“When grief is part of your story, it needs to be held to be healed. We cannot heal what has not been processed, and it takes time to move through the pain of loss and dying”
I've been where you are.
Grief Trauma. I experienced it all from deep sadness, emptiness, guilt, anger, confusion & wanting to withdraw from life. My grief journey was impacted by trauma loss to suicide that took the death to a whole other level of complexity. At times a lonely path due to the stigma of suicide, feeling disconnected as I quickly came to know of my deepest heartache.
As a fulltime Carer of my son over a year, I was confronted with death several times in his-our journey. It is Why I am passionate to empower others to heal through death, dying and grief to feel supported and held because I don’t want anyone to suffer in silence, feel alone or feel unheard in their story.
Dying & Grief teaches us the power of our love, and our resilience.
Welcome, I am so glad you are here, I believe you were not guided by chance.
Perhaps you have reached a choice point moment in your life where you know there is no way out of this pain. The only way forward is through the mental emotional turmoil, so you can find meaning and acceptance with the loss and everything that was your life to this point in time.
This turning point in my Life, was deciding at that moment to choose life and stand in the arena, to not run from struggle but turn toward truth and look it in the eye and face all fears, sorrow and loss dead on!
If you find yourself standing in similar shoes, I feel my story below will ignite something within you, willing you to choose life. Willing you to rise strong through this adversity despite the sorrow you are experiencing from this loss of life. A willingness to say Yes to Life
even if in the last stages of life and find a way out of the Dark Knight of the Soul.
Just as the Phoenix dies in a show of flames, the souls purging, symbolizes the cycle of life death and rebirth. That no matter how many times you get set back, Phoenix reminds us of our fire within, our Divine Spark soul essence, that has the means to find a way to heal, to rise and rebirth from the ashes into renewal and live again!
The Dark Knight of The Soul…
October 14, 2017.
The death of my son Brett Cameron age 24, dying by suicide.
One day in my life, that completely changed me forever, it was the day not only did my son die, but I too, died a death. The death of the egoic self!
This traumatic experience completely crushed me to my core, as all perceived meaning to life vanished. NOthing left within but dark emotions of pain, anguish, sorrow, relief, confusion and devastation but not limited too. All that I once knew to be true of my existence, to this point of time in my life, was gone in that one moment.
The death I died, was the death of my illusory self and life took on a whole new meaning from that point forward. It changed me forever, in hindsight it also became my greatest gift of life.
As the Dark Knight of The Soul emerged, I was hurled into discovering why I was here on this earth, compelled to uncover the truth of Who I Am!
This journey of soul self-discovery had to start from the death of my illusory self. The conceptual sense of self we create for ourselves with life, being our identity.
What died in me was the egoic sense of self that was an illusory identity that I created in this lifetime. The non-realistic perceived meaning I gave life through all of my experiences with people, places and things.
I don’t believe one can comprehend the enormity of this experience unless one travels this path themselves. The loss of a child as a parent (mother), then adding the trauma and complexity of death through suicide created an experience of insurmountable heartache and devastation. In truth, death should not be a devastating experience.
This darkness I felt of NOthing left, felt like a bleak nonexistence and dissociation from my soul-self and the life I had created around me up unto that point in time.
My world completely disintegrated to ashes that day. All that remained in the ashes was but a tiny little amber, barely flickering that kept my soul alight, my Divine Spark, the flame of life.
My soul felt like it was completely extinguished but this tiny flicker of light.
I felt I had nothing left inside to want to go on living. It was the most heart wrenching experience of loss and bleakness I’d ever experienced. I struggled to find reasons to keep going because I could not see meaning to life, apart from my other son Kyle, who was also journeying his unique and painful loss, as a brother.
In truth if not for my son Kyle at the time, there were moments I didn’t feel I could make it through this experience. I was unprepared for the sudden death of my child. Kyle became my glimmer of hope to find a way through and keep going. To Rise Strong, be brave and find meaning to live and love again by not choosing other means to end the sorrow. It crossed my mind and it is normal to feel this way temporarily.
That glimmer of hope led to keep trying to make sense and find meaning to this experience. Lost in the insurmountable emotions, I searched deep for answers with the many questions, Why?
Questioning… There are so many questions we ask when it comes to someone ending their life. Like: Why did they choose this path … What could I have done better … Why could I not have found a way to help? Why?
Like others of similar experiences, all these unanswered questions deeply anguish us, feeling utterly confused and disconnected from self and life in those moments.
I am not alone in this experience with suicide loss. I feel it is important to share this next part of my story to help create awareness. In relation to family and friends the ones we think are our biggest supporters, can often be the ones that run the other way. Peoples opinions, beliefs and bias even when someone is grieving can be harsh. For me, this was felt through blame, shame and stigma. The impact of this for grievers is, ‘we silence our grief’ due to not feeling safe to share our story yet … sharing our story is an essential part of our healing and more so when the loss of a loved is impacted by trauma. The impact from silencing our grief, the build up of unresolved emotions, leads to complicated grief even depression that will need professional support to manage.
No matter how tragic our circumstances appear - time does heal all wounds. And,
We need emotions to transform ourselves, our experiences into something life-giving!
And so….
The choice point moment became my Turning Point to Live!
I chose in that moment that I would stand up and Rise Stronger no matter what, despite all the hurt I felt, I would find a way out of this Dark Knight of the Soul.
This was by no means an easy feat because, when one experiences grief or in my case trauma loss to suicide, it can bring up past traumas of life. As if grief alone isn’t enough to deal with, and so I knew there was no way out but through this turmoil.
It was time to face grief, to find significance from this experience, to fight for my truth and everything that was my life to this point in time and discover Who I Truly Am!
Deciding in that moment, to stand in the arena, to not run from struggle but to turn toward truth and look it in the eye. To face all vulnerability, fear and sorrow dead on! To practice vulnerability is to heal deeply, when we are vulnerable, we put all of our core wounds into huge exposure. It really is the biggest emotional risk we can take as humans, yet it is where we can have the most profound spiritual awakening.
And so my soul awakening began as I understood that our adversity has the potential to create profound change not only for us, but the world around us. It becomes an opportunity a choice point moment to turn our experiences into higher meaning, often discovering our true purpose to contribute in the world, to lessen suffering for others and make a difference through shared experience.
Like the Phoenix Rising, my soul purpose and life awakened becoming an End Of Life Doula to lessen suffering and enhance the quality of lives through Holistic Wellness Care for those moving through death, dying, grief & spirituality. It is my hope having walked this path, which is not for the faint of heart that you will entrust me to guide you, to walk yours with courage. Namaste`
“When we deny our stories, they define us.
When we run from struggle, we are never free.
So we turn toward truth and look it in the eye.”
— Brené Brown
Professional Bio
Melissa is a qualified Holistic Therapist & EOL Consultant with years of experience advocating, supporting and counselling people through the many complexities of Mental Health matters.
Melissa's sensitivity and motivation to relieve physical and psychological suffering for others, enabled her through her lived and career experience … realise her unique gift as an EOL Consultant. To empower people through Death, Dying, Grief & Spirituality gracefully with Holistic Wellness Care.
She is passionate in making a difference in the quality and value of all people's lives pre and post death as she continues to mentor those bereaved by suicide and trauma loss, to lessen suffering. Melissa does so with reverence, compassion and Life-long learning experience empowering many to rise strong through adversity to live fully and embrace life more consciously.
Activating your Divine Spark; your Souls renewed sense of self, place and belonging!