The Evolution of Grief

I’ve been feeling the urge to change my profile photo lately.

But each time I attempt to I am overwhelmed with an intense feeling of guilt .

Gilt and Grief to change the photo of Legend and I because in a lot of ways it just solidifies the finality of his life on earth.

So much has changed in the time since his passing.

I read through journals and look at memories and at times I do not recognize the person I was then.

It seems almost serendipitous that last night at the dinner table our conversation was about the individual grief we have all experienced as a family together.

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My eldest and I talked about how our hearts hardened in certain ways without us even realizing it.

In many ways this has served us to survive,

To continue through this matrix of time and space.

But as we are emerging I have realized this hardening no longer serves me.

It protected me in the early days, months and years.

Helped me find my feet, take a breath and do things I felt no desire or purpose in even doing.

But as life evolves so to does the call for your expansion. I have found lately my expansion is calling for my heart to feel melt and dive into experiences, relationships and shadows that exist within.

The blocks that have formed as a survival are no longer serving me.

Once again being urged to lean in & feel at a deeper level I am overwhelmed with an intensity of emotion and guilt.

His voice seems more distant,

The feeling of his embrace is no longer fresh in my senses.

I used to spend each waking morning visualling him and his life,

The ways in which he laughed,

The feeling of his touch,

I would get lost there.

I was in a day dream denying reality.

Waking up from the day dream only to be overwhelmed by the reality in which I was being called to live through.

The mountain of grief was so enormous I had no clue how I would climb.

Naively I did not know that all of life is a mountain.

Filled with beautiful landscapes,

Treachorous edges,

and Mind Blowing experiences.

The day I committed to stepping one foot in front of the other,

Finding grace for myself in ways I have never had for myself,

And being comfortable in discomfort.

I began to learn that life is not here to be a cruising peaceful sail,

It has lessons,

Teachings and heartaches beyond what you imagined and it requires of you to step blindly in order to evolve,

Expand and heal.

To be of this earth,

In this moment present and here for the experience of being a soul in the vessel of the human body.

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In this realization I started stepping, walking and running.

But I definitely have toggled between life on earth and in the clouds.

My heart has hardened to protect me.

And it has served me in the GET it DONE realm.

But as I am learning and growing,

Expanding and FEELING,

I have learned it no longer serves me.

This shedding feels like a call to duality.

To living in this world,

While being so naked and vulnerable in love that it almost has me running for the hills.

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Getting really honest with myself,

Forgiving myself for the ways in which my hardening has been self destructive,

Apologizing to the people that have been on the recieving end of this hardening,

Finding grace for where I am.

Being brutally honest about my heart without fear of rejection,

Fear of heartbreak.

I have spent my life in the shadows,

Unaware of the purpose of life,

Of the great bravery it is just to rise to the challenge of incarnation.

Love is the only way forward and through.

So as I step beyond my shadow,

Lean into another layer of this grief,

And soften parts of my heart that have been hardened,

I am reminded that I am divinely held loved and guided.

Every thing good and bad in this lifetime has been for me,

Nothing is permanent,

And as I lean in and find grace,

The truths, the evolution and the magic of the universe will continually unfold.

Love and Light

Chloé Pestana