Sending out Christmas cards with one less card this year or calling the family to say ‘Merry Christmas’ with one less call to make, or perhaps waking up on Christmas morning without the person you love next to you is so difficult at any time of year. Not just Christmas.

Grief is a normal part of life. It's how we respond to pain and loss. But is loss really loss and more importantly how do our loved ones feel seeing us in so much pain?

Grief has 5 stages:

Denial: “This can't be happening to me.”

Anger: “Why is this happening? Who is to blame?”

Bargaining: “Make this not happen, and in return I will ____.”

Depression: “I'm too sad to do anything.”

Acceptance: “I'm at peace with what happened.”

There's no right or wrong to how you cope with grief but we are all trying to get to some form of acceptance.

For our loved ones in the spirit world to feel at peace, we need to feel at peace, but what does that mean?

Think about it this way, your loved one has passed to the spirit world and they are still with you. You cannot see them but sometimes you feel them or perceive their energy. 

• Your loved ones in spirit see you in denial. You may be saying “Ahhhh this can't be happening, why me?” Your loved ones tell you “because it was my time and I still exist”, but you can't hear them! Yet you still feel them around you. Frustrating for them isn't it?

• You get angry. You may say “if my brother had done more they would maybe have survived” or “It's all the hospital's fault, the doctor didn't even look at the notes, the surgery went wrong” or “If only I had called them earlier.” They hear all of this and they stand and say “it's nobody's fault, it was my time to go.”

• They watch as you scream at the sky and ask god to take someone else, maybe even you in their place, or bargain and plead that you will do anything to have them back. They stand with you shaking their head saying “it was my time to go. I still exist.”

• They may watch on as you sit with a bottle of vodka, having not showered for days, feeling worthless as you are too sad to do anything and so neglect yourself. Your loved ones in spirit watch and they tell you “I am okay, it was my time to go, I still exist.”

• Then they watch as you finally begin to remember them with love and great memories, knowing that they still exist somewhere, watching over you. At peace with what happened.

They say “finally, I can be at peace, I know now that you have healed”, and instead of being worried about you they can finally start doing things and moving through their own next steps. They can visit other family members, travel the world, and begin to heal themselves.

It's such a worrying thing watching the people around you being in pain and it's no different for our loved ones…

Death in my eyes, as the medium, isn't something dark and depressing, it's a celebration of how someone lived.

So this Christmas, do the best thing for your loved ones who want you to accept they have physically died - talk about them, look over photographs of them, remember all the good memories and accept that they have only changed form. They want to see you happy and at peace, they certainly are.

From all of us here at The Soul Man and friends have a wonderful Christmas spent with all those you love both seen and unseen.

I am okay. It was my time to go. I still exist 

Steven x