Honoring Ancestors and Loved Ones

Intro/Outro Music 0:13

Aloha and welcome to your Heart Magic , an illuminating space where psychology , spirituality and heart wisdom meet . Here's your host , Dr Bethann Kapansky-Wright , the clinical psychologist with a mystic mind .

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright 0:35

Aloha everybody . This is Dr Bethann Kapansky-Wright and welcome to your Heart Magic . Since this episode is being released on Halloween , october 31st , I wanted to do a kind of a holiday special today , and it's interesting . I've never had this happen before . I sat down with my notes I was going to talk about intuition . I do love this time of year and think that it's a beautiful time to tap into our more intuitive and mystical side , and that's not what really wanted to be talked about today .

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright 1:12

I picked up my book to pick the first passage I was going to share , and my eyes were drawn to a passage about my brother , and all of a sudden I just knew that is what I meant to talk about today , and that's usually not what happens . I do plan these enough that I sit down with the topic in mind , but today I'm being a little bit spontaneous and I realized that part of what I love about Halloween is that it's less about the emphasis on how that holiday has been commercialized in the States and more about the emphasis on the idea that this was a time historically where the veil was thought to be more thin and so our ancestors were honored and the spirits of those who passed before us , our loved ones . There was an honoring of that time , and it was sacred and it was holy , and it was thought that not only could we honor them , but could perhaps access them a little bit more easily and hear them . That all sounds so mystical but , just to make it very practical and grounded , we usually will hear them in our heart , we will feel them , we will sense them and resonance , maybe signs and synchronicities and symbols . We'll hear a song or get a sign that makes us think about them , and perhaps we feel a sense of overwhelming love or maybe overwhelming grief in our heart , but grief is also love . It is a reflection of how much we loved . So , even in grief , I think of that as this overwhelming surge of love , and we just feel like they are extra close , and to me , that is part of what makes this year so magical and mystical , and I usually will feel my brother Brent more strongly , and I've talked about this quite a bit .

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright 3:03

If you are new to your heart magic , though , I lost my brother Brent in 2016 . And it's a huge part of my story as a individual and as a human . I think that any kind of loss , that is a core loss , just becomes this big mile marker , the stake in the ground on your journey , where you know something significant happened there and it irrevocably changed your life . It's also something , though , that opened me up to stepping into my intuition and my spiritual connection more , because I was feeling his presence so strongly after he passed , and I was already very intuitive , I was already very open to those things , so it wasn't a huge mental stretch for me to expand into receiving those messages , but it was enough of a stretch that I was afraid to talk about it and concerned that if I started to mention to people how strongly I was feeling him , that that would be dismissed as imagination or just wishful thinking , and it's eventually , something that I was led to write about more and just be more open about , and it's in a lot of my books .

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright 4:21

So today , I want to talk about honoring our ancestors and honoring our loved ones and just share a few passages from my writing around those kinds of ideas , and the first one that I want to share is called Remember what Was Best in Us . This is from Transformations of the Sun . I actually wrote this in October of 2017 . Remember what was best in us . My brother is with me strongly . Today he sits with me in memories mom's kitchen , rainy days , vanilla icing thick on tender strawberry cake , dad's suburban and autumn drive through the twist and turns of the tourniquet arm . Take me home country roads , plays and plays

Embracing Love and Memories

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright 5:08

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Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright 5:08

Remember what was best in us . He speaks to me , for there you'll find joy and solace in your memories . I'm now in a space where the light shines bright . The dark of our worst is no place for your dreams . Remember what was best in us . He speaks to me , for when you feel love , that is where you'll find me . Love is the key that will open the door so you can see I still walk beside thee . And love is the source from which we all came . It is a life-giving manna that feeds hungry souls , and love is the place I eternally dwell and the key to the grace of the truth of our home . Remember what was best in us . He speaks to me . Each kindness and laughter and each idle smile , for those are the moments we realize what's real . All else were just lessons for soul path revival To wake us all up to the truth of ourselves and help us to grow into beings of light . We cannot choose love if the dark isn't felt and we cannot choose hope if we don't know . The night , remember what was best in us . He speaks to me , for there , in those thoughts , I'll always be . Here and there and everywhere . Infinities , my galaxy , far away but close , beside , no space too great to separate , connected and bound . From the other side . Death is the door through eternity's gate . I remember with him in my mind a trip of joy around the stars . You cannot lose what you've already found . His essence lives on through the love in my heart .

