Self-Care

Are You Willing?

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I was just reading about a woman devastated by grief.  For the first year, she couldn’t smile or laugh. Her body hurt. Her heart hurt. Breathing hurt. She had no interest in anything even if it was something she had loved before. She had memory challenges. Food didn’t interest her. He weight dropped significantly. She didn’t read or watch tv or go out with friends. Suddenly, I realized that this was a description of me after Jacques died.

As I reflected on my situation, I realized that I wasn’t aware at the time that I had essentially checked out emotionally after Jacques died. That happened with my mother, too, when my father died. She stopped smiling, and she didn’t talk very much at all. My sister’s husband died in their bed, so she had the bed removed from her room and lived in her recliner in front of the tv which was always on. That’s where she stayed for years.

The thing that my mom, my sister, and I had in common with these situations was that we weren’t willing to change. My mom and sister just didn’t know how to be without their husbands, and initially, I didn’t either. What was different for me was I realized that I couldn’t survive in that place of emptiness. I had to change my thinking, and only I could do that on my own.

I started reading. I read Marci Shimoff’s Happy for No Reason because I did want to be happy, and at the same time, I couldn’t figure out how I could be happy alone. That book was rich with examples of people who were so much worse off than I who were truly happy, and I figured if they could be happy, so could I!

I read Lynn Twist’s the Soul of Money and that totally changed my perception of the importance of money in my life and how to best handle it. I gave away so many copies of that book because I loved it so much. My new attitude toward money allowed a sense of control and freedom in my life that I didn’t know I had been craving.

I had two friends that suggested I watch the movie The Secret. So, I watched it. I didn’t think that what they were saying about manifestation could be true. Then I thought I didn’t have anything to lose, so I tried manifesting little things, and discovered that I could actually decide how I wanted my life to be, and that I could make it happen, and I did.

I also started keeping a gratitude list.  That was hard for me to start because I thought I didn’t have anything to be grateful for since my husband died. Once I started writing out everything I could think of that I was grateful for, I realized that my life was good. I didn’t have to start from scratch to move forward. Knowing that my life was solid and secure, I could look ahead and focus on how my life was different now, and I started enjoying what I was doing.

The big revelation to me was that I was only able to make my life the best it could be under the circumstances was to be willing to change. Just because things weren’t the same as they were before Jacques’ death, that didn’t mean everything was bad. When I finally was willing to look at everything differently and to appreciate what I had and to be open to changes, then I could move forward. And I did. And I am thrilled that I did.  My life is so good now, and I am happier than I ever have been.

Are you willing to feel better, to breathe easier, to start enjoying your life again? What one thing can you do right now that will help you be open to your new, beautiful life? Please do whatever that is.  Take good care of your precious self in the process.

 

 

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 emily@lovingandlivingyourwaythroughgrief.com and giving me your email address.

Join my Facebook group here.

 

Spring

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As I watch all the beautiful birds fly around my yard in the morning, they seem especially cheerful today. The sky is blue. The temperature is a balmy 70 degrees. The water in the fountain trickles. And I feel so good, so positive.

How are you this early spring? Are you taking good care of yourself? Do you eat what serves you best? Do you get out in nature and take walks? This is a great time to do a little housekeeping to be sure that you are living your best life. What do you need to adjust, revise, or enhance?

As I watch the birds build their nests, I think about how that nest is the foundation for spring where they lay their eggs and raise their young. After they teach their progeny to fly away on their own, there is no longer a need for that nest. I occasionally find a discarded nest in my yard that has fallen from the tree.

What does this have to do with you? Now’s the time to create your new nest, a time to refresh and restart from where you are right now in dealing with your grief. What do you need to make your nest strong? The first thing you need is a safe, strong place to build your nest. A nest can’t survive without the strength of solid branches. What holds you up? How about unconditional love? Love is powerful and remains even after loved ones die. Find a safe spot in a tree that feels like home.

Now that you have the ideal place, you can gather what you want to be surrounded with and experience to hold you up.  Start with your integrity. When all you do and say is true, you have great strength and confidence, so integrity is a great base for the nest.

