Fear

Paradise Lost and Found

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We were warned that high winds would affect our Hawaiian islands as Hurricane Dora passed to the south. Living on Maui, strong Trade Winds are a common experience. Most of us keep extra water and food on hand in case of inclement weather, yet naively, most of us think we personally won’t be directly affected by disasters.

In the darkness of early morning, I was awakened by the acrid scent of smoke. Though the odor was pungent, I wasn’t anticipating fire. As I lay awake, my thoughts wandered, remembering how recently a young woman I was working with had been killed in a fire. I decided I was just being morbid, and something like that would never happen to me. Then the smoke intensified, and I got out of bed. That was the start of two days of terror.

Transfixed by the news, I found myself searching the internet and television for explanations of what was happening. Learning that strong winds were carrying away the fire that started within a couple of miles from me, relief was only temporary as I realized that friends of mine were potentially in its path. What we call the “coconut wireless” rushed into action. Phone calls, texts, and emails between friends and acquaintances abounded, all starting with “Are you OK?”

We learned the close fire was not the only one.  There we at least two more fires. And everyone was touched by the terror flowing through our beautiful paradise. By the evening, we were glued to the television, watching the continuing live coverage. Learning that the fire in Lahaina, which had been declared contained, rebounded and was in the process of obliterating the historical center of Hawai’i.

I finally fell asleep at about 2 AM,  and at 4:30 AM, the messages and texts started pouring in. All were wanting to know, “Are you OK?” I could only answer from my limited perspective of what I had heard or seen so far. When looking out my window into the dark, I knew I was OK, whatever that meant. With approximately 145,000 people living on the island, I could only speak for myself, and while I was traumatized and confused, I had no idea how everyone else felt.

With daylight came news and pictures of the destruction, things no one ever wants to see or hear. People fled into the ocean to escape the flames. Our majestic Banyan tree blackened. The whole town of Lahaina flattened. Hundreds of homes were destroyed. Missing loved ones and pets. And the question changed from “Are you OK,” to “What can I do?” The answer is, please do something.

I have discovered so much Aloha, Hawaiian for love. Now I see the love and strength of the Ohana (family) of Maui residents coming together however we can help and support everyone

affected by these tragic fires. While we seemed to be losing this tropical paradise, we find it is still here in our treasured Ohana. The fires are still burning. We still need your help and will continue to need help as we recover. And we will welcome you back with Aloha when we recover from this devastation.

Mahalo for your generosity.

 

Please see the ideas listed below.

Please donate to any of these sources:

 Fundraiser for Maui Food Bank Inc by Emily Thiroux Threatt   The donations here all provide food directly to those who have lost everything.

https://www.facebook.com/donate/1086101339024980/

The Hawaiʻi Community Foundation started a Maui Strong Fund to support residents affected by the wildfires, which firefighting crews continue to battle in Lahaina, Pulehu/Kīhei and Upcountry areas. Donations can be made at www.hawaiicommunityfoundation.org/maui-strong.

Maui Collective Contributors

Maui United Way is accepting donations to its Maui Fire and Disaster Relief fund at https://mauiunitedway.org/disasterrelief.

Embracing Compass Maui & Big Island

Our hearts are with our Maui and the Big Island communities right now facing the devastating wildfires. To help, members of our Compass family are coming together in support of those impacted — many of whom are Compass agents, employees and families of our community. Thank you for considering a donation that directly supports our Compass Hawaii team.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/embracing-compass-maui-big-island?utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_content=undefined&utm_medium=social&utm_source=instagram_feed&utm_term=undefined

 

 

You can join the Grief and Happiness Alliance which meets weekly on Sundays by clicking here

You can order the International Best Selling The Grief and Happiness Handbook by clicking here.

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

You can listen to my podcast, Grief and Happiness, by clicking here

Writing Through Trauma

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This Sunday was a beautiful winter day in Hawaii with the temperature in the 70’s and the sky blue with white, puffy clouds. I facilitated a meeting of the Grief and Happiness Alliance that went so well.  The meeting felt good. I felt that each participant had been touched in a way that brought them comfort. That was my goal.

After the meeting I heard a gut-wrenching sound from outside. My dear friend from across the street was yelling at her dog to stop, and the next sound I heard was of her agony. I rushed to her side in the street where she knelt with her precious dog.  Neighbors ran out to help, and I snapped into emergency mode like I had done so many times as an EMT on ambulance calls to accidents. We worked together to dispatch the dog and the family to the emergency veterinarian, when just like that, all the people were gone, and I was alone in the street. As the adrenalin wore off, I saw that I had a job to do.  I couldn’t have my friends come home to the scene on the road, so I got out my hose and broom.