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright 6:53

When I wrote that passage , I actually was having hard memories about my brother . We didn't always have the easiest relationship and that's probably not something that you'll find in any of my writings , unless I wrote it in kind of a general thought like that , and I tended to focus in my writings on what was best in us . But that day I was remembering what was not best in us and some of the challenges we had as siblings when he was still here , and I felt so strongly the sense of his presence and if he could press a message upon me and I were to receive it , that's really the message that I got . Don't remember that stuff . Remember it if you need to for your own process work , but when you think of me , think of me with love , remember what was best in us .

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright 7:43

And I had such a beautiful sense that Brent Spirit Brent , as I came to think about him and really think about him now was no longer in a place where he was bound by the pain of those memories , place where he was bound by the pain of those memories . I might still be processing them , but he had come to as a soul , whatever lessons and understanding and making peace with his journey , and that he was in this place of light and was not in a place of suffering , and so I felt him really press upon me . If you want to remember me most strongly , then think of me with love and remember what was best . And so I really cherish the memories that I have of him and I cherish the memories that I have of us as little kids and us growing up and essentially what was best in us . And we can't build a home out of memories .

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright 8:39

I think part of grief is going through the process of not just grieving the form that they had and how we miss them on our human journey , but part of grief too eventually might also be acceptance , especially if one is spiritually minded that , as a soul , they are moving on , and so I will still feel Brent , perhaps not as strongly as I did back then when it was closer to the time of his passing . I absolutely still feel him when I'm in a space of love in my heart , I feel like that's probably what prompted me to make this podcast today . I didn't share this part , but right after I was like , oh , I have to talk about Brent , the power went out of my house for like a second . Everything flickered and then it all reset . I got bumped off the internet , stuff was beeping and it was fine . As far as I know , there's not been a power surge around here when he first passed . I used to have things like that quite a bit , where the lights flicker , and sometimes those things can kind of feel spooky for people , but I think that spirit is on a different frequency , and so I just looked at it as confirmation of well . Of course I should talk about this .

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright 9:54

Today . It is All Hallows Eve , followed by All Souls Day , where potentially , if we work with the energies of those days , we are empowered to remember the love and also to honor that love . So this next passage that I want to share is called Honor them , and it is something that I wrote originally in my book Lamentations of the Sea and I am reviving it . I have a whole section on grief and my new book , small Pearls , big Wisdom , and so it's included as a passage in that particular book that's coming out , and the ideas behind this are the idea that it is my sacred task to honor my brother .

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright 10:39

It is your sacred task to honor those that you love who may not be with us anymore , whether that is human or animal form or whatever form that being took . And it's not a task that you're failing at if you're not doing something specific . It's more that I look at it as a privilege to get to honor Brent . It's not an obligation , it's not something that I have to do , it's not something we need to feel guilty about if , for some reason , we break with a tradition or don't do something in a specific way to honor them . It's more the gracious idea that when we feel moved to honor those who've passed and we feel moved to do something from the heart or to create a ritual or do a tradition because it's meaningful for us to see that as holy , sacred work and to see yourself as the record keeper , the historian , the one who holds an imprint of the memory of whatever , whoever it is that you are honoring , and that when you honor their memory , that it feeds love into the world in energetic form .

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright 11:51

Our love , our grief , our memories contribute love to the energy around us and I think that's a very powerful thing and I think it is personally meaningful for us and helps us make meaning out of the loss and take something that is so easy to lose in the day to day and it makes it more sacred . And I think , on an energetic level , a heart level , what is happening in the electromagnetic field of our heart , I think , also is very powerful when we do those acts of remembering and acts of love . So this is called honor them . There is no right or wrong way to grieve , process our losses or remember those who've passed in this place . Some signatures are written so strongly inside us that they will forever remain engraved . Years may go by and you may still feel the ache and the love and the place they hold inside your being . This is the cost of loving and losing To feel that love and ache and realize nobody else will carry that experience , carry their remembrance , carry that love inside of you in the unique way you do

Eternal Love and Memory

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright 13:06

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Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright 13:06

Since you are the keeper of this precious task , you should not be afraid to remember and honor them in any way you see fit , whenever you see fit . Make up your own rituals of remembrance . Throw flowers in the river and release . Write letters and burn them in a fire . Let the smoke and ash curl up towards the sky and reach the ears of those you love . Light candles of intention and memory . Surround yourself with pictures or prized possessions . Name a star after them . Talk to them daily , talk to them in the moon .

