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Comfort, Support, Happiness, and Friends

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I am thrilled to announce the formation of The Grief and Happiness Alliance  which is a membership program where you can find comfort, support, happiness, and friends.

Everyone deals with grief and loss in their lifetimes. When you are in that situation, having friends to relate to who are also dealing with loss can make all the difference in how you feel.

While we grieve for the loss of a loved one, we also grieve many other losses in our lives like losing a job, getting divorced, suffering and injury, having a life-threatening diagnosis, or having a friend move away.  People deal with these losses in different ways. Some people isolate themselves so others won’t see their pain, others are openly sad and hurting, while others attempt to ignore the pain.  I have found that the best way to deal with loss is to pay attention to it and use healthy, constructive methods to help yourself.

Let me show you three ways you can start right now to help you feel better.

  1. Take good care of yourself. Often while dealing with grief or loss we forget to eat, or we eat too much. We may not pay attention to our personal appearance. We may not take care of where we live. We may not stay in contact with people. We may feel that no one could understand how you are feeling. Instead of dealing with what you are experiencing in these ways that do not serve you, try being gentle with yourself. Plan what you will be eating and make healthy choices. Get out in nature even if it is only a walk in the neighborhood. Call a friend just to talk, or write that friend a letter, a card, or an email to keep in touch. Take a nice hot shower or soak in a refreshing bath. Go shopping, even if it is only online, and buy yourself something new to wear that you know you will feel good wearing. Mostly, love your precious self up. You are so worth it.
  2. Set a goal for each day first thing when you get up. You can start small. Make sure that the goal you set is something you can do in one day. For instance, set a goal to get outside and walk to the corner and back, instead of setting a goal to spend an hour at the gym working out hard when you haven’t stepped into the gym for months. The more goals you accomplish, the better you will feel. Make a list of things you’d really like to do, then get started with one item on the list at a time.
  3. Laugh! If you need something to inspire your laughter, search on You Tube for funny animals. Or watch a funny movie. My aunt and uncle were in a car accident where she was severely injured, and he died. During her recovery, she watched the movie Patch Adams every day. I asked her if she was getting tired of watching it, and she said no.  She pointed out she couldn’t help but laugh at the funny parts and she loved the love and kindness that was demonstrated in the movie.  Find a movie or a book or a television show or a comedian that always makes you laugh then laugh all you can.

These three ways are just the start of all you can do to help yourself. They are all simple and mostly free. And the more you do each of them, the better you will feel. When you can start to focus on today, this moment, and do whatever you need to so that you can feel your best, each moment is easier than the last. When you focus on what you have lost, those moments will continue to get worse.

Would you like some help with all of this?  I have just what you need.

The Grief and Happiness Alliance is designed to support you in starting to move forward with your grief. Most people when dealing with grief and loss find themselves being mostly alone and not knowing what to do to feel any better. They also may be unfamiliar with the affect grieving can have on their lives, or maybe they do, but the grief they are dealing with now is bigger and more challenging. If this is you, participating in The Grief and Happiness Alliance can be a perfect experience. In the alliance, you will be meeting with others who are also dealing with loss. You are not alone. And you will experience ways to dealing with your grief by writing, by talking to each other, and by learning happiness practices that comfort and support you. Being listened to and listening to others often doesn’t happen when you are grieving, but the alliance is a place where you can do both., You will discover new friends, new ways to express yourself, and new happiness. And you will look forward to meeting online with The Grief and Happiness Alliance online that meets for an hour every week.

In The Grief and Happiness Alliance you can form comfortable relationships with new friends. You will have the opportunity to express emotions where you know you will be supported. Belonging to a group of people who share challenges like the ones you are experiencing, you will find opportunities to support each other. Each week we will do different writing and happiness practices that enable you to have tools to use to take care of yourself as you start moving forward. We will have occasional guests and enjoyable activities so there is always something new to experience.

As a member of the Alliance, you can create a notebook, either a hard copy or online, where you keep your writing and the PDF materials for class. This will be a special keepsake you can turn to for comfort as well as record your progress and your meaningful experiences along the way. You can stay in the Alliance for as long as you want to.

