This story is about one person's very personal experience of grief and how she used The Questions to get the reassurance that she wanted.

Horses are amazing creatures and Rebekah's horse Tui was the instigator of a wonderful experience during another one of our Spirit of Horse clinics. During the clinic, her grief at the recent death of her father became the predominant emotion for Rebekah to look at.

So it was about her grief that we were asking The Questions. "So whose grief is it?" I asked her. "Mums” she replied and some of the intensity of it dropped away. "Is there any feeling left?" I asked. "Yes” she replied.

So we kept asking "whose is it?" and “what do you need to know or do about it?" I can't remember the answers now, even though they were important. The last question and answer were so big that they overshadowed everything else that I remember.

There wasn't as much intensity left in the grief by the time we got to the last question and I can't remember exactly the sequence of events, but Rebekah got to "what do you need to know or do" and had the profound experience of hearing the voice of her father saying ... "I'm OK". And her grief dropped away.

Now I know that it's possible that this was not really her father talking, although there are more things in heaven and earth than we can touch and see, so I wouldn't be too quick to label it vivid imagination. I too, had had a huge sense of his presence around her the whole day.

The fact remains, Rebekah's grief dropped away and she found peace. So if all our emotions are messages from our soul, then it is difficult for me to believe that grief is any exception. I have believed for a long time that the message of grief is to prompt us to think about what we believe in and to examine that in great detail.

It has been my personal experience that to explore what I believe in, not what somebody else thinks I should believe in, has been an incredibly profound experience for me. To explore what fits deeply into my heart has produced a deep faith that I expect to remain unshaken.

For those experiencing grief right now, please don't misunderstand me. I am not making light of the depth of your grief. No two people are the same; no two experiences are the same; no two answers will be the same. I just invite those that are filled with grief to work their way through the process of asking:

1. Whose is it?

2. What do I need to know or do about it?

3. Has the feeling all gone and if it hasn't, keep asking the first two questions until it has.

And I invite the rest of you not to wait for grief to prompt you to think deeply about what you believe in. A technique for this that I have suggested a few times is to carry a note book around, so that you can make notes of things that come up about what you believe in.

Once you've set that intention, you will find that something that you read will "fit nicely and comfortably into your heart", so you'll jot that down. Then someone will say something and that too will fit nicely into your heart, so you'll jot that down too. Then a line of a song will do the same, so it goes into the notebook. A thought will "pop" into your mind -- in it goes too.

And so on, until one day, you'll look back over the notes you've made and find that there's a whole pattern there about what you believe in that makes sense to you - that fits nicely and comfortably into your heart.

I know that I personally have found great peace and, I think, great strength from that process.