Excerpt from Crossing the Rainbow Bridge

"The hardest part of this loss is the never of the loss: to never see, hear, or speak with her again. Although her suffering is over, I still miss her very much... but the never really hurts."

The above are the words of a client of mine, a young woman who had just lost her best friend to cancer.

Never. There is such a finality to that word. But is it really true? Is it true that she will never see her loved one again?

As a grief counselor, I have guided many people through the difficult days, nights, and emotions that come following the lost of a significant person in their life. In doing so, I have found that the hardest part of accepting loss for most is learning to deal with that word never. While all eventually make it through those first few days and weeks, some find themselves locked in a debilitating despair. It then becomes my task to lead them to another, more hopeful and healing, perspective.

People have, for millennia, gained comfort in the belief that there is a heaven, an eternal dwelling place of the spirit - though heaven, for most, has often seemed so far away, the comfort is minimal, at best. But this definitely is not the case, for heaven is all about us, it is only our perceptions that need to change.

In truth, there can be no sharp distinction made between the spiritual and the earthly - they are tightly intertwined, and, together, make up the fabric of the universe. The spiritual threads of our lives are much like the black holes that dot the far reaches of space - we cannot see them directly, but must infer their existence by their effect on those celestial objects that pass near them. Likewise, our not being able to sense directly this spiritual world that surrounds us does not mean that it does not exist.

But, what of those who claim the ability to see this reality with ease? We have all read of cases where people claim to be in communication with the spiritual - possibly with a deceased loved one who they say now exists as a pure spirit. How can this be? Are these people experiencing hallucinations? Are they simply giving in to wishful thinking? Or do they somehow possess an ability that is unavailable to the average person?

The fact is that we all, from birth, possess more that the five senses that our education has taught us. Beyond our senses of smell, sight, touch, hearing, and taste are other senses just as necessary to our very survival. Each of us is born with the ability to sense the spiritual. We all possess it. It is a tragedy that we have been trained to ignore this God-given gift.

Many would call this sixth sense intuition. This has been applied, oftentimes, in a derogatory way; as a means of implying that it somehow does not exist, that those who claim to be gifted with a developed sense of intuition or knowing are not to be taken seriously or even believed in their experience.

I have seen this ability manifest itself in so many people, so many times - witnessed its definite healing effects and potential - that I know that it does exist. Thus, I have, for some while now, employed in my practice a simple, meditative technique designed to develop this innate ability, which is everyone's birthright.

I have always offered my clients the option of learning a series of relaxation techniques as a way of reducing the tremendous stress that can accompany inconsolable grief. But as time has passed, I have noticed another - at first, unexpected - benefit: several of my clients, who had been very diligent in their meditations, reported that they had been experiencing very vivid, comforting dreams since beginning these exercises. (We have since come to name them healing dreams.)

In these dreams, each person has described very similar dream occurrences. The common theme among all is that of reunion: a reunion of the dreamer and the loved one whose loss they had been grieving.

While the reporting of such dreams would be significant, in and of itself, it is the results of such experiences in a therapeutic sense that have come to be of primary importance. What I am speaking of here is the literal transformation of a person who was one day in the depths of despair; while, the next, at peace with God's plan and back on the road to spiritual and physical wellness.

Though the results of this therapy are of a definite benefit, I do not offer it to all of my clients. Some who would be at ease only with a more traditional, therapeutic regime would not gain much from these exercises. They would just be going through the motions. A true desire and commitment to exploring one's own spiritual potential is essential to reaching communion via this road.

In the following chapters are outlined the steps that can lead to this greater sense of knowing. While those who read this manual will do so for different reasons, all should derive from it a greater awareness of their place in God's world, and a healing peace that can only come from knowledge: a knowledge that we are forever bound with one another in an eternal web of existence and never-ending love.

Before I conclude my opening remarks, I know that you must be saying to yourself, "But, Laura, what is The Rainbow Bridge?"

The rainbow bridge is a phrase that a client of mine used to describe the image that she had chosen to help her visualize the linkage between herself and the spiritual. In the meditative sessions that I have developed to help my clients work through the numbing despair that some experience following a traumatic loss, I advise them to visualize in their mind's eye a pathway or bridge across which they can mentally travel to a peaceful place where their fondest memories reside.

I was a bit surprised at first when several of my clients on their own - and independent of one another - came up with this image of a rainbow bridge. I was particularly impressed by one woman who confided to me that she had always had this image of walking through or over a misty rainbow, on the other side of which was her grandmother - whom she had never met in life - waiting to embrace her whenever she felt troubled or alone. This had been a frequent occurrence for her as a young child, but she had foolishly - as she would later admit - put these reunions aside when she had entered adolescence.

So, it is this image of a rainbow bridge that I have chosen to use as the symbol for that journey which you are about to undertake.

If you have experienced a recent loss in your life, the following exercises can help you reach a state of peace and acceptance, and communion. While your loved one may have passed on to another realm of existence, there is still much for you to see and learn from life. You are here for a purpose. Trust in that. But know that you do not travel alone. For, the physical and the spiritual exist interwoven in the here and now - you need only to open your eyes to see.

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