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright 13:46

Your mind and your memories Believe they hear you Keep moving forward , yet never get over it . Let your heart break even as you . Let your heart mend . Find something that speaks to your soul . Go to nature . Go to where it's quiet . Go to holy places . Seek out the divine and seek out the human . Seek out whatever calls to your heart and fills you with meaning and purpose . Realize the more purpose you have , the more you honor those who've passed through your life . Do your best to be kind to yourself , whatever your process may be . This isn't about judging whether your process is right , wrong or normal . This is about doing the best you can . You are a human being who has taken a rite of passage you never wanted to take . You are brave , courageous and full of heart and spirit for everything you feel . Honor you and honor them . Peace all the ways you care , grieve , cry , mourn and joy around you like a patchwork quilt which you have stitched together with your love , depth and humanity . Wrap it around you your superhero's cape of love comprised of all you were and all you will be . Know each time you don that cloak , look to the star , feel the ache in your chest and each time you notice the missing and yearning and happiness and lack that , yes , this life , their bright light , did indeed matter .

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright 15:22

I think that part of how we honor our grief is through our own acts of remembering and our own acts of ritual and the little things that become meaningful to us and the small ways that we enfold the memory of whoever's past into our day-to-day life . And I think sometimes we are so afraid of losing the memory of someone that we've loved and it's hard . Right Over time , our memories fade . They are not as recent . I remember years ago this was around losing my dog , peppy , and I wrote about him a lot back in my original blog on Sunshine and Winter and I worked Peppy into my grief book Lamentations of the Sea . I remember the first year anniversary of his loss and life had moved on . I'd been intentional about opening my heart to new love and I had adopted this new pup , frodo . I'm smiling right now , frodo's laying by me as I'm making this podcast , and I'd fallen in love .

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright 16:28

I met somebody about a week after Peppy passed , and there's a whole beautiful story around that how I met my husband at mile seven and a half on the Silver Falls Marathon Trail and I had such a strong sense of Pepe's presence and was learning so many profound lessons about grief . And if you've ever loved an animal with all of your heart , I think to love an animal is to love with all of your heart . We give our best to them because they give their best to us is to love with all of your heart . We give our best to them because they give their best to us , and so we're able to open to them in a way that is slightly different than our human relationships . But I was just absolutely heartbroken and yet I could also feel him spiritually as well and felt like he was urging me on to continue to stay open to love and not give up on love just because of my grief .

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright 17:17

And so , about a year after his passing , I was hit so hard with grief over his loss and I couldn't figure out why it was so potent . I had these visceral flashbacks and memories and I felt really compelled to sit down and write out in this Word document , like all of my memories of him , everything . It's like I didn't want to forget and I think I knew at some point that they would be less potent . And that's when it struck me what I was grieving . It wasn't just losing him , but I was grieving life going on and the necessity of letting go of the memories to make space for new memories in my mind . We cannot build a house out of our grief and live there . We can hold on to our memories for a while and they can keep us warm , they can light our heart up , we can have pictures and special things that keep us connected . Those things are important , but we cannot curl up and live in that space . There's no life there . That form has passed .

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright 18:22

And that was so painful for me . It's like I knew it . I knew it . I wasn't trying to , but some part of me was resisting letting go and I thought my God , next year at this time it will be two years from his passing and I'll have a whole other year of new memories . I won't remember all of these things with such freshness . I will no longer have , in some ways , the gift of the memory , where it would be like a month after Pepe passed , six months after he passed , as these gifts of life were coming into that space .

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright 18:54

I was so close to his passing that I could more easily honor his memory and feel this beautiful sense of how life was going on and new life was coming up out of my grief . And it really caught me unprepared and I had to remind myself the love inside of us . It goes with us . It might change form , we might lose a memory , but we don't lose that love . We have to trust that the love that we have for those who have passed is still with us . And so , even if we start to lose a memory , even if we lose that human form , we have to trust that the essence of love is always there and it will continue to alchemize . Maybe even it takes on new form and , years from now unrecognizable , it is still feeding us and nourishing us in a way that we didn't dream possible , because we found the courage to let go . We're not letting go of love , we're just letting go of the form it once took , and so that's the last passage I want to share today . It's called Forever , and I originally wrote this as a mini reflection after the passing of Pepe , and then I fully developed it after Brent passed , and I feel like there's a profound lesson in these words that I'm still grasping myself .

