grief

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.

The Rhythm Reminders

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Our lives are full of rhythm. I have vivid memories of the sounds from my husband’s hospital bedside. The Darth Vader sounds from the Bi-Pap machine got me in touch with the constant rhythm of the breathing it forced. There were always call light alarms from other patients in the hallway seeking the attention of the scurrying nurses. The cardiac monitor’s rhythmic beeps were comforting with their assurance of his life. And each time the alarms on the monitor went off, a new wave of terror would ensue. What this it? Is this the time his heart would stop?

The constant sounds would alternate between keeping us awake and lulling us to sleep. Each of us responded in our own ways to the constant noise. Hearing his heartbeats beep, beep, beep from the monitor provided the assurance that he was still alive and not in immediate danger, but the screech of the alarms never stopped the panic that happened each time they went off.

Eventually, each time we visited the hospital, the rhythms became regular long enough for us to go home again. Home was so silent that we played music to distract us from the lack of sound. In bed, l loved to rest my head on his chest to listen to the reassurance of his breaths and heartbeats.

I was with both of my husbands at the moments of their transition. I witnessed their last breaths know that their hearts had stopped beating when their lungs stopped. The silence was deafening.

At home by myself, there was no more rhythm to check for. I so missed to life we shared. I started playing music most of the time I was awake, unknowingly seeking that rhythm of life. JS Bach’s concertos, fugues, and airs brought me peace. Air on a G String was especially grounding for me. I still listen to it when I am seeking peace.

I remembered hearing about EFT which stands for Emotional Freedom Technique tapping.  I researched it on the Internet and tried it out. EFT is an alternative treatment for physical and emotional pain, so tried it, and it helped.  Focusing of the rhythm of the taps of my fingers and moving those taps to different parts of my body spread the comfort.

Djembe drumming also assuaged the pain of the loss that crept into my daily life. I can easily sit and drum in my back yard, or when I want the solace of companionship, I can always take my djembe to a drum circle. Nobody taught me how to drum. I learned as I followed along with others who were drumming.

Rhythm is a constant reminder of our humanity. When the rhythm of our bodies finally becomes still, the rhythm of the living keeps on. Get in sync with your rhythm and move forward.

 

This links to JS Bach’s Air in G    https://youtu.be/5AaTCs7ulgg

This links to comforting drumming  https://youtu.be/LznxZDX7fo4

This links to more information about EFT.   https://www.healthline.com/health/eft-tapping#research

 

 

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.

My Friend’s Departure

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I just received an email telling me that a friend I dearly love has “graduated from earth school.”  She had been dealing with health issues for a while. I knew they were serious, and I had been praying for her. I still feel shocked.

I met Rev. Dr. Joanna Thompson Gabriel when she found my online presence and joined my Writing Through Grief with Emily Facebook group.  I post a writing prompt in that group every Sunday, and she took this seriously.  She wrote beautiful long responses that she shared with the group. Her writing was always deep and inspiring. I even created a file on my computer where I could treasure her words and read them again when I am inspired to.

In September of 2020, we both were asked to present in a virtual women’s conference hosted by Unity Church in Lynnwood, Washington. We were surprised to see each other, and once we connected there, our relationship grew deeper. I was inspired to contact her many times, and each time she told me how important my support was to her and that I had reached her at a time she was most appreciative.

When I started my Writing Together Through Grief on Zoom group, she was one of the first to join us. In that group, every Saturday we write on a prompt that I share with the group, then we talk about what we wrote. She brought life to that group and inspired us all even surprising us sometimes

When I was inspired to create The Grief and Happiness Alliance, I set up a pilot group to try the program out and offer suggestions to make it a powerful program where people dealing with grief and loss could come together virtually every week to write about what they were going through, talk with peers in the group to support each other, and to learn a new happiness practice to help them discover how they could be happy and grieve at the same time. She was the first to agree to participate in the pilot.

Last Sunday was the last meeting of the pilot. The participants shared their support of what we created and were so enthused saying how they knew the program would provide so much comfort with those who would join us. Then spontaneously at the end of the meeting, Rev. Joanna spoke a most beautiful, powerful prayer proclaiming that the Alliance was already successful bringing tears to me.

Now as I have just learned of her transition, I have tears again thinking about how close we had become and how grateful I am for her love and support. And I am grateful for the opportunity to know her and be there for her as she was for me. She will always be a guardian angel for me.

My lesson here is to always reach out when you are inspired to. Don’t wait. Love and share all you can every opportunity you get.

