an emotional balancer that clears away emotional wounds and scars from the past.

Rubellite (Pink Tourmaline) - is a very uplifting stone that is deeply relaxing and comforting. It is a very positive crystal that brings peace, balance, calm and a feeling of security; with Lepidolite it is powerful for calming people in distress. Pink Tourmaline facilitates healing loss of love, and old emotional wounds.

Ruby in Zoisite - a stone of transmutation, it is especially helpful during the grieving process. It facilitates releasing pain and sorrow, and enhances compassion to support others who are also grieving. It offers spiritual comfort and encourages you to regain your passion for life without shutting off your deeper feelings. It is a very positive stone and it assists in seeing the good and the joyful in the present moment, no matter how dark that may appear. It keeps you centred so that you do not over-react to situations. Zoisite is a heart-centred stone and with its help you can give thanks for the happiness you had and catch a glimpse of the bright future that is beckoning you on.

Sugilite - is one of the most important love stones. It facilitates physical and emotional healing, and can relieve pain and discomfort of all kinds. It dispels negativity and anger, and creates peace, calm and harmony. Sugilite is nurturing in times of grief, and can comfort you when you feel all is lost. It reminds you to love yourself and be kind to yourself and to those around you. A stone of forgiveness, it dissolves hostility and encourages mutual support. Sugilite protects your soul from shocks and trauma and clears disappointment from your life (hold it over your heart or third eye when you feel despair). It fills you with love and teaches you how to live from your own truth.

Coping with grief

These crystals and crystal skulls are particulary helpful in coping with grief:

Ametrine - offers the benefits of both amethyst and citrine. Citrine uplifts and brings joy, and dissipates and transmutes negative energy. Citrine aligns with the higher self and is a powerful transformer for healing. Amethyst creates a protective energy field, and supports growth to reach one’s higher potential. Ametrine alleviates depression, leading to inner peace and tranquility. Ametrine instigates change and eases transition.

Aquamarine - a soothing, calming stone that provides peace, comfort and upliftment. Helps to release grief and give it over to the universe; facilitates let go. Aquamarine helps bring unfinished business to a conclusion, and is useful for closure on all levels. It invokes high states of consciousness and spiritual awareness.

Emerald - a powerful healer, especially for the heart; it can lift depression and bring balance on the physical, emotional, and mental levels. Helps to remove negative thoughts, soothes grief and promotes harmony within.

Malachite - is excellent for depression and grief. It can heal the heart by releasing past hurts or trauma, allowing one to grieve properly and not hold onto emotions or stuff them down. Malachite helps one connect to the All; it is a transformative stone that brings peace. It soothes the soul, releases stress, and creates new beginnings. 

Rhodochrosite - can help with grief and banish negative thoughts from one's mind. Rhodochrosite opens the heart, uplifts moods and attitudes. It instills peace and tranquility, and it is difficult to be depressed or negative in its presence. Rhodochrosite heals the emotional body, and soothes emotional stress. It helps alleviate loneliness, loss, heartache, fear, and insecurities. It promotes self-forgiveness, self-worth, and self-love. It inspires trust, a sense of purpose and desire to live.

Rose Quartz - heals the heart of past and present pain. It is calming and fills us with love. Wearing a rose quartz pendant over the heart chakra is powerfully healing. It fills and heals the heart with gentle love, and helps one to move on when the time is right. Rose Quartz emanates loving energy throughout its environment, creating peace and calm in the people and places that surround it. Rose Quartz can support and heal the heart, both physically and emotionally.

Consider also: Soothing Flat 2-D Crystal Skulls

Cycles of Birth and Death
Message from the Tibetan Crystal Skull AMAR

Birth and death are one… every change and transformation is a death of the old way of being, and a birth into a new way of being. When one is born onto the Earth plane, one goes through a death and detachment from the Divine plane which can be fraught with pain, yet there always remains an “umbilical cord” of Light that tethers you to Source. When one dies on the Earth plane, one is born unto the Divine plane, yet one always remains connected to those on Earth through the bonds of love, and also through Karmic bonds.