All too soon they were back home without the one who had been their constant, loving companion. We sat together sharing that tremendous immediate grief, with tears, hugs, and Kleenex. Feeling like my breath had been taken away, I eventually went home. I was shaking and struggling to not fall apart. When this grief hit, my past grief and trauma came flooding back to me. I couldn’t sleep that night with the inflammation that comes with stress causing everything to hurt.  Finally, at 4 AM, I gave up trying to sleep, but my thoughts wouldn’t stop.  I always start my morning practice with meditation, but this morning I couldn’t get started with that.

I knew I had to do something, so I got out my journal and my words flowed on to the page.  I wrote, and wrote, and wrote. As I finished with one thought, another started that needed to be revealed. I don’t know how long I wrote, but the writing gradually slowed till I knew it was time to stop. As the writing slowed, so did my breath and my tension. I felt the physical release of my muscles being able to relax. I did some slow, conscious breathing and felt a lightness and peace enter my being and was so relieved.

When I help others with grief, I suggest different forms of writing because I know how much it helps.  With the writing I did with this experience, I discovered profound comfort that I don’t know I could have found any other way. This reinforced for me not only the importance of writing to deal with grief, but also the necessity of it. And writing can be used at any time with grief from anticipatory grief to the grief that pops us years after the initial cause.

What I wrote in my journal was not for anyone else to see, and I doubt that I will go back and read it. The cleansing that came from that writing was so powerful that I was able to allow myself to shift away from the disabling thoughts my monkey mind was screaming, to the quiet of the peace that comes with acceptance.  I will always miss that precious dog. He visited me often and was part of my Ohana, the Hawaiian word for family.

The good news here is that we can all move through initial trauma by practicing the best self-care. And writing out your feelings is a great way to get started.

 

 

Get your Awaken Your Happiness Journaling Guide at no charge by clicking here: https://www.griefandhappiness.com/pl/2147595767

You can join the Grief and Happiness Alliance which meets weekly on Sundays by clicking here: https://www.griefandhappiness.com/offers/ytK7eLBa

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

https://www.amazon.com/Loving-Living-Your-Though-Grief/dp/1642504823/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1658356016&sr=8-1

You can listen to my podcast, Grief and Happiness, here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/loving-and-living-your-way-through-grief-with/id1509589686?i=1000535381763

You can order the International Best Selling book in 9 countries that I wrote a chapter in, Ignite Forgiveness, here:

https://smile.amazon.com/Ignite-Forgiveness-Journey-Peace-Harmony-ebook/dp/B0BLFCYYD6/ref=sr_1_1?crid=9C6VAFE42H5C&keywords=ignite+forgiveness+book&qid=1669836040&sprefix=Ignite+forg%2Caps%2C284&sr=8-1

Can You Change?

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Whether you like it or not, change happens.  Whether you want it or not, change happens. Have you ever thought about that? As much as we expect or would love for things not to change, almost everything does.

When I was growing up, everyone I knew was expected to graduate from high school and get a job that would last a lifetime. At least the boys were.  The girls were expected to stay home to be great mothers and homemakers, and oh the guilt if a girl dared to go to college. I did buck the trend. I went to college, but after a year, I got married. The pressure to do what I was supposed to do was so strong that I gave in to try to be “normal.”

Though it took me years, I finally realized that I could make decisions. I’m so glad I did.  I made my own decisions, and this was so freeing for me, and for my family and loved ones. I learned that I didn’t have to stay in a job I thought was a lifetime career when it was no longer in alignment with what I believed.  Years passed in that dream job before I started realizing I was surrounded by racism and homophobia. And when I walked away from that job, a whole knew, beautiful career opened up for me that never would have had I not been open to change.

Do you willingly embrace change, or do you resist changing what you are comfortable with? Generally, we are not prepared to change when we are comfortable with our lives. But we don’t always know when change will come, so we can’t prepare.  Devastation can come with a traffic accident, a crime committed, a wedding cancelled, a child with a physical challenge is born, or a terminal illness is diagnosed.

The key to dealing with change in a positive way is to be flexible, open, and willing for things to be different. That’s the way to welcome change when grief comes. When we come to accept that things will never be the same as they were before, then we can start to see that we can live with how things have become different.

I had never lived alone before Jacques died, and I had no idea what to do by myself. But I was by myself and had to figure it out. I did sit by myself at home for quite a while until I knew I that I didn’t want to be sad and lonely forever. When that realization came, I did start to open. I started volunteering. I started going to events, even by myself. I accepted invitations. I can’t say this was easy, at least at first. But the more I did, the more I could do.