Add some forgiveness branches to bring you comfort. When you forgive anyone or anything you see you need to, that ties together your branches with the comfort that comes from forgiveness, especially when you forgive yourself.

The courage you have to build a safe nest helps you feel secure. The patience it takes to collect all the materials you need makes creating your nest a joy. Focusing intently on the process of your creation makes it the best it can be. Being grateful for the ones contributing materials to weave into your creation helps you and your contributors to build strength in your relationships.

When the nest is almost complete, you can fill in any gaps with humility and compassion. Then you can enjoy the beauty of your creation. You can invite loved ones in and nourish them with the strength of your generosity. Now you can enjoy your spring while you recognize and practice all these wonderful qualities and you move forward.

Paying attention to strengthening the qualities you already have and developing new, beautiful qualities into your life gives you a great foundation for moving forward in making each moment you get to experience now the very best it can be.

Writing this blog reminded me of the words to an Oscar Hammerstein and Richard Rogers song, from the musical Carousel, that brings me strength:

When you walk through a storm

Hold your head up high

And don’t be afraid of the dark

At the end of the storm

Is a golden sky

And the sweet silver song of a lark.

Walk on through the wind

Walk on through the rain

Tho’ your dreams be tossed and blown.

Walk on, walk on

With hope in your heart

And you’ll never walk alone.

 

You are stronger that you think. Build your new, beautiful nest, and walk on . . .

 

 

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 emily@lovingandlivingyourwaythroughgrief.com and giving me your email address.

Join my Facebook group here.

Are You Resistant?

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I was talking to a friend who told me how important it was for her to make people happy. She always appears happy to me, but I discovered today that deep down she’s not, and she doesn’t really want anyone to know. This led us to a long conversation where I realized I was like her when I was her age.  I always wanted to be considered “good,” and to me that meant no mistakes, no public sadness. I would always strive to do whatever I was doing better than anyone so I could be proud of myself when I didn’t think anyone else was.

What I realized was that I was always getting in my own way. Do you do that? Do you prevent yourself from having or doing exactly what you want by doing something to make whatever that is out of your reach?  I have known people who wouldn’t buy pretty clothes because they thought they were too fat, too skinny, too tall, or too short. I was always in that too tall group.  I grew to be six feet tall when I was in seventh grade. There was one boy taller than me in the whole school, and I was taller than all the teachers and the principal too!  I dressed very conservatively hoping that I wouldn’t be drawing attention to my too tall self.

I love it now when society in general seems to have changed their ideal of what women should look like, and we can find pretty, flattering clothes no matter what our shape is. Now if we could just do that with the inner us.  Have you ever talked yourself out of something because you made up the idea that whatever it was, was too good for you? I see people do that all the time. They’ll say, “If only I had more time, I’d ___.” You fill in the blank. You may say something like I would go to the gym, or the beach, or the pool knowing how much better you’d feel if you just went where you wanted to.

When we are dealing with grief, getting in our own way is not unusual.  You may want to go out to eat, but you convince yourself that you just can’t do that alone.  But you know what? You can! I did. I admit that it took me awhile.  I was concerned that people would look at me or talk about me. I fixed that by taking a good book with me so I wouldn’t notice what other people did or said. But it didn’t take me long to realize that nobody was talking about me, and probably weren’t paying attention to me at all. That was a big step for me, realizing that what other people thought or said about me didn’t really matter to me.

With this new wisdom I realized I could go where I wanted to go and do what I wanted to do. And I did!  If I wanted to take a class, I did. And I discovered that friends wanted to also but didn’t want to go alone. I ended up having one friend go to ceramics class with me and another went to a Native American arts class. We enjoyed these classes! I got brave and went to a quilting class at a nearby shop where I didn’t know anyone. I discovered there were others there who also came alone, so I ended up with a whole bunch of new friends.

I had been sitting alone feeling sorry for myself a long time before I started doing these things.  I was getting in my own way, talking myself out of doing things. When I thought about it, I knew that I had been putting off doing things for all the wrong reasons. Just because my husband died, I did not have to sit alone and cry for the rest of my life.  There came a time when I was ready to start learning who the new me was in this uncharted territory, and that I didn’t need to worry about what might happen.

