Love isn’t a flawless art. Unconditional love is a lesson, a journey, and a work in progress. And when we embrace the art of learning to love unconditionally, we can live into an expansive future as we navigate grief.
My mother taught me some valuable lessons about unconditional love. These lessons have left a mark on me, and I personally have felt the unwavering support of unconditional love in my life. After loss, we need to embrace a new life, and embodying unconditional love is a powerful step toward real transformation.
If grief is leaving you feeling numb and you don’t know how you can move forward, today’s episode is for you. I’m showing you what unconditional love during the grieving process looks like, and how to allow unconditional love to support you as you navigate your life after loss.
Are you ready to navigate the mourning process and connect with your emotions? Click here to get my Mourning Journaling Workbook to help you embrace your internal grief, expressing it through writing.
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
- What unconditional love looks like during grief.
- The transformative power of loving somebody for who they are, wanting nothing more than their happiness.
- Why full acceptance isn’t a requirement for navigating your grief journey.
- Lessons from my mother about unconditional love and enduring strength.
- How to start making unconditional love a part of your grief journey.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
- Click here for instructions on how to follow, rate, and review Overcoming Grief!
- The Melody of Unconditional Love – song by Tupac Shakur
- Read more about Anais Nin
Full Episode Transcript:
Though things change, the future’s still inside of me. We must remember that tomorrow comes after the dark. So you will always be in my heart. The melody of Unconditional Love sung by Tupac Shakur. Ever felt the weight of an aching heart after a profound loss? Love, especially unconditional love, isn’t a flawless art. It’s a journey, a lesson, and a work in progress. Join me as I embrace the heart of learning to love unconditionally guided by the profound lessons my mom left rooted in my soul.
Welcome to Overcoming Grief, a show for women experiencing profound grief and looking for support in healing and transforming their lives. If you are ready to heal after loss, create a new self-identity, take responsibility to do the hard things, and get massive results in your life, this show is for you. Now, here’s your host, Master Grief and Life Coach, Sandy Linda.
Hello all to my amazing listeners. Happy January 2024. How are you all doing? Did you have a quiet or a relentless joy of holidays? Well, I was away to celebrate my birthday and Christmas at St. Maarten. It was an absolute place to celebrate, relax, and reflect on the year of 2023. I did many adventure things, got some history lessons on the French and Dutch side because St. Maarten was divided between the French and the Dutch, and I had a lovely spa day.
If you haven’t signed up for my community yet, what are you waiting for? ready to embark on a transformative journey. Join my community today and unlock your free morning relief journaling workbook. It’s your personal guide to grieve openly and empower your future. That’s just the beginning. Subscribing also grants you exclusive behind the scenes access and insider only tips, tools, and insights that I share nowhere else. Don’t miss out. Subscribe Now. Check out the show notes or stick around until the show ends for the link to my website. I can’t wait to see you there.
The reason why I only do emails is because it’s personal. It’s engaging the conversation. Actually I receive some great emails from you lovely subscribers about how you’re progressing through the grief or how the journey is going. Then you ask me personal questions that I only engage in the email, but someone may get a spotlight or may get your answered question on the show. So, okay, let’s explore the profound connection between navigating loss and discovering the unwavering support of unconditional love. Despite the pain of facing losses, I know it’s a necessary step towards embracing a new life. For me, I am grateful for both the good and the flawed times in the past as they have helped me understand what true love is.
Losing someone you relied on can leave a huge void in your life. This could be due to their passing away or if they left you. It’s a difficult situation to be in. I want to offer you that it’s normal to feel scared and lost.
Now, what has grieving my mom taught me about unconditional love. Loving someone means truly understanding them deeply and extending unconditional love requires embracing the wholeness of their being, even in the face of unconditional grief and loss. When I was doing my Google search, I looked up the definition of unconditional love. Unconditional love is when you love someone for who they are and want nothing more than their happiness. You don’t base it on what someone does for you in return. So for me, losing my parents felt like losing a part of my heart.
Any of you, of my listeners, understand the grieving process of losing parents, especially when they offered you unconditional love. I miss them daily. I hope as I continue on this journey that they’ve given me enough love and strength and understanding to deal with these unexpected circumstances that happened 10 years ago.