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright 20:14

I run into all the time , grief around anticipatory grief , around losses that I feel like I'm going to be facing . Frodo was so young back then when I wrote that original passage . He was one years old , about one and a half , he might've been two , and he had his whole life stretched out before him . As I speak to you today , mr Baggins is going to be 13 this coming May , and so we're getting into those golden years , even though I'm insisting he's going to live a long time . My parents are aging . My dad turns 80 this November , my mother turned 84 . I'm so grateful they're still with me .

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright 20:54

And I look at those things sometimes and I think , oh man , it's coming for you , girl . Life is changing and these rites of passage are coming for you and what is going to help be an anchor during that time and as I'm working through that anticipatory grief , and sometimes I'm so afraid to let go . I don't even want to imagine all of that , but I have to trust that the love will be there . We have to know that the love remains and that it can change forms . We can lose a life , but we cannot lose love . That is the energy that lives on . That is what's most real , and so this passage is called Forever , and it is the thought that I'd like to leave you with today .

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright 21:39

There were times when part of me felt like all I wanted to do was stay in a state of depression and grief after my brother died . But all along , the wiser part of me knew there was a lesson in love to be learned from all of it . My job was to decide whether I wish to receive it . My job was to decide whether I would close myself off to the hurt of this world or find the absolute courage to open my heart just a little bit farther and receive . Receiving meant turning my attention from what I had lost to becoming cognizant of what I had gained . Receiving meant letting go of what was to accept something greater in what is what is turns out to be a massive recognition that you can remove the material and earthly realm of a relationship , but you cannot touch what we hold in our hearts .

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright 22:36

I believe this to be love in its purest , most divine form . Just because you can no longer see its physical manifestation when something has passed doesn't mean it's not there . As long as you hold love in your heart , those who've passed are only a heartbeat away . If you can grasp that concept , truly grab onto it , letting it envelop you with an unalloyed truth that burns through all but that which is most genuine and true , then you realize even though everything has changed , absolutely nothing has changed . They will always be with us , forever . The energy of love cannot be reduced . It only continues to multiply every time we realize and express it .

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright 23:25

I cloak myself in this knowledge you can lose a life , but you can't lose love . This newfound awareness makes me stand strong and straight and realize that I am not a broken being . After all , I am a walking container of all the love I've collected , big and strong and full of life . The love that ripped me apart is the same love re-knitting my seams . Love has become my revolution and my absolution . I think that in Star Wars , when Darth Vader is about to strike down Obi-Wan and Obi-Wan says if you strike me down , I shall become more than you can possibly imagine . Oh , they got a lot of truths right in those movies and that's one of them .

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright 24:14

You can't lose love , and I often thought about . You can take away the physical form , but the spirit , the essence , the love is still there and it continues to multiply and it continues to grow . And I have been so blessed with my brother's presence over the years , in small ways and big ways , even as I've had a sense of some of our memories fading and things changing . And I think that's really what Halloween and All Souls Day is potentially about . It's about love , it is about honoring a time of year where the veil is just a little bit thinner and we're invited to honor those who've passed and to remember them with love , to make an offering in your heart with love , even if there's grief there , to realize that grief is also love , and to really celebrate the beautiful way that loving somebody keeps giving to us , even after a physical form has passed , that is so powerful , and that our loved ones are a heartbeat away a love beat away when we think of them . In love , I truly believe we access their spirit , access their frequency and we'll usually have some sense of them , even if it feels like they've really moved on . Just look for the signs and symbols and synchronicities , look for the magic , look for the ways they show up and let you know that they're still there .

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright 25:43

So this Halloween , go trick-or-treating . If you will Put the costume on , we are going to gosh if I can find costumes or at least fun bandanas to put the dogs in and walk around town . I love walking the dogs around trick-or-treat time and seeing what all the kids are wearing , and walking into our town square . There's a lot going on there that kind of celebrates the evening and makes it safe and friendly and fun and do all those things have the spookiness if you want to . But truly this is an evening of love and a potential gateway of love , a time to honor spirit , our loved ones , our ancestors , and to receive the gifts of their magic and ongoing presence in our life .

Heart Magic Energy Update for November

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright 26:33

Thank you so much for joining me today . Happy Halloween , everybody . I will be back next week with a energy update for the month of November and in the meantime , have a beautiful week . As always , be love , be well , be you and be magic any magic .

Intro/Outro Music 26:59

You've been listening to your Heart Magic with Dr Bethann Kapansky-Wright . Tune in next week for a new episode to support and empower your light .