I was just thinking about all my loved ones who have died getting together to watch my progress, and they are amazed and happy that I learned how to get out of my own way and step forward in the place I live know.  I am confident and go forth with Joy! Get out of your own way, and you can too!

 

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 emily@lovingandlivingyourwaythroughgrief.com and giving me your email address.

Join my Facebook group here.

Unconditional Love

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Most of my life I had no idea what unconditional love was. I hadn’t thought much about love in general. I knew my parents loved me, but many times it seemed conditional. The first time I thought I fell in love, I realized that we could only be in love if I was perfect in his eyes in all things, and I wasn’t.  I learned from that the importance of being and doing what someone else expected of me. All that did for me is help me lower my self-esteem.

When my first baby was born, one night nursing him in the middle of the night, I realized what deep, true love really was. He was so little and so fully dependent on me. And I loved caring for him.  I also realized at that moment how my mother must have felt about me, but she was never able to demonstrate it.

I went through life thinking I could find true love if only circumstances were different. If only I was prettier, if only I got better grades, if only I had a magnificent job, if only I married a doctor, if only I was shorter (I grew to six feet tall when I was in seventh grade). All of those if onlys didn’t help me a bit.

When I met Jacques, I learned so much more about love. He loved me just the way I was, and I loved him that way too. I discovered along the way that we developed what I consider now to be a bad habit of judging people, and when you are judging others, you really are judging yourself too, and I fell back into that “if only” place I thought I had left behind.

We were both teaching college, and we’d say if only our students would pay more attention or take their education more seriously.  We both did lots of theatre and we were always complaining about actors not memorizing their lines or missing rehearsals. That judgement of others got in the way of us living our best lives.

I started learning about unconditional love from Ron. If I started to complain, he would say, wouldn’t it be better to do something positive about an issue than to get upset about it? That was hard for me at first, but I eventually realized that it is not my place to judge anyone else. When I learned that, the gateway began to open for me.

I finally started taking responsibility for myself. I stopped finding fault with others. That enabled me to make a huge shift. I started to love people for who they were. I choose to spend time with people I enjoy being with and I don’t judge them. And I don’t judge myself.

Why am I writing about all this right now? I have been observing the state of the world. So much of what is happening that is negative comes from judgement and hate. We could all learn from the song Hal David and Bert Bacharach wrote and Jackie DeShannon sang in the mid-sixties, What the World Needs Now:

What the world needs now is love, sweet love

It’s the only thing there is just too little of . . . .

No not just for some, but for everyone.

Imagine what our world would be now if we all chose to love one another instead of judging them. What if we are all at the beginning of a huge shift in the world? We can be if choose to.

Start right now. Remember the deepest love you have experienced or that you would love to experience. How does that feel? Take that feeling and pay it forward. If you realize you are judging someone or something, forgive yourself, forgive whoever you need to, and then start spreading that beautiful, unconditional love. May it circulate all over the world and beyond.

 

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 emily@lovingandlivingyourwaythroughgrief.com and giving me your email address.

Join my Facebook group here.

Stuck

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I spend a lot of time on my computer with all the work I am doing, and the more I do, the bigger mess I have. A friend noticed one day how many tabs I had open in Chrome. She said she’d never seen so many open at once! Now I know that’s not a good thing, especially when my computer gets confused and shuts down. I know I can do better; I just have to do it!  In the words of Henry David Thoreau: “Simplify, simplify, simplify.”

Now that I have identified this issue, I am working on it. I started bookmarking tabs I want to return to instead if keeping them open forever. I have stopped keeping so many documents open at once. I clean off my desktop. And I keep all my email accounts cleaned up.  What a relief!  You may be thinking, “But I don’t do all that stuff on my computer.” So where do you have things piling up in your life?

I used to have a giant to do list that kept getting bigger. So, I made a spread sheet to simplify it all.  I am amazed at the relief I feet of not expecting myself to get everything done all at once. I find when I set priorities, I can comfortably do what I want to instead of stress about not getting things done.

I recently did a challenge where I released 27 things a day for 9 days in a row.  I when first heard about it, I thought wow, that’s a lot. And even so, I decided to do it. And you know what? It felt really good! And I did the whole thing. And what surprised me most was that I am still releasing things every day, though not necessarily 27 things each time. The less stuff I have, the lighter I feel.

