This. My baby girl left this planet 3 years ago and she will be forever in my heart.
This. My baby girl left this planet 3 years ago and she will be forever in my heart.
To elaborate on my previous post, one of the things that bothered during the grieving process back when I was a metaphysical dualist is that I didn't understand the link between the material and immaterial worlds. I didn't understand the science behind that or how the consciousness contained in a cat brain survives death or its relationship to the soul. And not knowing that would bother me.
What I discovered is that there is no consciousness/awareness in a cat brain. Everything in the universe has awareness as its most fundamental substrate and a brain is only an interface to it. The brain, like everything else, exists only as information and has no reality independant from consciousness, in which everything appears as a three dimensional, holographic projection.
In reality, there isn't the cat's consciousness, my consciousness, your consciousness, etc. There is only consciousness and different interfaces to it. Even an electron is an interface to it but with a very limited experience compared to what the brain of a living animal + consciousness produces.
So a deceased person or cat just starts using a different interface, a "spirit brain" or whatever, which is made of information just like an earthly brain is, but without the same constraints.
What makes me feel close to my cat in death is knowing the awareness with which I am aware of my every experience is the same awareness with which she is aware of her afterlife experience and the same awareness that she is aware of my experience by. Thinking erroneously that there are separate beings who each have their own consciousness independent of each other leads to the feeling of a big separation and sense of loss when in reality, things are much more intimate than that and you are in fact closer to someone in many ways after they die due to the removal of the impediment to them sharing in your experience of embodiment - their own earthly body experience as an apparent individual.
What I discovered is that there is no consciousness/awareness in a cat brain. Everything in the universe has awareness as its most fundamental substrate and a brain is only an interface to it. The brain, like everything else, exists only as information and has no reality independant from consciousness, in which everything appears as a three dimensional, holographic projection.
In reality, there isn't the cat's consciousness, my consciousness, your consciousness, etc. There is only consciousness and different interfaces to it. Even an electron is an interface to it but with a very limited experience compared to what the brain of a living animal + consciousness produces.
So a deceased person or cat just starts using a different interface, a "spirit brain" or whatever, which is made of information just like an earthly brain is, but without the same constraints.
What makes me feel close to my cat in death is knowing the awareness with which I am aware of my every experience is the same awareness with which she is aware of her afterlife experience and the same awareness that she is aware of my experience by. Thinking erroneously that there are separate beings who each have their own consciousness independent of each other leads to the feeling of a big separation and sense of loss when in reality, things are much more intimate than that and you are in fact closer to someone in many ways after they die due to the removal of the impediment to them sharing in your experience of embodiment - their own earthly body experience as an apparent individual.
Thanks, I'm sorry for my loss too but this cat was 19, with renal disease and pretty severe arthritis. She took a bad turn and I was taking her to the vet to have her put down but she died on the way there. I'm sorry for me but happy for her. It would be a lot harder on me if she were a young cat in good health. It was pretty easy to move past a sense of loss to myself when death was such a win for her due to the low quality of her life. I'm just glad I had those last 5 years of her life with her. I didn't get her until she was 14.
I agree. She did have a nice long life and was lucky to have you in her final years. You have a great outlook. I try to look at things the same way. Some passings are more difficult than others for me, depending on my relationship with the cat. It’s never a good thing but when they are sick and suffering there is a sense of relief that they are finally at peace.
www.petloss.com
This is the website for the Monday Candle Ceremony, which people sometimes hold by themselves or on-line every Monday at 10 PM Eastern time (I think it's Standard, but I'm not sure...) It's also held the second Sunday of every month at 3 PM eastern time. It's a commemoration/ceremony for companion animals who have passed on or are very ill. I think there's also a message board or chatroom, as well as other resources.
This is the website for the Monday Candle Ceremony, which people sometimes hold by themselves or on-line every Monday at 10 PM Eastern time (I think it's Standard, but I'm not sure...) It's also held the second Sunday of every month at 3 PM eastern time. It's a commemoration/ceremony for companion animals who have passed on or are very ill. I think there's also a message board or chatroom, as well as other resources.
