Pet Loss Grief Support

The Grief Relief Formula by FES is a highly recommended formula of flower essences to bring comfort, relief and healing during times of loss.

I have been studying, using and recommending FES flower essences since 1989. I was particularly pleased when they developed this grief formula because the essences included are gently and powerfully helpful to our healing no matter what our loss, no matter what our individual responses to our loss, no matter what "phase" of our healing we may be in on a given day or moment. This formula will help you, or your grieving animal, experience both relief from what can be the staggering pain of grief on any day, as well as help you heal gently from deep within. It includes the flower essences Bleeding Heart, Pink Yarrow, California Wild Rose, Love Lies Bleeding, Borage, Forget-Me-Not, and Explorer's Gentian.

For those of you who prefer to choose individual essences that will serve your healing process rather than a pre-mixed formula, the list below will help you discern what will best help you.

All of the essences below are from FES. For more comprehensive descriptions of these essences, and for a lifelong reference book about essences developed for our emotional and spiritual support by both Dr. Bach and FES, you may want to read the Flower Essence Repertory.

• Bleeding Heart helps us fully feel the spiritual connection of love we will always have with loved ones, even after death. It helps us accept the change in form of a relationship, to let go of and release our attachment to the physical form of our animal loved one.

• Borage helps us overcome feelings of depression and heavy-heartedness from the death or impending death of a loved one. Borage gives us courage to face our grief, a sense of upliftment and buoyant hope to help us not get stuck in the weight of depression.

• Forget-Me-Not deepens our awareness of our spiritual connection with those who have physically died and helps us develop telepathic communication with them.

• Love Lies Bleeding helps us with profound feelings of melancholia and anguish, especially when the soul suffers privately and is cut off from others. It also helps us find transpersonal meaning from pain and suffering.

• California Wild Rose helps us when our loss is so overwhelming that we may have thoughts of suicide. One of the most beautiful and fundamental of flower remedies, it helps the soul to fully incarnate and really take hold of and accept the challenges of life on Earth, and connect again to enthusiasm for earthly life, stimulating the love forces of the heart for others and for self.

• Madia and Honeysuckle can help us when we are having trouble getting back to functioning in our daily lives while grieving. Madia helps with focus and concentration (i.e. driving a car, carrying out work, home or family responsibilities), while honeysuckle helps us live in the here-and-now, helping us go on after death or loss.

• Mariposa Lily: Sometimes grief makes us feel cut off from love--our ability to ever love or be loved again in the way we have with the one who has died. Sometimes, too, we get stuck in our grief because we don't believe in our ability to love ourselves in the way our animal loved us. Mariposa Lily helps open our hearts to love, from the spirit of our animal, from others beings, and from ourselves.

• Star of Bethlehem, one of the essences in Five Flower Formula, is a deeply restorative remedy, bringing calm, soothing, healing qualities, comfort and reassurance from the spiritual world. Can be especially helpful when we feel in shock, or greatly overwhelmed. Brand: Bach and FES.
  
  

When We Feel Guilty:

• White Chestnut is helpful in releasing anxious, repetitive thoughts such as "Oh my God, why didn't I. . .", or "If only I had done such and such."

• Pine helps us move from being stuck in self-blame, remorse or shame to a state of self-forgiveness and self- acceptance.
  
  

For Those Who Work With Rescue and Shelter Animals:

• Red Chestnut is very helpful when we feel obsessive fear or worry that we have not done enough, that it's our job to save our animal and if we don't we've failed. It is also particularly helpful with rescue workers, or foster guardians, who feel they must "save them all" and feel guilty when they can't. Red Chestnut helps us let go of an over-exaggerated sense of obligation, or a drive to help others at the cost of ourselves. It helps us know when we've "done enough"--for that day, or for that animal. It helps us remember that it is OK for us to have a life for ourselves, beyond giving to animals or others. Red Chestnut deepens and restores our trust in a Divine source of support for the animals we love, helping us remember we are not the only source of their support.
  
  

When We Are Having Trouble Accepting Death and Tragedy:

• Sagebrush helps us accept pain and emptiness of any kind of loss.

• Wild Rose helps us accept the tragic events of life especially when we feel a resigned, lack of hope.

• Chrysanthemum helps us accept the transitory nature of earthly life and helps us heal any fears and avoidance of physical death.
  
  

When We Are Having Difficulty Expressing Or Releasing Our Feelings:

• Dandelion helps us release feelings of grief or pain that are stuck in the body, often helpful when we know our emotions are making us feel tense in the body.

• Fuchsia helps us contact grief which may be repressed, perhaps when we long to express our feelings but are afraid of being overwhelmed by them.

• Golden Ear Drops helps us release tears of grief that may be held back. Can be especially helpful when our current loss is bringing up pain from past losses.

• Yerba Santa helps us build our capacity to express a full range of emotion, especially when pain has been internalized or constricted in the heart and chest area.
  
  

When We Are Feeling Like We Don't Belong Here Without Our Animal, When We Perhaps Feel Alienated in a World or Culture Which Doesn't Understand, Accept or Acknowledge the Deep Love We Have for our Animals, When We Feel Like We May Not Fit Here, or Have a Place:

• Shooting Star helps us heal a profound feeling of alienation, especially not feeling at home on earth, nor a part of the human family. It can be especially helpful when we feel more a part of the animal kingdom than part of humanity.

• Sweet Pea: Whether primarily with humans or animals, we all need to feel we "belong" in a community, a family or place. This essence strengthens our deepest knowing that we each have a unique place of belonging on the earth and with other beings. It eases the sense of "homelessness" or "familyless-ness" often felt when a deeply beloved animal dies.