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Peace Above the Clouds

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In the last year I have traveled more than I have for a long time. Because I live on an island, traveling includes flying. I always choose the window seat because I love the view. When I travel long distances, that view is generally looking down at the top of the clouds and out at the crystal blue sky. As those around me pull down their window shades to stare at their screens, to play games, to watch movies, or to work, I find peace by enjoying the beauty I discover above the clouds.

I love to meditate, and finding a peaceful place to not be disturbed isn’t always easy. I used to think that I had to be in complete silence to enter a deep meditative state, but lately I notice that including soft music in the background guides me to the perfect peace I am seeking. I don’t include any songs with words because my monkey mind loves to sing along.

When I am not traveling somewhere, I can easily find this peace at home in an upright chair by putting my feet flat on the floor, tuning into into that soft music, and drifting off to that incredibly beautiful and peaceful place above the clouds. Then I silently repeat to myself the Dali Lama’s Loving Kindness Meditation:

May I be happy

May I live in peace

May all things work together for good for me

May I be loved

I repeat his words like a mantra until I am totally at ease. At this point, I can sit in silence for as long as I am moved to, or I may focus on a word like joy, peace, or love. This exquisite experience allows me to be centered and open to all that is good in my life. I can stay at this point, or I can choose to focus on an issue I am dealing with, a question I would like an answer to, or all that I am grateful for.

Where is your peaceful place, or will you create one? Do you meditate, or are you starting your own practice? What benefits do you look forward to as you take time for yourself every day? Celebrate your uniqueness and take the best care of your precious self.

 

 

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Are You Afriad?

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Being completely emotionally prepared or ready for the death of a loved one is improbable if not impossible. One moment, your person is breathing. The next moment, your person is still. Life for you will never be the same.  Once the transition occurs, you are on your own. That realization for me was intensely frightening. Decisions we had shared in the past were now my responsibility alone. Income we had pooled was now my obligation. Now what?

I had no idea–

I had no idea, and that didn’t serve me. What would serve me was to identify what scared me and do something about it.

My best friend from high school arrived at my side after many years of living far away. She came at the exact right time toward the end of my husband’s time. She brought support, positivity, and laughter into my life and into hers. Until she appeared, I hadn’t recognized the fear that had been creeping into my life.

In the hours that my husband slept, I had been wondering. Would I be alone for what seemed would be forever? Would I able be to support myself financially? Would my friends who had been steadily disappearing during my husband’s long illness return? Would I become the black widow that everyone shunned? My lonely thoughts painted terrifying scenes.

The days between his death and his celebration felt mostly blank. Nothing made sense. Then I had to start figuring things out. I was so relieved that my friend stayed with me through this time. Many of us face these times alone.  My friend suggested things for me to consider like whether it was better for me to stay in my home of 22 years or better for me to sell that home and move someplace where I would feel safer. Discussing issues like this was so helpful. I did end up selling my home and moving to a place that was ideal for me. Being able to talk about all the pros and cons was so helpful.

I found that the more time I took to consider important decisions and changes, the better I felt about the choices I made. Writing about choices I was considering helped. When I recorded the pros and cons of potentials, I didn’t need to worry about remembering all the details. I could always reconsider and change my mind when appropriate.

During this time, I grew stronger and the fear slowly dissolved. The absence of fear allowed room for positivity and smiles instead of the fear that had been haunting me. I realized I was choosing love over fear. I loved the decisions I made and the people I spent time with, the career I cherished, and the service to others I provided. I saw and experienced unconditional love in ways I hadn’t experienced before. As I look at my life now, fear is no longer a consideration. The absence of fear allows the room for joy, for smiles, for love.

Where are you on this journey? Is fear still worrying you? Are you in the process of focusing on your next steps? Are you seeing your former fears dissolving behind you? Or are you, like me, enjoying the absence of fear in your life as you enjoy your happy, fulfilling life.