Change was gradual, and it was also necessary and beautiful. Thirty-year old me would not have believed that I would ever become a university lecturer, the owner of a theatre, school of arts, art gallery, café and catering company, author, speaker, and so much more. I am so grateful, that I allowed myself to break away from who I thought I was supposed to be and have become who I always had the potential to be.

You have the potential to nurture yourself positively through your grief and lead the miraculous life that is waiting for you.

 

 

Get your Awaken Your Happiness Journaling Guide at no charge by clicking here: https://www.griefandhappiness.com/pl/2147595767

You can join the Grief and Happiness Alliance which meets weekly on Sundays by clicking here: https://www.griefandhappiness.com/offers/ytK7eLBa

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

https://www.amazon.com/Loving-Living-Your-Though-Grief/dp/1642504823/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1658356016&sr=8-1

You can listen to my podcast, Grief and Happiness, here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/loving-and-living-your-way-through-grief-with/id1509589686?i=1000535381763

You can order the International Best Selling book in 9 countries that I wrote a chapter in, Ignite Forgiveness, here:

https://smile.amazon.com/Ignite-Forgiveness-Journey-Peace-Harmony-ebook/dp/B0BLFCYYD6/ref=sr_1_1?crid=9C6VAFE42H5C&keywords=ignite+forgiveness+book&qid=1669836040&sprefix=Ignite+forg%2Caps%2C284&sr=8-1

Are You Running?

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As Kelly Grote was in the process of dying, she wrote “Are you running towards life or running away from death?” This quote gave me pause as I considered her question.  I realized that I am not running at all. This thought was comforting to me.

When my husband Jacques suffered from so many different issues and hospitalizations while he dealt with congestive heart failure, two open heart surgeries, renal failure, and dialysis, I see now that he was always running away from death.  Jacques was raised in the Catholic church and was very active in church as an adult until he started to question his faith as he studied philosophy when he was working on his Master’s degree.  He came to realize that the more he learned, the less he could support the tenets of his church. He left the church before I met him. He was comfortable with the idea that there wasn’t a higher power.  While that brought him comfort at the time, it also led him to denial of the fact that he was dying.  I see now that he endured so many hospitalizations and treatments in the hope that he would get well and not die. As a brilliant man, I am sure he knew this wasn’t true, but it did give him hope that he would get well and live longer. He was running away from death which led to anxiety and unhappiness.

Everything was different with my husband Ron. His belief was centered in his relationship with God and the belief that he was whole, complete, and perfect no matter what was happening to his body.  Since he died from congestive heart failure and renal failure just has Jacques did, he accepted what was happening to him as experiences he was having while he was alive.  When he was frequently in the hospital, he made friends with everyone who came into the room from nurses to housekeepers.  He was always listening to them and helping them when he could. I remember a prolonged conversation he had with a hospitalist, a doctor who just worked with patients admitted to the hospital. This doctor was so stressed from the expectations of his employer and the terrible hours he had to work that he was on the brink of walking away from his profession. Ron listened to him and reflected to him what he was saying. By the time the conversation ended, the doctor had an awakening, he was smiling, he thanked Ron, and left the room with a new, clear perspective. Ron was moving toward making the best of each moment remaining in his life.

While all of us will die at some point, we can make our lives miserable or make them the best they can be, or somewhere in between, on our way.  While I am not running either direction, I am focusing on the awareness that my life is what I make it.  I love what I am doing now. I am helping people, I am teaching, I am writing, and I am living my best life. This way of life came to me gradually months after Ron’s death after I had spent much time writing in my journal examining where I was and where I wanted to be. All this writing helped me much as I decided that every day, I would lead life the life I desired. The best part now is that after much writing, meditating, and examining, I am clearly focused and am now happier than I ever have been.

Are you running through your life? If you are, learn from my experience that you can slow down and decide to live your best life now.

 

 

Get your Awaken Your Happiness Journaling Guide at no charge by clicking here: https://www.griefandhappiness.com/pl/2147595767

You can join the Grief and Happiness Alliance which meets weekly on Sundays by clicking here: https://www.griefandhappiness.com/offers/ytK7eLBa

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

You can listen to my podcast, Grief and Happiness, here. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/loving-and-living-your-way-through-grief-with/id1509589686?i=1000535381763

Tender Tears

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We, individually, as a country, as our world, have so much to grieve right now. Every new tragedy seems to the compound the last one.  We all have a tendency to pay the most attention to what happens closest to us, but the reasons to grieve right now are piling up and are widespread throughout the world. And it’s not just grief. We are also angry, disappointed, frustrated, and even broken.