The Grief and Happiness Alliance is a membership program which is offered at no cost due to the generosity of the Grief and Happiness Alliance Nonprofit Organization.

Benefits of being a member of The Grief And Happiness Alliance:

  • Weekly group meetings which include happiness practices, writing sessions, and peer support.
  • Special activities and guests
  • Invitations to retreats
  • And more surprises along the way

When you sign up for The Grief And Happiness Alliance program today, you will immediately gain access to my online Grief, Love, Happiness, and Writing Haiku Poetry course for free.

Be sure join The Grief And Happiness Alliance now by clicking on this link: Grief and Happiness.

Our first meeting is Sunday November 14 at 10 AM Hawaii Standard Time, Noon PST, and 3 PM EST.

Be sure to share this information with anyone you know who could benefit from this program.

 

You can join the Grief and Happiness Alliance which will meet weekly starting November 14 by clicking here: https://www.griefandhappiness.com/offers/ytK7eLBa

 

You can order Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief by clicking here at Amazon.

I would be happy to put you on the reminder list for or Writing Together Through Grief occurring on Saturdays each week by sending an email to me to [email protected] and giving me your email address.

Join my Facebook group here.

 

 

 

Complaining

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Are you a complainer? I certainly was at one time in my life.  I didn’t see it at the time, but I was constantly criticizing. Nothing was ever quite right or good enough. I rarely was satisfied. As I reflect on that time, I can see how unhappy all that complaining was making me. My food wasn’t hot enough or cold enough. The movie I saw wasn’t that great. My friend stood me up. My coworker didn’t get her job done so I had to pick up the slack. There was no way I could get my assignment done on time. I was always tired. I remembered a phrase I used to say in my childhood: “Nobody likes me. Everybody hates met. I am going to eat worms and die.” Yuk! That was no way to live!

Then someone pointed out to me that I was always playing the victim, and that no one wanted to be friends with someone so negative.  What got me the most is that I had never realized I was doing that.  The people around me all seemed to be playing the same game, and I saw that I didn’t really want to be around them either!  Something had to change.

How does this situation apply to grieving? Because most people grieving slip into victimhood at some point, and the deeper you slide down the slope, the harder it is to pull yourself back up. Do you see when you played the victim roll? Or maybe you are doing that now? The good news is that you don’t have to stay there.

Early in your grief is the time that this is most likely to happen, and if you don’t realize that you are playing the victim, it’s only going to get worse. How can you tell if this is what you are doing?  Answer these questions to help you decide:

  1. Do you find yourself saying “Nobody understands what I am going through”?
  2. Do you spend lots of time alone because you feel like no one wants to be around you?
  3. Did you have friends before your loss that you don’t have anymore?
  4. Do you eat too much or not enough because it doesn’t matter what you look like?
  5. Do you complain a lot, even if it is just to yourself?
  6. Are you negative much of the time?

There are lots more questions I could ask, but if you find yourself answering yes to any of these questions, chances are you are playing the victim.  The more of these questions you answer yes to, the further into victimhood you have drifted.

Often you might see these traits in people you know who are dealing with grief and loss. When this happens, be sure to check yourself out and see if you are a reacting to them as a victim yourself. And try reaching out to them in positive ways, gently showing them evidence of some of the good and beauty and love in their lives.

What about you, though? What can you do for you?  The first step is recognizing the situation you are in. That’s half the battle.  If you can see it, you can deal with it.  For instance, if you find yourself saying “Nobody knows how I feel,” try looking around you.  Everybody deals with grief and loss at some points in their lives. You are likely to discover that people you care about think that nobody knows how they are feeling either.  When you identify a friend who you know has had a loved one die recently, try reaching out. Try saying something positive to them.  The more you put yourself in the positive space by showing your care, the more likely people are to show you they care about you, too.

If you are spending lots of time alone, do something about that. Call a friend on the phone. Hearing the voice of someone you care about can help. Get together with people if you can, and if that doesn’t work for you right now because of social distancing, do it online.  You could join the Grief and Happiness Alliance online (it’s free) and discover new friends there who are also dealing with loss.  Of find an activity you can do. I learned how to draw and paint by watching YouTube videos and finding free online classes.  Doing something new and different, especially if it is something you always wanted to do, can really raise your spirits.