 

Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief

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It’s About Time

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Taking a bite of a stale piece of bread is so disappointing. Going stale easily sneaks up on you, or actually, it snuck on me, without my noticing. Since my husband Jacques died 20 years ago and my husband Ron died 9 years ago, I’ve lost other relatives and friends too and became immersed in helping others deal with grief and find happiness at the same time. While I am thrilled to find my purpose in doing all that entailed, I realize I’ve become a bit of a bore.

In the last year I have started broadening my horizons. I love to write and continue to write my blog every week and write our Grief and Happiness Newsletter. I also facilitate our weekly writing group with help from my friends Judy and Phil. Yet I found myself yearning for freshness, and I am so glad I did. I attended a women’s retreat with Karen Drucker on Kaua’i. I spent a week with my dear friends Fontaine and Michael.

And my dear friend Charmin came to visit me on Maui. I attended to business at my Ambulance company in California. I went on a cruise to Alaska with old and new friends. I started attending a gathering of friends who paint watercolors together, and another group of friends who go to theatre and concerts together.

This year I am planning a fabulous concert with my great friend Rickie Byars in Maui and am planning a beautiful retreat with my good friend Michael Sudman on the Big Island of Hawaii. And Sadie Beil and I are ramping up for our next From Mouring to Light international summit on Zoom with great new guests and topics.

As I write this blog, I am flying back from Pacentro and Rome in Italy where I went to celebrate a big birthday with Sadie and meet some new, great friends: Greg, Mel, Pietro, Karen, and Will. Besides a delightful birthday party, we went on spontaneous adventures like visiting the snow, cooking great food together, discovering new coffee drinks, and best of all having deep, meaningful talks as we got to know each other while we lived together in a Medieval village on the side of a mountain! Pieotro, Sadie’s husband, introduced us to so much to see and we discovered Rome from an Italian’s perspective instead of like tourists.

I am sharing all this to encourage you to think about what you are doing. What have you always wanted to do? Who do you want to do something with? Where do you want to go?  I encourage you to write in your journal exploring these questions. I’ve got a concert, a retreat, and a summit I would like to see you come to. And the Grief and Happiness Alliance Nonprofit Organization is gearing up a membership drive we could use help with as well as other fun plans.

So, dream big. Make a plan. Create new experiences and make new friends! And have so much fun doing what you want to! You can always feel even better than you do right now!

 

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Touch

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I was reading while lying on my back in bed. I had my computer propped up so that I didn’t have to hold it. My left hand rested gently on my chest while my right hand covered my left with my fingertips gently brushing my wrist as I breathed in and out.  I had been in this position for a while before I thought about it. I was self-soothing without thinking about it. In that moment, I recognized how much I missed being touched.

A memory returned to me of when I was working way too many hours.  I would come home exhausted and collapse on the couch. When I awakened, my husband had covered me with a blanket and sat next to me placing my head gently in his lap and resting his hand on my shoulder. I felt so close to him in that silent moment.  It’s been years since he died, yet I still recall those precious moments of his warm loving touch.

Oh, how I miss a loving embrace or a slow dance in the kitchen when I was fixing diner or holding hands as we went for a walk. I am grateful for the nights when he comes to me in a dream and we touch once again. It’s just not the same, though.  Sometimes I write in my journal and conger intimate times of skin touching skin, but that often just brings tears.

For now, I will relish the precious memories on the love transmuted though physical touch in the past remembering the electric charge that comes invisibly from one heart to another.

 

Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief

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Writing Your Grief

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Whenever I watch a movie or read a book, it seems like one of the themes is grief. We all deal with loss at times throughout our lives, so having grief show up in books and movies is logical. Since dealing with and teaching about grief is a major part of my life, it’s also logical that I see it everywhere.

