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Grief counsellors Lo Anne Mayer, Uma Girish and Daniela Norris. Photo: International Grief Council

Overcoming grief with past-life regression and guardian angels: how three women help others overcome loss and live a spiritual and purposeful life

  • The International Grief Council was set up by three women who found spiritual awakening through grief
  • Lo Anne Mayer, Uma Girish and Daniela Norris help others deal with loss through group and individual therapy
Wellness

With more than 2.68 million Covid-19-related deaths around the world, the social impact of grief has been massive. The pandemic has forced people to uproot traditions, and forgo funerals and rituals, and separated them from loved ones during celebrations and times of need.

This collective grief is deepened by rules imposed to mitigate the pandemic. Even the work of the International Grief Council, set up to serve the grieving, has been put on hold.

The council was formed when three authors met and found that, despite their varied backgrounds, they had a binding factor: grief.

When one of them, 77-year-old Lo Anne Mayer, a reiki master based in New Jersey, was interviewed by another, author and certified grief guide Uma Girish, on a radio show called Grammar of Grief in the United States, they discovered a common thread: spiritual awakening through loss.

Mayer lost her mother in 2004 and her daughter in 2005. She went on to seek understanding and acceptance, with “transpersonal journaling” – a means of writing that includes thoughts of people who have died – a grief course from her Catholic Church; support from Compassionate Friends, an organisation that helps parents who have lost children; and one-on-one grief counselling.

She wrote her first book, Celestial Conversations, shortly afterwards. She also practices and teaches “angel meditation”, a relaxation technique which works on the premise that people can connect with guardian angels and seek their help and protection.

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Girish, 55 and from India, had lost her mother in 2009 and attended a nine-week grief support programme at a local church. She also turned to a mentor in her community, who helped her find answers to questions about mortality and spirituality, and to engage better with her emotions and with the people around her.

Her first book, Understanding Death, was a way to share her transformative journey, and she later wrote the books Losing Amma, Finding Home, and Lessons from Grace: What a Baby Taught Me about Living and Loving.

Former diplomat Daniela Norris, aged 49, had similar experiences. She lost her 20-year-old brother in a drowning accident in 2010, and went on to explore past life regression. This process uses hypnosis to help a person revisit memories of past lives, and she had heard that it could help her find resolution to the tragedy, by pointing to a traumatic experience which could potentially help her deal with the loss. She found it life- changing, and experienced healing on a deeper level.

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Now a trained past-life-regression therapist, Norris helps others experience what she did, and possibly find answers to their present-day pain, anxieties, fears or grief, by journeying into their past lives. Her book, On Dragonfly Wings: A Skeptic’s Journey to Mediumship, was a result of these experiences. Norris is a Canadian-Israeli, who grew up between the two countries, and currently lives in the UK.

Mayer, Girish, and Norris set up the International Grief Council in December 2015.

“We were and continue to be inspired by the opportunity to help the grieving know that they’re not alone. There’s hope,” Mayer says. “The grief someone is going through is not permanent, and if they’re open, can be transformed into a life of purpose.”

The trio presented their first US programmes in 2016 at Morristown, New Jersey, Georgian Court University in Lakehurst, New Jersey, in New York, and Santa Fe, New Mexico. In September 2018, the council hosted a retreat near Oxford, in the UK. The women draw from their own experiences to teach others ways to let go of grief. They encourage participants to share their stories and celebrate the loved ones they have lost.

Many studies, including a 2017 review in the journal Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, suggest that community‐based bereavement counselling may have long‐term beneficial effects for those who are grieving.

There are plans – on hold until the pandemic winds down – to expand the retreats to Asia and beyond.
The three women have since been pulled in different directions. Mayer has been helping bereaved people in her community. Girish moved to Germany, and is holding Zoom classes for those struggling with isolation and grief. Norris started home-schooling her three boys, and has been writing historical fiction geared towards teenagers, to stay creatively engaged.

“I see the virus as a messenger,” Girish says. “Grief and loss continue to be the overarching umbrella, even as we all branch into different expressions of our purpose.”

The three of them stay in regular contact online, and are hopeful there will soon be opportunities to help heal a grieving world together. Positive feedback from people who have attended their sessions has confirmed their belief that grief is a universal language, without borders or boundaries, and that people connect and heal through a shared story.
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