Medium Mark Anthony Blog

Losing a loved one is the most stressful events anyone can endure. It is also one of the most human of events for it brings forth so many different feelings and emotions. It is a time to mourn, a time to reflect, and a time for love. Perhaps we all grieve differently, however, we all grieve.

Bereavement is a difficult journey and something we get through, not get over. Although grief is something everyone must endure, it is important not to let grief dominate your life, and in essence, become your life.  Avoiding grieving the loss of a loved one, is not a healthy alternative to working through the grief to arrive at a new normalcy and deeper awareness and fullness of life. The following is a list of some coping strategies the survivors may find useful.

• Turning to God. Even if this means being angry at God for a short time, God understands us. Even if we blame God for our sorrows, God will help us find the inner strength to endure this time of hardship.
• Embracing one’s faith. All the major religions of the world agree that physical death is not the end of our existence. Finding comfort, solace, and answers from faith can be reassuring and bring hope.
• Connecting with one’s faith community. Most faith communities will have grief share programs or other activities to assist people suffering the loss of a loved one. Now is the time to seek out help from compassionate people.
• Connecting with family members and close friends. Don’t go through grief alone. This is the time to reach out to those who care for you and love you. They too may be experiencing the pain you are enduring. Facing difficulty together is better then facing it alone.
• Indulge in uplifting activities. These activities may be as esoteric as studying philosophy or as centering as planting a tree. Perhaps it is even finding a beautiful spot to release the ashes of a loved one. These things can be healing in nature and bring us closer to our awareness of God.
• Meditation, centering Prayer and stress reduction techniques. These contemplative disciplines can help to control stress and allow one to find a deeper state of awareness or relaxation. Meditation and Prayer may assist in one’s spiritual development by clearing the mind of the day to day stress and allow one to focus on the grace of God.
• Grief Counseling. (Support groups or individual therapy). It helps to be able to discuss and even vent your feelings to people who understand. Most people have experienced the loss of a loved one, and being able to “be yourself” in a non-judgmental environment can be healing.
• Consult with a health professional. Grieving is a tremendous physical drain on the human body. You may wish to consult with a health professional for information on supplements or dietary changes which may be necessary to bring the body into a healthy balance.
• Avoiding stressful situations. This is important especially in the initial stages of grief when people are not always exercising their best judgment. In particular, don’t try to make financial decisions that can be postponed. Don’t sell the house for the first year and consult legitimate financial advisors and professionals to help with these and other financial details.
• Physical exercise. This is an excellent way to “take the edge” off the physical symptoms of grief. Studies show that physical exercise releases endorphins into the body which can alleviate stress and mental anxiety.
• Allow yourself to observe special anniversary dates. This may mean meeting a friend or family member for lunch on the birthday of the loved one who passed, or saying a prayer on the day that person passed. Instead of trying to ignore these reminders, chances are you won’t be able to, embrace them and use them as a time to honor the person who brought so much love into your life.
• Express your feelings in a creative way. The creative process can often help people cope with emotional pain, sadness and depression. For example, write a letter to your loved one who has passed and or keep a journal of your feelings. Like physical exercise, writing about your feelings can also “take the edge” off of the symptoms of grief. By keeping a journal of your journey through grief, you can also refer back to see how you have progressed. The creative process is a means of taking feelings of negativity and turning them into something positive. Some of the greatest works of art, literature, and music were created by people expressing their pain in a creative fashion.
• Give yourself time to grieve. This is all too often disregarded in our society. In the United States, most employers allow 3 days leave for bereavement! The idea that one only feels grief for 3 days is unrealistic if not absurd. The reality is that grief usually takes 18 months to 3 years, sometimes 5 years to fully process. So, don’t put unrealistic demands upon yourself to “get over it.” Instead let yourself heal according to your own time frame.
• Making contact with your loved one who is in spirit. Spirit contact through a legitimate medium like Mark can be a wonderful step in healing. It is always comforting to know our loved ones, live on.

The journey through grief is a long one and it is important to give oneself time to grieve and to endure the overwhelming emotions that often accompany grief. Everyone moves at his or her own pace and along this path there will be circumstances which hinder one’s progress and circumstances which assist one’s progress. It may even take a lifetime to reach the desired goals of acceptance and inner peace.

Achieving acceptance and inner peace does not mean the survivor will feel the same way every day. As time passes, the interval of waves of grief become farther and farther apart and their intensity diminishes. As this occurs, some begin to think that it is disloyal to feel better. That is not the case. Your loved one on The Other Side sees and feels your pain and also rejoices when you eventually feel good again, even while recognizing you still love and often miss the one who has crossed over to The Other Side.