If you recognize a tendency toward victimhood, and you know you don’t want to be there, you can fix this situation!  The key is your desire to make a change. Recognize when you start saying or feeling negative and adjust what you are saying or feeling right when you recognize it. Be patient with yourself and start focusing on positivity and you can move forward. You can do this!  Brighten up your life right now! You will be so glad you did!

 

You can join the Grief and Happiness Alliance which will meet weekly starting November 14 by clicking here:

You can order Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief by clicking here at Amazon.

I would be happy to put you on the reminder list for or Writing Together Through Grief occurring on Saturdays each week by sending an email to me to [email protected] and giving me your email address.

Join my Facebook group here.

Letting Go

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Letting go can be the hardest thing we do in life. Holding on can be the most detrimental.

My single-minded purpose in life for many years has been to love and be loved. I put that into action fully during the years Ron and I were together. By focusing on love, I learned to let love guide me. The more I loved, the more love I had to give. I discovered that as I approached something that seemed to be a problem with love, the problem faded away.

After Ron died, I had a major problem. I didn’t know what to do. My life had been structured around Ron’s needs for so long, I hadn’t been paying attention to taking care of me.  I started writing about my problem in my journal, and the more I focused on having a problem, the bigger the problem became.  This is the opposite of what I was searching for.  I realized that to deal with the problem, I needed to release it.

At the top of my journal page, I wrote “How am I supposed to live without you.” As soon as I wrote that down, the lyrics of Michael Bolton’s song flooded my mind:

How am I supposed to live without you?

And how am I supposed to carry on?

When all that I’ve been living for is gone

That last line hit me hard. I had structured my life around all that needed to be done for Ron to live the best life he could. I don’t regret that at all, and I am grateful I was able to do it. Yet now I realized I had left me out of the equation. And with that realization, I recognized that everything was different, and it was time for me to adjust. Now was the time for me to take good care of myself.

My journal and I became good friends during this time as I wrote about the changes I was experiencing. As I wrote, I saw that I did love myself, but I had not been doing anything to demonstrate that. Just loving wasn’t enough. Action was required. In my writing, I would discover things I could do to nurture that self-love. I addressed what came up one thing at a time, and I gently took care of myself.

I realized that my home was filled with things Ron and I shared.  I started by committing to clean out one drawer or shelf every day.  By doing just one cleaning task at a time, I prevented overwhelm.  If I operated like I had throughout my life, I would have started cleaning, reorganizing, and releasing and continued till exhaustion, probably not completing what I started. By so this one step at a time, I had a chance to remember the significance of things and see the things that were not of significance for me.

Ron had so many books.  Many of the books were on topics I would never read, so I started releasing them.  I filled one grocery bag full at a time. I wrote on each bag where the book would be going. Many of the books went to one friend who was studying what many of the books were about. A great deal of the books went to the Friends of the Library bookstore. By doing one bag at a time, I didn’t become overwhelmed with the task.  This process took months, and that was OK because there was no reason to rush.

Ron loved to collect art, some valuable, most not. I went to visit a friend one day who is an artist. Her walls were covered with her beautiful paintings and photographs. I realized that this art would make me smile, so I purchased several of her works.  I removed some of the works Ron had for many years before me and gave them to a friend wo had the perfect place to display them. Now I have the freshness and beauty of my friend’s art to enjoy every day.

I also was able to clear out his office in our house and freshen it with new paint and counter tops.  This created a pleasant small apartment in my home with its own entrance. Creating this space brought in a lovely new neighbor for me and helped to pay my mortgage now that Ron’s income was gone.

Look around you. What can you change, give away, recycle, or discard that would make room for new memories? What could give you a fresh start? I loved how my home looked before I started this process, and I love it equally now. In the journey of this transformation, I also release feelings and habits that no longer serve me. Moving forward only occurs as your release the anchor that has you clinging to the past. I know that the only thing that is constant is change. I changed what I wanted to when I was ready to, and I am still changing. I always will be.

 

You can order Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief  by clicking here at Amazon.

