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I work as an addiction counselor. I use this CD with all my clients. I believe a better title would be, TRANSFORMING GRIEF, ANGER, AND FORGIVENESS because that's what it's about. Stephen states, "If you are angry, you are grieving." "If you are resentful, you are grieving." The wisdom presented here applies to - all of us; not just a person who has lost a loved one - which is why I originally purchased it.
The underlying premise of the awareness practice is letting go of the armoring around the heart, softening the belly and creating a safe space for letting your grief rise.It is said, you can heal, what you can feel. Stephen Levine is well acquainted with working with grieving people through meditation and mindfulness practice. I'm sure Stephen Levine would agree with this and that is exactly what these exercises are designed to help you do. He has years of experience in this field and he approaches it very sensitively. These meditations make a nice accompaniment to his book Unattended Sorrow, but do not replace the book.In essence, this CD is built upon mindfulness principles and three or four simple, but useful concepts. Although the material is repititious, it is still useful and it is the type of content that is good to repeat because we get so many culture messages that grief is bad and should be swept under the rug.I recommend this CD for its heart-centered and somatic approach to letting down your guard and opening to your pain. I believe grief is an invitation to the level of soul and the spirit of this CD and also the book Unattended Sorrow seems to honor this principle in a very profound way.
I have listened to sevearal of Stephen and Ondrea Levine's tapes and read several of their books, in large part to get in touch with the grief related to the loss of my mother this last March. For grief work is deep, enriching internal work that, that requires focussed attention, which this mediation and the overall tape provide. That said, this cassetee is a wonderful crystalization of grief related work that I have read/heard by the Levines.
In fact, I feel as if I have been given a gift in learning about life by working thorugh this grief. For those who are grieving this is a safe place to enter into the darkness of fear and guilt and depression, and to let go of holding on. Without question the Levines have made this deep, dark path called grief much more understandable for me.
The tools are largely the same, (e.g., soft belly and forgiveness to let go of the armoring around the heart), but the approach is refreshingly new. That is, by learning from the Levines I have grown emensly as a human being. This is a gift, I might add, that I would gladly return in an instant to get my mother back.
There is an especially powerful meditation on letting go of the armoring around the heart that can and should be practiced again and again. For those seeking to go into the darkness, looking for a way to braille through life's darkest turns, this cassette will prove an invaluable compasion - well worth its price.
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