As a medium, Mark Anthony believes making contact with a loved one on The Other Side can help someone in the journey through grief. “It is therapeutic to know that the soul is immortal and we truly survive our physical death,” Mark said, “While spirit contact through a medium will not end the suffering of the bereaved, it may help that person obtain a different perspective on death. This new perspective may transform the feeling of the finality of death into the realization death is merely the transference of our energy, of who we are, to a higher realm.”

Coping with the loss of a loved one is extremely difficult. It is during these times it is necessary to embrace your faith and belief system to find the inner strength to endure this pain.

The purpose of this section of the website is not to advance one belief system over another. Instead, this section is to demonstrate briefly, that every major religion in the world teaches death is not the end.

Medium Mark Anthony  has said, “I believe in God, Heaven, which I call The Other Side, an Afterlife, and the immortality of our soul. I also know it is possible to contact those who have crossed over. How you choose to believe in God, and how to interpret spiritual immortality, is a personal decision.”

To fully understand all the religions of the world would take lifetimes, yet they have overlapping teachings. As George Harrison once said, “All religions are branches of one big tree. It doesn't matter what you call God just as long as you call.” However, despite their philosophical and cultural differences, the major religions of the world all agree physical death does not end spiritual existence.

The following are a few quotes from religious texts concerning the immortality of the soul.

The body is the sheath of the soul.
Judaism. Talmud, Sanhedrin 108a

The dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
Judaism and Christianity. Ecclesiastes 12.7

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal. But store up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor decay destroy, nor thieves break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.
Christianity. Matthew 6:19-21

You prefer this life, although the life to come is better and more enduring. All this is written in
earlier scriptures; the scriptures of Abraham and Moses.
Islam. Qur’an 87.16-19

Now my breath and spirit goes to the Immortal, and this body ends in ashes;
OM. O Mind! Remember. Remember the deeds. Remember the actions.
Hinduism. Isha Upanishad 17

One who identifies himself with his soul regards bodily transmigration of his soul
at death fearlessly, like changing one cloth for another.
Jainism. Pujyapada, Samadhishataka 77

Matter has no life, hence it has not real existence. Mind is immortal.
Christian Science. Science and Health, 584.

Relatives and friends and well-wishers rejoice at the arrival of a man who had been long absent
and has returned home safely from afar. Likewise, meritorious deeds will receive the good
person upon his arrival in the next world, as relatives welcome a dear one on his return.
Buddhism. Dhammapada 219-20

Birth is not a beginning; death is not an end. There is existence without limitation; there is
continuity without a starting point. Existence without limitation is space. Continuity without
a starting point is time. There is birth, there is death, there is issuing forth, there is entering in.
That through which one passes in and out without seeing its form, that is the Portal of God.
Taoism. Chuang Tzu 23

Man’s real nature is primarily spiritual life, which weaves its threads of mind to build a cocoon of flesh, encloses its own soul in the cocoon, and, for the first time, the spirit becomes flesh. Understand this clearly: The cocoon is not the silkworm; in the same way, the physical body is not man but merely man’s cocoon. Just as the silkworm will break out of its cocoon and fly free, so, too, will man break out of his body-cocoon and ascend to the spiritual world when his time is come. Never think that the death of the physical body is the death of man. Since man is life, he will never know death.
Seicho-no-Ie. Nectarean Show of Holy Doctrines

All the living must die, and dying, return to the ground; this is what is called kuei. The bones and flesh molder below, and, hidden away, become the earth of the fields. But the spirit issues forth, and is displayed on high in a condition of glorious brightness.
Confucianism. Book of Ritual 21.2.1

Some day the Great Chief Above will overturn the mountains and the rocks. Then the spirits that once lived in the bones buried there will go back into them. At present those spirits live in the tops of the mountains, watching their children on earth and waiting for the great change which is to come. The voices of these spirits can be heard in the mountains at all times. Mourners who wail for their dead hear spirit voices reply, and thus they know that their lost ones are always near.
Native American Religions. Yakima Tradition

The world beyond is as different from this world as this world is different from that of the child while still in the womb of its mother. When the soul attains the Presence of God, it will assume the form that best befits its immortality and is worth of its celestial habitation. Such an existence is a contingent and not an absolute existence, inasmuch as the former is preceded by a cause, whilst the latter is independent thereof. Absolute existence is strictly confined to God, exalted be His Glory.
Baha’i Faith. Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah 81

One breath pervades all, what point is any weeping over another? Man wails over the loss of what he calls his: Know, the Self is not perishable.
Sikhism. Adi Granth, Gauri, M.5, p. 188

The Way of death is found in one’s own mind and no other;
Inquire of it in your own heart,
In your own mind.
Leave to the kami the path ahead;
The road of the returning soul is not dark
To the land of Yomi,
To the world beyond.
Shinto. Naokata Nakanishi, from: One Hundred Poems on The Way of Death

We are on a market trip on earth;
Whether we fill our baskets or not,
Once the time is up, we go home.
African Traditional Religions. Igbo Song (Nigeria)