I would be happy to put you on the reminder list for or Writing Together Through Grief occurring on Saturdays each week by sending an email to me to [email protected] and giving me your email address.

Join my Facebook group here.

Lifelong Learning

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Often when people are dealing with loss, they isolate themselves and focus on their loss and sadness, and the more they do this, the harder it is to focus on anything else. When a feeling like this comes up, it’s time to make a choice to help yourself. Taking good care of you is your most important job.

When I realized that I hadn’t been doing anything, I started writing. I wrote about how I was feeling, and about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Then I started writing letters to my loved ones who had already transitioned. The more I wrote, the better I felt.  I continued to write every day and still do. The first thing I started on my own at that time was teaching others how to write to deal with their grief too.  I had taught writing for 30 years, so that seemed like a natural next step for me.  I enjoyed meeting new people and being able to help them.

I also realized that besides my writing group, I wasn’t talking to anyone or meeting anyone new. This was pre-pandemic. I started writing a list of things I would like to learn. As that list kept growing, I found myself excited about possibilities. I love to create things, so I looked for classes where I could learn something new.  I started with a drawing class at the local arts center, and I fell in love with colored pencils. I enjoyed that so much that I took more classes there: printmaking, jewelry making, advance ceramics skills, wreath making, watercolors and more!

Two places I always wanted to go were Tuscany and Bali. I found that the international ceramics group I belonged to was taking trips to both places, so I signed up for both.  I felt comfortable traveling with this group because the people in the group all shared my love for ceramics, and I loved the opportunity to meet artists in both countries and get to make ceramics to take home in their beautiful studios. I learned much about the countries and their arts before I left and learned much more in the countries.

When the shutdown came with the pandemic, I planted a giant vegetable garden so I would be able to share food with my friends since most of the food in Hawaii is shipped in and we were all were running low on food.  I learned about permaculture gardening and preparing new vegetables I hadn’t tried before, and I felt great about helping others.

I also discovered resources on my computer, like classes to take, classes I could teach, and sources I could learn from like TED Talks, which cover and endless number of fascinating topics. And I read books I never seemed to have time for before and watched movies that I had missed. There is so much information and entertainment in the world, so I found myself learning something new every day.

As I mentioned at the start of this blog, taking care of you is your most important job when dealing with grief. Take some time to consider all the things you would love to do.  Make a list and start checking it off.  This can bring you lots of happiness. I would love to hear how you have discovered how to spend your time doing new things you have never done before!

 

You can order Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief by clicking here at Amazon.

I would be happy to put you on the reminder list for or Writing Together Through Grief occurring on Saturdays each week by sending an email to me to [email protected] and giving me your email address.

Join my Facebook group here.

What’s Your Choice?

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When my husband Ron died, I felt somewhat lost. The first few weeks were as difficult as you could imagine. I felt very alone and adrift, like I was floating through a fog where nothing made sense.  When I started to come around after that, I remembered how sad I was for a long time after my husband Jacques died. I realized that I did not want to experience that again, so I started journaling about what I could do differently, and that led me to see that I wasn’t sure what my purpose in life was anymore.

Not feeling a purpose was a big realization for me.  I knew that if I had a focus, something I could strive for or actively do, I could start to rise up from the sad place where I had been spending my time.  The challenge was what would I focus on?  I started with little things first. I decided to spend less time watching Hallmark movies on television. I hadn’t watched many before this time, and I found that they could be on, and I didn’t need to pay attention because they all had the same basic plot, so I knew how they’d end. When I realized that, I saw that spending my time that way wasn’t serving me.

I started spending lots of time journaling asking myself what I could be doing.  I wrote long lists of people I loved and who loved me, and of things I am grateful for. I wrote something about each person and each thing I was loved and was grateful for, and that helped lift the gloom. Then I tried making a list of things I could do, of what could be my purpose. I wrote lots of details about each item on those lists. The more I wrote, the more I could see that what was missing for me them was human contact.  The more I sat by myself, the lonelier I became. Now that wasn’t me! I love people. I love to have conversations and discover how I could support the people I loved. I started reaching out.

