About 20 years ago I had a crush on a guy that wasn’t interested in me.  I was telling a friend and mentor about him and I mentioned that he had told me he wasn’t interested in getting involved with me.  She simply said, “Well, forget him.”

Her matter-of-fact statement really struck me.  I was thinking about him day and night and could not get him out of my mind.  I was “in love”, but didn’t want to be.  She said, “Forget him.” as if that was something I could do. There was no way in the world I could do that.  Her idea was unfathomable.

It made good sense to turn my mind away from him and occupy myself with other more fruitful prospects.  However, I couldn’t imagine what it would take to be able to do that.  I thought about the idea of being able to “forget him” and decided I would give “forgetting him” a try.

At the time there was a popular country song by Patty Loveless called “A Thousand Times A Day” playing on the radio.  The chorus went something like this:  Forgetting you is not so hard to do, I’ve done it a thousand times a day.  I purchased the song and every time I thought about that guy I played the song.

The first day I simply had it on auto repeat.  There was no other way.  Instead of thinking about him I was singing the song.  Over and over.  I was determined.

Now, that was 20 years ago.  I’m not sure when or how it happened, but somewhere along the line I did gain control over obsessive thoughts.  Now, I can simply, “forget him”.  I can turn my mind away from any line of thinking that is not productive, effortlessly.

This is on my mind today, because of my experience resolving my grief over Chispa.  While I miss her and frequently catch myself expecting her to be under my feet, I am not grieving anymore.  I miss her, like I would if she had simply moved away. Three days ago I would not have thought this possible.  Indeed, about nine years ago I gave my Jack Russel up for adoption and I cried hard every day for three months (until I had a ThetaHealing session that resolved it).  I was braced for the same experience with Chispa.

I work with others that sometimes are experiencing heavy grief and many times they are able to move quickly into peace with my facilitation.  I am grateful that I have tools to assist in resolving the subconscious contributors to protracted grief.  While my tools are useful, a big part of the process is wanting to have peace and deciding to do whatever it takes to get it.  I now realize how important it is to be able to have the skill to be able to not dwell on things that are painful.  My experience shows that even if we don’t naturally have the skill, it can be developed.