Find the Proof-from Christina Rasmussen

I read a blog called Second Firsts by the author, Christina Rasmussen.  Every Friday she has a new entry that she sends out a link to.  I just had to share today's entry on my own blog.  It is so relevant.  It could apply to any of us who have experienced a loss of life, even if that life was your own former life which you never expected would end. This will happen to all of us at some point because its a part of living.  Please read the entry-

Find the Proof

I first saw her in 2006 after my husband died.

She was around 85 years old, grey hair.
Sitting on a rocking chair.
And she was alone.
She was sad.
And she was waiting to die.
I would go visit her at least 20 times a day.
She would look at me and tell me how sad she was.
She would cry every time I visited.
She was always wearing her night gown.
I wondered if she ever did anything else but sit there.
But she never did.
I have not visited the old woman on the rocking chair for over 4 years now.
I don’t even think about her.
She vanished when I started visiting my life.
You see the woman was a figment of my imagination.
She was the child of fear.
The mother of insanity.
The sister of grief.
When my husband died I grieved my future more than I grieved my present.
And the more I worried about the future the more I would visit the old lady.
The old lady was me many years from now, alone without any love or companionship in my life.
She was created by me.
So that I could believe my fears.
So I could find the proof that what I am afraid of, is real.

The mind looks for the proof and if it can’t find it, it creates it.

So the mind made it real.
I know that every single person on this earth time travels to the future to a future self that is their worst fear.
How do we stop the visits?

How do we end the insanity of grief?

How do we prevent retelling the fictional story to ourselves.
I started visiting the old woman less when I found the proof that a good happy life is possible for me.
The very first thing I did was…instead of look for the proof that I would be all alone I looked for proof that I wouldn’t be.
I searched for stories of hope.
People who had gone through so many losses and still found their way out of the loop of loss. Once I found the proof, my mind believed that it was possible.
I needed to believe that falling in love again would happen.
You see I was so head over heels in love with my husband.
Desperately in love.
And even though the cancer years were tough on our relationship he was my everything.
And the father of my kids.
In my mind nobody could ever be as important as him.

But in the years after his loss I learned that:

My first love made me grieve desperately while discovering what great pain is and that so many people are suffering in the world.
My second love, and my husband on earth, helped me love myself.
So I could find the woman who could help the world heal.
And my third love…YOU! Helped me believe in my mission. And what I had to say was worth saying. I know you have people in your life who need to hear your words.

Go speak. Go write. Go paint. Go love. Go help. Go garden.

 And the time travel will stop.

You see, I might be sitting on a rocking chair one day as a very very old woman.
But I would be staring at the millions of people I got to help along the way.
I would sit there admiring the sea of beating hearts.
This old woman would look youthful because her heart was so full and so alive.
I hope today you go and visit your future self and fill her or him with the truth.

No more fiction. No more made up stories.

Just a future that serves not only you, but the people in your life.