As I learned from my listeners, and from engaging in conversations with people who’ve gone through multiple losses or heartbreaking losses, parents are always there for you, no matter what. Even when you don’t deserve it, or don’t want them to be. Friends, partners, and siblings might choose to leave but parents stay. They always love you and never stop. I miss my parents every day, but it’s even harder on special occasions.
When everyone else goes home to their families, I feel left out. Somehow I survived those tough times, like Christmas, even my birthday. Celebrating at St. Maarten and their birthdays. Losing loved ones is never easy, even with time. I will always wish they were here to share my holidays and life changing events. Even me going on a solo venture trip took a long time to do, and it’s been an extraordinary experience.
So 10 years have passed since my mom’s battle with cancer came to an end. Not a day slips by without her crossing my mind. I vividly recall those days when she, my strong and vibrant mother, faced the grips of illness. Witnessing her vulnerability was a terrifying contrast to the unbeatable force I knew her to be. Despite declining health, she remained bold and beautiful until the end, a reflection of her enduring strength.
But her departure left me in a state of numbness. I carried on with the routine of life. But the reality of her absence was a weight too heavy to fully grasp. Living felt like an emotional auto pilot with my heart and mind taking an unplanned leave. It was a journey to learn about the acceptance of my mother’s loss. It was allowing me to face the fact that I need to understand how to heal the loss of my mom and become more aware of what unconditional love meant for me through the grief.
For some, I am not here to force the acceptance part of it because I want you all to know that it’s perfectly okay that you may not accept the departure fully. That’s part of the grieving process. Because maybe the concept of her being gone is something that you don’t need to be forced on. I’ve been there, and I know how that feels. Because grieving has no timeline.
Each of us navigate loss uniquely, finding our own way to cope when a loved one passes away. While complete healing might seem unattainable, take comfort knowing that the void you feel is purposeful. That’s a reason too. It’s a space in your heart that is meant for love and memories of the ones you lost.
Through these years, I have come to realize a profound truth. That while death may disregard resolution, trying to fix it, love transcends it all. We have the power to continue loving those who have left us and keeping them as part of our lives long after they bid farewell. In the words of Anais Nin, she said you cannot save people. You could only love them.
From day one, my mom taught me what unconditional love is. She protected me from the beginning. Yet once she was diagnosed with cancer, I could not help her. She was sick and vulnerable, and she was slowly on her way out of this world. Although I couldn’t save her anymore, she had already saved me. She showed me how unconditional love and how love is all we ever truly need. Because my mom was there from the good times and some of my flawed times because we are not perfect.
Some people are striving for perfection even when we are going to do this work. We’re so helplessly looking for ways to be perfect. My mom had always showed me even though I was bad at times and everything as a kid because I just did things. I guess I didn’t like the word no or don’t do this, but she gave me profound wisdom. I still love her in the moments.
But let me share with you some of the lessons that you can take with you on unconditional love in the midst of your grief. So the first one is to embrace the present moment. Through the profound loss of my mother, I discovered that life is precious and short, a gift meant to be embraced with every ounce of our being. In the grand drop scene of the universe, our time is but a brief interlude. Yet within this limited span, we hold the power to shape our legacy. Love is our legacy. Bestowing our blessings upon others is our birthright. Freedom is our fate.
When someone we love dies, we have to keep on living. My mom taught me that even though she would not be physically here with me anymore, I had to keep living. My mom told me not to spend much time being sad. Try to make the best of your life without me and venture out on those road trips with yourself or someone who can have fun. But remember, they will not be like me. Be proud and not sad. That was some good wisdom while she was in her bed. Allow me to just enjoy the moments and why I am taking some solo adventure trips at times. My most incredible peace and hope came from my belief that the world had something more beautiful in store for my mom. She impacted this world, and it was time for her to be somewhere else where she could do the same. She was somewhere else she could spread her magic in another way.