Recently on a long flight I was looking for a movie to watch, and I chose Eleanor the Great. I didn’t know what it was about, and of course it turned out to be about grief.  Eleanor was a 94-year-old woman who was sharing an apartment with another woman who she had known for many years. Both women were widows.  Her roommate was troubled with nightmares and Eleanor had been trying to comfort her. Before her roommate died, she told Eleanor about an experience that because she and her brother were Jewish, they had been sent via train to a death comp. On the trip, her brother jumped off to get away, so she jumped too. After the train was out of site, she started searching for her brother. When she finally found him, he was riddled with 14 bullet holes. In her nightmares, she had been dreaming about finding him over again every night.

Because her roommate died, Eleanor daughter insisted that she come from Florida to live with her in New York.  She was not happy as she didn’t have any friends there, so her daughter signed her up for a singing class at a local Jewish community center. She wasn’t Jewish and didn’t like the class she signed up for, so she wandered into a story telling class where holocaust survivors told their stories. The group leader called on her to tell her story, and since she didn’t have one, she told her roommate’s.

Eleanor started mentoring a student who was observing the writing class and they became friends. The girl was dealing with the recent sudden death of her mother in an accident, so Eleanor was teaching her the importance of writing about grief. Ultimately the truth was discovered that Eleanor told her roommate’s experience instead of her own. All the people involved realized that their stories needed to be told and they needed to be true.

As I watched this story unfold, I could understand how avoiding communication concerning grief was hurtful. Most of the misunderstanding wouldn’t have occurred if people didn’t fear expressing their truth and if they took time to listen to the stories of others instead of focusing of hiding their own pain.

I suggest that people write about their grieving experiences. Have you written your grief story? Who are you grieving now? Who do you know who is grieving now? How can you communicate better or listen better? You are likely to discover that the more you write about or speak about your grief, the less often you will feel a need to. Then you will be able to carry your love safely in your heart where is can comfort you the rest of your life.

 

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What Are You Thinking?

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Do you pay attention to your thinking? Letting your thoughts run wild is so easy to do. I just misspelled every word in the last sentence and had to go back to correct them. This caused a change of direction in my thoughts. I was thinking so quickly that my typing fingers couldn’t keep up. Then I looked out the window and started thinking about how all the birds in the yard seemed to be in pairs, so what does a bird do when its partner dies? That thought took me down a rabbit trail of ideas until I realized that it didn’t have anything to do with what I was writing here, so I started thinking again.

Does your brain do this too? The challenge of controlling your thoughts is something we all deal with. Did you know that your thoughts are energy? When you are tired or listless, chances are that your thoughts reflect that. They just float in different directions and don’t help you much. But when you are fully rested and energized you can be at your highest creativity. If you are struggling with your job and think there must be something better you can do, if you just wallow in that thought, you won’t find an answer. However, if you realize that you truly desire a change, you can use that positive energy to discover what your next step is and take that step.

What does this have to do with grief? Often while grieving, our thoughts float in so many directions that we get confused. When that happens, moving forward is difficult. When that happens, try writing about your thoughts. Write at the top of the page what is bothering you most like finances, caring for your children, dating, being able to keep you house clean, getting a job, being lonely, or feeling sad. Then set a timer for 10 minutes to write everything you can think about that one subject. When you finish, read what you wrote and notice what stands out to you the most.

After you read what you wrote, choose which of the things you wrote about is your biggest issue. Now write again, this time about the issue on the list that troubles you the most. Now write a list of what you can do or where you can find help with this issue. Then do something positive and constructive about this issue. This writing technique works. The process of writing about things helps bring organization to your issues which allows you to then address your issues methodically.

When you just think about all the issues that are bothering you, this leads to confusion and difficulty in acting on any of these issues. When you use a formulaic writing technique like this, you can hold on to your ideas and use them to help you move forward. I also highly recommend daily journal writing to help you retain your ideas which can so easily slip away from you while you are grieving.

Get out your pen and write! Start today!

 

 

Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief

Grief and Happiness Handbook

Grief and Happiness Cards

Grief and Happiness weekly Free Gatherings

[email protected]

Dream Builder Life Coach

Life Master Consultant