When a soul passes from the body, it frees itself from the constraints of 3rd dimensional reality, and raises its frequency to the higher dimensional frequencies of the etheric planes. It is possible for those on Earth to raise their frequency and consciousness to such a high vibration as to be able to commune and even communicate with those on the Other Side of the Veil, particularly at this time of the year when the veil is thinnest. However, the energies of grief can be so heavy as to impede accessing these higher dimensions, so you must be willing to overcome the heaviness of the heart and embrace the Light in order to attain the higher vibrational frequencies of those in spirit. Also, it is important to remember that those spirits who are newly departed may require some time of adjustment to the higher planes before they can alter their frequency to commune with the Earth plane. It is particularly difficult for those in the Light to approach loved ones on Earth whose hearts are heavy with sadness or anger as these are extremely low vibrations, therefore, as difficult as it may be, it is best to grieve with a light heart, to celebrate the life of a loved one with joy and gratitude as much as possible in order to actually remain in close contact with them across the spiritual divide.

Birth is like rain falling to Earth from the clouds, and death is the equivalent of the water evaporating, and returning to the clouds. It is the cycle of life, and it is the ultimate re-cycling over and over again (until and unless the cords of attachment are released, the karmic bonds are balanced, and the soul is set free through ascension). Crystal skulls represent the eternal aspect of the soul, and the ever-evolving consciousness… crystal skulls can also facilitate conscious evolution in the body to allow for the soul to ascend and be truly set free from cyclical existence on the Earth plane in order to continue its journey through the cosmos, and return to the Divine Source.

On the journey of life on Earth, an individual experiences many deaths… of course there are the deaths of loved ones, which offer the opportunity for evolution and spiritual growth for the departed soul, and also for those left behind as heartbreak breaks the heart open. There are also mini deaths on the journey of life, because each change is a death of some aspect of oneself, while also being a birth to new opportunities. It is important to allow time to grieve the “loss” of the old in order to allow adjustment to the new frequencies.  Remember that each change in life is a graduation to a new plane of existence, to new frequencies of experience, and to new vibrational opportunities.

Saying The Right Words

As with any disaster or tragedy, only those who are personally experiencing it can fully comprehend the magnitude of the catastophe. Of course lives, both human and animals, are the most precious thing - yet loss of property and personal belongings can feel like losing part of oneself and one's family history. Words and prayers cannot heal the pain, but they can offer comfort, caring and support for those who must find the strength to rebuild their lives and be reborn, like the Phoenix rising from the ashes...

Finding the right words can be a challenge... here is a sampling to express empathy with those who have encountered loss:
I'm here for you; you're not alone.
What can I do to help?
How can I ease your pain?
I don't know what to say.
I can't imagine what you're going through.
I'm here for you if you need to share.

Be sensitive and avoid using words like:
I understand what you're feeling (unless, of course, you really do).
Everything happens for a reason.
It was meant to be.
It just takes time.
Don't worry, it'll get better.

Loss is probably the most difficult thing to bear in life, yet it is something that each person will have to face at one time or another, for one reason or another. Crystal skulls can be very gentle yet powerful tools for healing grief… they often come to people in times of loss and transition to support peace and healing.

Responding to Loss

It is sometimes equally hard responding to "I am sorry... for your loss. Here are some possible options:

"Thank you."

“Thank you for coming.”

"Thank you for your prayers"

“I appreciate that.”

“I appreciate your kind words.”

“I was lucky to be able to share my life with ...”

“Thank you for all your support”

"Thank you for reaching out to me."

"I know this is difficult for you, too.”

“Thank you for the message. I appreciate your kind words.”

“It’s so comforting knowing that there are people I can turn to in my time of need”

"Your sympathy means a lot.”

"Thank you so much for all your help and uplifting words."

"Your support and thoughtfulness are well received. They always spoke so highly of you.”

The Day Of The Dead

Many ancient societies believed that objects like the crystal skulls represent "life": the honoring of humanity in the flesh and the embodiment of consciousness.

Rituals celebrating the deaths of ancestors have been observed by civilizations around the world for more than 2500 years. In some cultures today, especially in Mexico, they still honor the dead and celebrate "The Day of the Dead", usually on November 1st. This coincides with the Christian observation of "All Saints Day", which also honors the spirits of departed Saints. During the celebration of the Day of the Dead, images of skulls can be seen everywhere, much the way we see them for Halloween (originally called "All Hallows Eve", the night before "All Saints Day").

Even in present day Western Religions, it is believed that during the time around November 1st, the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead is at its thinnest, allowing us to communicate with those beyond this world. The Day of the Dead is particularly known as a time to communicate with the souls of the departed, and crystal skulls may have served as communication tools to connect to other realms and dimensions. Explore more.

 Memento Mori

Unlike the Mexican tradition of "The Day of The Dead"  where ancestors are honored with skulls, The Memento Mori tradition reminds the living to live life to the fullest... read more

Wishing you Strength & Peace