For this death I was crying a little over a week but I had another 19 year old cat who I had to have put down due to cancer and I was still crying about her like a year or more later. So when it's that bad here are two things that help me:
1. You are your experience itself, which is complete, not a character who is experiencing what you are experiencing. I'm probably hitting the limit on analogies but imagine a movie where the single parent of an only child has some horrible lapse of judgment halfway though that results in the accidental death of the child. The parent then falls into a deep depression and then starts to rebound at the end. The thing to focus on here is that the movie is complete. There is nothing incomplete about it. It could win an award for completeness of story and character arc, even though the main character feels incredibly incomplete for most of the movie. So if you can get into the mindset of "I am this experience" rather than "I am experiencing this" it helps to alleviate the incomplete feeling.
2. When you catch yourself crying or feeling sad about the loss, proactively try to prolong the the thoughts that were leading to the sad feeling. This helps me with other emotions like anger but I ALWAYS forget to use it. The reason that certain thoughts upset us is that we are unconsciously identified with them so when you become aware that you are upset, actively force yourself to continue thinking about those things. While you are at it, see if you can think of other things about the life and death of the pet that make you sad. What fuels the thoughts is being unconsciously identified with (or "wrapped up in") them. By forcing yourself to have those same thoughts actively - like actively trying to remember and think about the "bad times" - it shuts off the fuel of the sadness, which is unconscious identification with the thoughts. When you are in a passive role of being in a loop of identification with sad memories leading to sadness leading to more identification with sad memories, it's easy and self perpetuating, but when you are actively trying to recall all the bad memories, it becomes tedious to remember the bad times. That bored feeling comes pretty quickly when you do this, and that's the goal, to be bored with those thoughts.
1. You are your experience itself, which is complete, not a character who is experiencing what you are experiencing. I'm probably hitting the limit on analogies but imagine a movie where the single parent of an only child has some horrible lapse of judgment halfway though that results in the accidental death of the child. The parent then falls into a deep depression and then starts to rebound at the end. The thing to focus on here is that the movie is complete. There is nothing incomplete about it. It could win an award for completeness of story and character arc, even though the main character feels incredibly incomplete for most of the movie. So if you can get into the mindset of "I am this experience" rather than "I am experiencing this" it helps to alleviate the incomplete feeling.
2. When you catch yourself crying or feeling sad about the loss, proactively try to prolong the the thoughts that were leading to the sad feeling. This helps me with other emotions like anger but I ALWAYS forget to use it. The reason that certain thoughts upset us is that we are unconsciously identified with them so when you become aware that you are upset, actively force yourself to continue thinking about those things. While you are at it, see if you can think of other things about the life and death of the pet that make you sad. What fuels the thoughts is being unconsciously identified with (or "wrapped up in") them. By forcing yourself to have those same thoughts actively - like actively trying to remember and think about the "bad times" - it shuts off the fuel of the sadness, which is unconscious identification with the thoughts. When you are in a passive role of being in a loop of identification with sad memories leading to sadness leading to more identification with sad memories, it's easy and self perpetuating, but when you are actively trying to recall all the bad memories, it becomes tedious to remember the bad times. That bored feeling comes pretty quickly when you do this, and that's the goal, to be bored with those thoughts.
@StrangeOtter, I hope that you're feeling a bit better. I know how sad it is to lose a gorgeous pet.
I've only quoted part of your previous messages in this thread (I hope that's OK):
And of course, if you hadn't tried so hard to get a diagnosis, you would have been tortured with thoughts of "If only I had gone to a(nother) specialist" or "If only I'd tried this too..."
Yes. The responsibility can be draining. I think it would be a LOT easier if we could somehow ask them what they wanted, and they could answer, instead of using our best judgement based on the fact that we know what options are available, and we know our animal companions.