What can we do? Here are a few things to consider:

  • First, take care of yourself. I live a happy life in a beautiful place surrounded my wonderful people. I focus on the joy that comes from living this way. This helps, yet I still find that I shed tears when I hear about the horrific things going on. Tears are good and necessary to help in processing our feelings.
  • Many people are experiencing challenges. When your friends are affected, the first thing to do is love them and demonstrate that love by the actions that you do. What is one thing you can do right now to make a difference for a friend facing challenges? Start by doing whatever that one thing is.
  • Recognize what won’t work, then don’t spend your time worried about that. If you realize that you can’t change gun laws on your own, instead of bemoaning that, try taking active steps like contacting the people who represent you in the government encouraging them to take action by making new laws.
  • Talk to people you know. Chances are that people you care about are being affected by similar things like their children being afraid to go to school, or maybe there is a family in your neighborhood with political views opposite to most of the neighbors. Whatever the situation is, honest communication with no blaming is a great place to start.

While I continue to be affected by the unconscionable occurrences that are happening, I am also committed to living the best life I can and loving and supporting my friends, the people in my community, my country, and the world.

 

 

You can join the Grief and Happiness Alliance which meets weekly on Sundays by clicking here: https://www.griefandhappiness.com/offers/ytK7eLBa

Download your copy of Awakening Your Happiness journaling guide here.

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

You can listen to my podcast, Grief and Happiness, here. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/loving-and-living-your-way-through-grief-with/id1509589686?i=1000535381763

Peace on Earth

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When I was in high school, the Vietnam War was raging. I lived in my small hometown of Porterville, California. Our town had more war deaths per capita than any other community in the country. When a model of the Vietnam Memorial was created to take around the country, that journey was started in Porterville.

My memories were of singing songs for peace, wearing flowers in our hair. I had a denim jacket covered with war protest buttons saying things like Make Love, Not War. When any of the guys were drafted, they married their girlfriends to be sure they would have been able to make love at least once in their lives and that they would have someone to focus on for a reason to come home.

My father was a veteran of World War 2, my husband was a veteran of the Korean War, my other husband was part of the Vietnam war as part of a special government program, and my son-in-law served in Dessert Storm. War has been a constant in my life. While we are not officially at war in the US, we have way too much political fighting going on. I was hoping when we pulled out of Afghanistan that maybe, finally we would live in peace. I think of Rodney King’s quote during the Riots after the acquittal of the police officers who had beaten and tased him. He said, “Can’t we all just get along?”

We seem to live in a society that can’t be happy. But life doesn’t have to be that way. As individuals, we can choose to focus on peace and love. The more people who start doing this, the move love and peace we can have in the world. In the past, studies have been done where people around the world set the intention for peace all at the same time, and during the time they focused together on peace, violence dropped significantly worldwide. Just think of how we could stop this current war if everyone focused on peace and love.

Much can be done by letting go of anger and blame and always and focusing on love. Nelson Mandela was imprisoned on Robin Island for 18 of the 27 years of his imprisonment. In the early years he was frequently beaten and abused severely. Finally, he made the decision to love his jailers and not judge them. When he did this, the jailers gradually stopped beating him and withholding food. Eventually they started respecting him. He wasn’t telling him that he loved them.  He was demonstrating it through his love and expressing it in his prayers. When he became President of South Africa, many of these jailers became his bodyguards.

When I visited Robin island, my tour was led by one of his jailers. He told us how much he learned from Mandala’s example of peace and love. He told us that his life and the lives of the other jailers were permanently changed. Mandala didn’t raise a weapon. He didn’t fight back. He just loved them.

I encourage us all to stop criticizing what is happening. Just observe it, and in the process send love to all involved. This goes for all the government in our country too.  The more we focus on hate and controversy, the more hate and controversy we will continue to have.  The only way this situation can be improved is if we all, everybody, focus on peace and love.

At Unity Church at the end of their services they sing this song:

PEACE SONG

Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.
Let there be peace on earth, the peace that was meant to be.
With God as Creator, family all are we.
Let us walk with each other, in perfect harmony.
Let peace begin with me, let this be the moment now.
With every step I take, let this be my joyous vow.
To take each moment, and live each moment in peace eternally.
Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.

(https://www.unityonthebay.org/peace-song)

 

Let’s all sing this together. We can change the world.

 

 

 

You can join the Grief and Happiness Alliance which meets weekly on Sundays by clicking here: https://www.griefandhappiness.com/offers/ytK7eLBa

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

You can listen to my podcast, Grief and Happiness, here. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/loving-and-living-your-way-through-grief-with/id1509589686?i=1000535381763

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.