That is all that I have for this special insightful episode on unconditional love and lessons that has taught me throughout this journey of grief. In the end I want to close with embrace the rhythm of change for within the melody of life, the future resides in each heartbeat. In this sympathy of tomorrow, even in the darkest notes, there echoes an internal refrain, the melody of unconditional love. Thank you all for listening, and I will catch you on the next one. Bye.
If you enjoyed today’s show and don’t want to worry about missing an episode, you can follow the show wherever you listen to your podcasts. If you haven’t already, I would really appreciate it if you could share the podcast with others who you think would benefit from it and leave a rating and a review to let me know what you think.
It doesn’t have to be a five star rating. Although I sure hope you love the show. I want your honest feedback so I can create an awesome podcast that provides tons of value on the show. Visit www.sandylinda.com/podcastlaunch for step by step instructions on how to follow rate and review.
Thanks for listening to today’s episode of Overcoming Grief. If you’re ready to move into a new, rewarding life experience, and want more information about how to work with Sandy, visit www.sandylinda.com.
Welcome to Overcoming Grief, a show for women experiencing profound grief and looking for support in healing and transforming their lives. If you are ready to heal after loss, create a new self-identity, take responsibility to do the hard things, and get massive results in your life, this show is for you. Now, here’s your host, Master Grief and Life Coach, Sandy Linda.
Hello all to my amazing listeners. Happy January 2024. How are you all doing? Did you have a quiet or a relentless joy of holidays? Well, I was away to celebrate my birthday and Christmas at St. Maarten. It was an absolute place to celebrate, relax, and reflect on the year of 2023. I did many adventure things, got some history lessons on the French and Dutch side because St. Maarten was divided between the French and the Dutch, and I had a lovely spa day.
If you haven’t signed up for my community yet, what are you waiting for? ready to embark on a transformative journey. Join my community today and unlock your free morning relief journaling workbook. It’s your personal guide to grieve openly and empower your future. That’s just the beginning. Subscribing also grants you exclusive behind the scenes access and insider only tips, tools, and insights that I share nowhere else. Don’t miss out. Subscribe Now. Check out the show notes or stick around until the show ends for the link to my website. I can’t wait to see you there.
The reason why I only do emails is because it’s personal. It’s engaging the conversation. Actually I receive some great emails from you lovely subscribers about how you’re progressing through the grief or how the journey is going. Then you ask me personal questions that I only engage in the email, but someone may get a spotlight or may get your answered question on the show. So, okay, let’s explore the profound connection between navigating loss and discovering the unwavering support of unconditional love. Despite the pain of facing losses, I know it’s a necessary step towards embracing a new life. For me, I am grateful for both the good and the flawed times in the past as they have helped me understand what true love is.
Losing someone you relied on can leave a huge void in your life. This could be due to their passing away or if they left you. It’s a difficult situation to be in. I want to offer you that it’s normal to feel scared and lost.
Now, what has grieving my mom taught me about unconditional love. Loving someone means truly understanding them deeply and extending unconditional love requires embracing the wholeness of their being, even in the face of unconditional grief and loss. When I was doing my Google search, I looked up the definition of unconditional love. Unconditional love is when you love someone for who they are and want nothing more than their happiness. You don’t base it on what someone does for you in return. So for me, losing my parents felt like losing a part of my heart.
Any of you, of my listeners, understand the grieving process of losing parents, especially when they offered you unconditional love. I miss them daily. I hope as I continue on this journey that they’ve given me enough love and strength and understanding to deal with these unexpected circumstances that happened 10 years ago.
As I learned from my listeners, and from engaging in conversations with people who’ve gone through multiple losses or heartbreaking losses, parents are always there for you, no matter what. Even when you don’t deserve it, or don’t want them to be. Friends, partners, and siblings might choose to leave but parents stay. They always love you and never stop. I miss my parents every day, but it’s even harder on special occasions.
When everyone else goes home to their families, I feel left out. Somehow I survived those tough times, like Christmas, even my birthday. Celebrating at St. Maarten and their birthdays. Losing loved ones is never easy, even with time. I will always wish they were here to share my holidays and life changing events. Even me going on a solo venture trip took a long time to do, and it’s been an extraordinary experience.