I asked friends over to visit and I signed up for art classes where I could meet new people. All that helped, but the one thing missing was being able to talk to anyone who also was dealing with loss, or at least telling me they were dealing with loss.  I realized how much my writing was helping me in dealing with my grief, so I decided to ask people to come write through grief with me. Since I didn’t know anyone who was currently dealing with grief, I got brave and created a Meet-Up group and asked people to join me. And they did! Every person who showed up did not know me or anyone else in the group, and we quickly bonded over writing and drinking iced tea.

Discovering the joy that came from meeting new people and getting to help them at the same time was just what I needed to pull me forward. Together we supported each other so we all started feeling better.  I am grateful that I chose to reach out and make a change in my life that serves me so well. All of this led me forward to write my book, Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief, and to find many different ways to provide comfort, support, love and happiness to people who are grieving or dealing with loss.

My choices through each step of this process all served me. Each choice I made opened me up more to new possibilities in my life and to the realization that all I am doing is based on the conscious choices I have been making. I love what I am doing now, and I make a special effort to pay attention to all of my choices which help me to now be happier than I have ever been!

Your choices can bring happiness to you too. What choices are you making today?

 

You can order Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief  by clicking here at Amazon.

I would be happy to put you on the reminder list for or Writing Together Through Grief occurring on Saturdays each week by sending an email to me to [email protected] and giving me your email address.

Join my Facebook group here.

Serendipity and Inspiration

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Have you had the experience of creating a vision in your mind of something you would love to do, then things start happening around you showing you that you can do it? Is this serendipity, or is it part of the process of creation? I have had this happen so often that I have learned to pay attention when it happens. When I recognized the power of paying attention, I reflected on my life and saw lots of examples. Here are a few.

When my son Jason was born, I had complications, and the nursing staff was unhelpful to say the least. I could not understand how a nurse could treat a patient without care or compassion. I said to myself, “If I were a nurse, I would never do that to my patients.” Before that time, I hadn’t considered being a nurse, yet I became one, a caring and compassionate one.

Later, when I was in the process of getting my master’s degree in English, I had no idea of what I would do with the degree when I got it. My husband Jacques suggested that I observe a writing class, and two of his colleagues gave me the opportunity to as well as hiring me to grade the essays they assigned.  Their techniques were different, and I could see how I, as a student, would like to be taught, as well as seeing the things that they did that worked and the things that didn’t. This inspired me to start my career as a writing teacher. I loved being innovative and encouraging my students to live their best lives in the process.

Later still, I had a dream of opening a live theatre and school of arts. I was unsure of how I could do this. Then I watched the movie “Music of the Heart” which portrayed the true story of Roberta Guaspari who founded the Opus 118 Harlem School of music as she fought for music education funding in New York City public schools. I had been fighting to find ways to support arts education in the city where I lived, and when I watched the movie, I knew if she could accomplish what she did, I could accomplish what I wanted for my community, so I did.  When I heard the song as the song in the movie, that was my confirmation that I was doing what I was meant to do. Here are some of the words to the song Music of My Heart.

You opened my eyes

You opened the door

To something I had never known before

And your love

Is the music of my heart

 

You can find the complete lyrics here  and  you can watch the movie online.

Then when my husband Ron died, I spent lots of time writing to help me deal with my grief. A few months after my Ron’s death, his good friend Chappy died. I used what I had learned by my writing to write a series of 52 cards to send to his wife Lori, once a week for the first year. I realized that what I said in the cards made and outline for a book that could help many people deal with grief and loss. I wrote that book, Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief, and it is providing comfort and support those many people. I also realized that teaching others how to write to deal with their grief was helping them to be happy while they were grieving, so my focus now is on creating The Grief and Happiness Alliance. I look forward to you joining me there.

Whether what I have experienced has come from serendipity or inspiration, I am grateful for it all, and all these occurrences have brought much happiness to my life. My hope is that you pay attention to the serendipity and inspiration you receive. How can you find more happiness in your life by following your heart?

 

 

You can order Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief  by clicking here at Amazon.

I would be happy to put you on the reminder list for or Writing Together Through Grief occurring on Saturdays each week by sending an email to me to [email protected] and giving me your email address.

Join my Facebook group here.