§ We came to this world to LIVE OUT LOUD!
How I Got Through Heartbreak
I want to share with you a very personal story about how I got through heartbreak.
Ten years ago, my beloved grandmother passed away.
It was painful yet I felt strangely at peace.
A couple of weeks before my grandmother died, I left my family and young children and flew from South America to Chicago. Even though my grandmother was stable and completely lucid, I had a gut feeling that it was important to see her.
As I was talking to her in my mother’s living room, my grandmother suddenly complained of shortness of breath. I called an ambulance and she was rushed to the hospital.
I slept in my grandmother’s hospital room all week.
I held my grandmother’s hand as nurses poked and prodded her while she begged them to just leave her in peace. I ran interference and sent the nurses away.
I talked to the endless stream of specialists who stopped by my grandmother’s room. I had to send many of them away too. My grandmother was a cardiologist and loved her calling but she was done fighting and didn’t want any more medical treatments. She just wanted to spend her last days in peace.
And yet, strangely through it all, I was at peace.
It was with a heavy heart that I got on a plane to Colombia asking my mom to promise me that she would tell me when it was time for me to fly back out.
I spoke to my grandma on the phone every day until one day two weeks later, I received a frantic call from my mom,“Come. I don’t think she has much time left.”
I got on the next plane and was there by the following morning. I took a taxi to my parents’ house. I rushed into my grandmother’s bedroom.
And yet, I was strangely at peace.
I was grieving too but I was strangely at peace.
This is the power of meditation.
Even though I have meditated most of my adult life, I went through a year where I meditated up to two hours a day.
I started the heavy duty meditating about six months before my grandmother died. I’m 100% sure that this is why I was at peace no matter what was going on around me.
I have to confess that as I have started to work more over the past couple of years, my meditation practice has dwindled to 20-30 minutes per day.
But it feels really great to know that if and when I need it, meditation is there to get me through the toughest of times… not only to survive but to have inner peace.
What about you? Do you meditate? How do you cultivate inner peace?
Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or need any further info at natalie@nataliematushenko.com.
Happy Tuesday!
Natalie
Dear Natalie,
Your Grandmother’s loss brought up tears, which in my case don’t flow easily. You loved her so much, it reminded me of all the losses in our family. Spiritual strength is a saving grace at that time so that we can still function in our everyday life. I’m so glad that you found it in meditation. It is sometimes so hard to go on, but necessary. A story that really rocked my soul was about a man, who loved his wife and family very dearly, too, kept losing his daughters at an early age, and started all over with new babies, and finally lost his wife too, was still able to say: “All is well with my soul”. It seemed incomprehensible at the time to me, but with time I came to understand. Meditation helps, because it illuminates the situation, and gives one peace. For me it is prayer and meditation.
Love your story. I am a grandmother to an 8 and a 5 year old. If I develop that kind of connection, I would be over the moon happy. Meditation is medicine.
Thank you, This touched me deeply…. My mother has just transitioned & I wish
I would have spent more time Loving 🥰 her & telling
her what a Wonderful giving
Person she was….
Natalie,
Thank you for sharing…..
My mother just transitioned
& I wish I would have called
Her more & spent more time telling her how Wonderful she was in her family’s life….
Hello,
I have tried just about everything there is BUT meditation. For some reason, I’ve always resisted it. Yet, after reading your story, I’m starting to see how it might make sense.
My goal is to cultivate a calmer, gentler, happier type of personality than what I’ve got now. I get easily unraveled by things, suffer small bouts of anxiety and am super critical of myself. I never spend time doing fun things like hobbies or just reading for pleasure. There’s always “stuff that needs to get done.”
I’d like to be able to tell myself, “Who cares if it doesn’t get done today? There’s always tomorrow.” But, no. I’ll shortchange myself of sleep and exercise in order to nail that “to do” list.
And then I wonder why I’m no fun.
Okay, more (much more) than I meant to write.
Thank you for a wonderful story. Your grandmother must have been quite the role model in your life. But I WILL add, she was very lucky to have YOU.
Janet