So 10 years have passed since my mom’s battle with cancer came to an end. Not a day slips by without her crossing my mind. I vividly recall those days when she, my strong and vibrant mother, faced the grips of illness. Witnessing her vulnerability was a terrifying contrast to the unbeatable force I knew her to be. Despite declining health, she remained bold and beautiful until the end, a reflection of her enduring strength.
But her departure left me in a state of numbness. I carried on with the routine of life. But the reality of her absence was a weight too heavy to fully grasp. Living felt like an emotional auto pilot with my heart and mind taking an unplanned leave. It was a journey to learn about the acceptance of my mother’s loss. It was allowing me to face the fact that I need to understand how to heal the loss of my mom and become more aware of what unconditional love meant for me through the grief.
For some, I am not here to force the acceptance part of it because I want you all to know that it’s perfectly okay that you may not accept the departure fully. That’s part of the grieving process. Because maybe the concept of her being gone is something that you don’t need to be forced on. I’ve been there, and I know how that feels. Because grieving has no timeline.
Each of us navigate loss uniquely, finding our own way to cope when a loved one passes away. While complete healing might seem unattainable, take comfort knowing that the void you feel is purposeful. That’s a reason too. It’s a space in your heart that is meant for love and memories of the ones you lost.
Through these years, I have come to realize a profound truth. That while death may disregard resolution, trying to fix it, love transcends it all. We have the power to continue loving those who have left us and keeping them as part of our lives long after they bid farewell. In the words of Anais Nin, she said you cannot save people. You could only love them.
From day one, my mom taught me what unconditional love is. She protected me from the beginning. Yet once she was diagnosed with cancer, I could not help her. She was sick and vulnerable, and she was slowly on her way out of this world. Although I couldn’t save her anymore, she had already saved me. She showed me how unconditional love and how love is all we ever truly need. Because my mom was there from the good times and some of my flawed times because we are not perfect.
Some people are striving for perfection even when we are going to do this work. We’re so helplessly looking for ways to be perfect. My mom had always showed me even though I was bad at times and everything as a kid because I just did things. I guess I didn’t like the word no or don’t do this, but she gave me profound wisdom. I still love her in the moments.
But let me share with you some of the lessons that you can take with you on unconditional love in the midst of your grief. So the first one is to embrace the present moment. Through the profound loss of my mother, I discovered that life is precious and short, a gift meant to be embraced with every ounce of our being. In the grand drop scene of the universe, our time is but a brief interlude. Yet within this limited span, we hold the power to shape our legacy. Love is our legacy. Bestowing our blessings upon others is our birthright. Freedom is our fate.
When someone we love dies, we have to keep on living. My mom taught me that even though she would not be physically here with me anymore, I had to keep living. My mom told me not to spend much time being sad. Try to make the best of your life without me and venture out on those road trips with yourself or someone who can have fun. But remember, they will not be like me. Be proud and not sad. That was some good wisdom while she was in her bed. Allow me to just enjoy the moments and why I am taking some solo adventure trips at times. My most incredible peace and hope came from my belief that the world had something more beautiful in store for my mom. She impacted this world, and it was time for her to be somewhere else where she could do the same. She was somewhere else she could spread her magic in another way.
That is all that I have for this special insightful episode on unconditional love and lessons that has taught me throughout this journey of grief. In the end I want to close with embrace the rhythm of change for within the melody of life, the future resides in each heartbeat. In this sympathy of tomorrow, even in the darkest notes, there echoes an internal refrain, the melody of unconditional love. Thank you all for listening, and I will catch you on the next one. Bye.
If you enjoyed today’s show and don’t want to worry about missing an episode, you can follow the show wherever you listen to your podcasts. If you haven’t already, I would really appreciate it if you could share the podcast with others who you think would benefit from it and leave a rating and a review to let me know what you think.
It doesn’t have to be a five star rating. Although I sure hope you love the show. I want your honest feedback so I can create an awesome podcast that provides tons of value on the show. Visit www.sandylinda.com/podcastlaunch for step by step instructions on how to follow rate and review.
Thanks for listening to today’s episode of Overcoming Grief. If you’re ready to move into a new, rewarding life experience, and want more information about how to work with Sandy, visit www.sandylinda.com.
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