How would you describe your life right now? Too many items on your to do list? Too much stuff in your drawers and closets? Too many dreams of what you think you would like to do? Examine what is holding you back or weighing you down. In reading this, you had things pop out to you that said, “Hey, that’s me!” Do you want to stay there?

With my computer, when I get too much stuff going at the same time, it has enough sense to shut itself down, and to reboot.  Is it time for you to refresh and reboot? We drag so much along with ourselves as we grieve. Maybe you feel guilty for something you didn’t do or say before your loved one died.  That doesn’t serve you. Forgive yourself for whatever it was, and then release it. Maybe there are a lot of books that you are not interested in that your loved one left behind, ones that you will never read. Give them to someone who would love to have them, or to the friends of the library.

What feelings, possessions, or habits are lingering in your life that you can release? Chances are, you won’t miss them at all when they are gone. And you will feel lighter and happier along the way! So do a reboot on your life: refresh and renew!  You will be so glad you did!

 

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 emily@lovingandlivingyourwaythroughgrief.com and giving me your email address.

Join my Facebook group here.

How to Get There From Here

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Sometimes out of the blue, you’ll hear a song or smell a fragrance that reminds you of your loved one and the tears start. You may find yourself saying “Am I ever going to get over this? Will a time come when I don’t get blindsided by a remark someone makes that reminds me of my loss?” Those things are always going to happen. However, your reaction to them change over time.

Try this. Next time you find yourself avoiding ordering the delivery food you loved to share, make a list of new foods you have thought would be fun to try but you haven’t yet. Do a web search and see if there is something where you live that could be amazing and new and different if you only tried it. Depending on where you live, you probably have lots of choices. Where I live, I would never be able to try all the different Poke combinations, and since I haven’t eaten that with anyone before, it doesn’t come with memories

You may be like me where once I find something I really like from one restaurant, I tend not to order anything different, but there are so many others on the menu! Be bold. Be adventurous.  A friend was just telling me about a luscious octopus salad she had at a new nearby place.  I may just try it since she made it sound so good! By doing this, you’re making new memories. The new memories can be pleasant and make you smile instead of focusing on the food you used to like to share.

Music can be a trigger for me. Jacques loved Bach and Mozart and Ron loved all kinds of jazz.  Before I met either one of them, I hadn’t heard lots of either of those music genres, but I came to love them when I heard them do often.  Now I can listen to either and smile and relax, but it took a while to get there. I discovered other music that I love now and make new memories for myself. I’ve gained such and appreciation for Hawaiian music, and I dearly love Michael Franti. He’s an amazing musician with a giant heart always finding ways to help people and create great music.

And I know it’s sometimes habit to start feeling emotions come up that threaten to bring you down, so you start avoiding or suppressing your grief, and that just leads to more avoiding and suppressing. Feeling like you are wrapped in a bubble of sorrow, and the more sorrow you feel, the bigger the bubble gets.  When this happens, you find yourself holding on to that sadness so as not to pop the bubble and expose yourself to everyone and you don’t know how you’ll bear that. The thing is lots of the sad experiences you have, when you really look closely, you probably had a hand in making them get as bad as they got.

Sometimes the best thing to do is just let it all out.  Cry as long as you need to. Write all about it. Get down to the depths of those feelings. Let it all out. By feeling your feelings, eventually you will want to feel something different.  When that happens, focus on the opposite of those feelings.

What brings you joy? Do that. What makes you smile? Do that. When are you compassionate? Bring that on! You’ll find the more your do these types of things, the less time you will be thinking about what brings you down. You can create an amazing new you with great feelings.

Don’t be surprised if you are triggered by something that reminds you of your sorrow. When that happens, remind yourself of all that’s good and beautiful in your life, and the sorrow will start to fade.

Remember, life is good, and in the words of that Beatles song that everyone knows: “All you need is love.” And that love starts with loving yourself. The more you do, the more happiness you will have in your life.

 

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 emily@lovingandlivingyourwaythroughgrief.com and giving me your email address.

Join my Facebook group here.