I miss you already Rev. Joanna—

 

 

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.

Bereavement Leave

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Usually, I don’t write about politics and grief, yet this time it would benefit us all to address this situation. I would love to know if any of you had challenges with getting bereavement leave when you needed it. Someone I love got her dream job working for a non-profit.  She worked there for years and was well respected. She loved her job so much that she didn’t use her sick leave or vacation time that she was able to build up over the years. Her husband knew that he was ill, but each time he went to the doctor, they told him to lose weight and he would feel better. No matter what he did, he kept getting bigger until finally a doctor listened to him and discovered that it was his malignant tumor that was gaining the weight.

As his health worsened, my friend started using her vacation time to help care for him. Her employer would not allow her to use her sick leave since she wasn’t sick. She used her vacation time for a week after his death. The organization was unhappy that she took so much time off even though it was time she had earned, so they terminated her employment, her lifetime dream job. She went into a deep depression after losing both her husband and her career to the point that she couldn’t deal with what had happened to her. Ultimately, she died too.

With all that happens in our country, bereavement leave is something we don’t have a good national system to address. Now we have an opportunity to address this. “In mid-August, the U.S. Senate set a process in motion to determine if our losses are important enough to deserve wage and job protections.” https://live-evermore.org/protect-our-jobs-congress/  Please click on this link to see the 16 US Senators who are working on this in committee right now.  They need to hear from you before September 15.  Please contact all of them before this deadline.  Contact information for all of the senators who are working on this is on the web site included above.

If you are reading this, you most likely have experienced the death of a loved one. You know how you felt as your loved one died, and how you felt that first week and probably longer than that week.  We are now in a position to help make it possible for employees to be granted five days of bereavement leave. I encourage you to help make this possible for your fellow grievers.

 

 

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.

Is Sound Really Healing

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I was first introduced to sound healing years ago when I went to a sound healing session at a retreat. I was blown away.  The session was outdoors on a wood deck surrounded by diaphanous curtains.  I laid down on my back and had a small pillow filled with flax seeds and lavender cover my eyes. Then for the next hour, I was comforted by the gentle sounds ranging from chimes, to gongs, to pan flutes, to Djembe drums, to rain-sticks, to Tibetan singing bowls, to drums, to tuning forks, to crystal bowls, to a didgeridoo and more. I felt like I could have stayed in that magical place for hours.  I was comforted in a way I had not experienced before.  And the wonderful feeling stayed with me for days.

When I moved to Maui, I discovered a group sound healing event. This was held in a large room with shiny wood floors. We brought yoga matts, pillows, and blankets to get as comfortable as we could. We started by siting for a lovely meditation.  Then we all got comfortable on the floor with our heads directed toward the center of the room where there was a huge assortment of Tibetan and crystal bowls as well as two giant gongs which provided deep vibrational sound. The sound went on for an hour and included the leader’s lovely soprano’s wordless ethereal singing. All of this enabled profound meditation, and I always felt lighter when the event was over.

I wanted to learn more about how sound healing works since it has been used for hundreds of years and believed is to heal many physical ailments. I met Julia Denise Berrey here on Maui where I live. She is a Feldenkrais practitioner who also uses crystal bowls with her healing techniques. She explained to me about how each of her bowls has a different frequency which provide different results in the way bodies react to the sound. She tells of the common belief of the difference between the frequency of 440 Hz which is believed to be man-made and addictive while the frequency of 432 is said to boost your immune system. Both frequencies sound very similar but have different effects.  Lots of research has been done on this theory and the results are controversial. By searching online, you can discover in depth many of the things that sound can help heal.

Julia also told me that the frequency of 528 Hz is the frequency of love. I decided I would check this out.  I found things that were recorded at 528 Hz online, so I listened to them with earphones on to get the full results.  All I can say is wow. What I experienced was so comforting that I now listen to it for meditation and even for just listening to. I jumped at the opportunity to go to the beach in Wailea to experience a meditation and sound healing session hosted by my friend Carol McNulty Huffman and Julia who played her crystal bowls and a pan drum. The beautiful sounds Julia produced along with the crashing ocean waves and the drums from a luau not far away felt amazing.

I am telling you all this because self-care is absolutely essential to support you while you deal with grief. Seeking out beautiful sounds to listen to is readily available by just doing an online search. And experiencing these sounds at an in-person experience is worth the effort to find a place to do this.  This is just one way you can use to help you feel better.  I would love to hear of other ways you have used for self-comfort. Together we can support each other.

 

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.