Guided Imagery for Grief: Alternative Therapies for Healing Grief
What is Guided Imagery?
Guided imagery is a way of healing through understanding the connection between the body and the mind. It entails a series of sensory perceptions, real to the unconscious mind. Thoughts flow as the imagination is aware of sounds, feelings, smells, and the visual surroundings. By affecting awareness in this altered state, the body is capable of profound accomplishments. Things that seem impossible, such as dealing with grief, become possible. Guided imagery for grief is particularly effective for treating deep emotional and psychological pain.
A guided imagery exercise begins with the breath. Finding a comfortable position, and then taking several minutes of deep breathing is necessary to bring the body to a state of complete relaxation. Then, listening to the dictation of a voice, which can be your own recorded voice or someone else’s, you follow your mind through its own path of images and awareness. Usually guided imagery exercises use a white light, or glowing, positive energy to surround you, and put you at peace. The body responds at every level with cells, neurons, and tissue, which are all connected to the awareness of the mind.
How Imagery Therapy Can Heal Grief
When people feel grief they feel a number of troubling emotions - resentment, disappointment, regret, sadness, emptiness, and despair. Over time these feelings affect the body if they are not released. Healing grief involves letting go of what was lost. This is contrary to our human instinct, which is to hold onto the things that we love and hold dear. The goal of using guided imagery for healing grief is to teach the subconscious mind to trust that letting go only means releasing the grief - the loving feelings are ours forever.
Examples of healing grief imagery are releasing energy through the breath, allowing it to dissolve into space, watching bubbles float freely through the air, disappearing in the distance, or imagining yourself putting baggage on a boat, and setting it free. It is also helpful to visualize talking to the loved one that was lost, saying what comes naturally, the words that the unconscious needs to say. After letting go of the grief in whatever form you choose, realize that the white light, or any manifestation your mind has chosen for positive healing energy, is still there. Focus on the love you had, and know that those feelings you can always carry with you.
Guided imagery for grief is a powerful tool. It can be used when we want, whenever the emotions of grief arise. It is a way to bring both the body and the mind to an eventual state of acceptance and peace.
Sources:
Naparstek, Belleruth. Staying Well With Guided Imagery. Warner Books, 1994.
Page, Linda. Healthy Healing: A Guide to Self-Healing for Everyone, Eleventh Edition. Traditional Wisdom, 2003.