The Grief and Happiness Alliance

grief

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.

Don’t Wait!

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My amazing granddaughter, Katie Thiroux, is a fabulous Jazz Singer and upright bass musician and is loved by all-time jazz great Quincy Jones who calls her “Katie-Toes.”. Quincy told her “Be prepared for the opportunities you want. Don’t wait.” Her response to this sage advice is “It’s not about perfection, it’s about being ready IN THE MOMENT.” What a wise woman she is.  She has followed her own advice and has performed all over the world in amazing venues, her podcast, The Hump where she interviews her favorite jazz artists every week, is crazy popular, and she teaches wherever she goes.  I love that she says, “I received amazing opportunities growing up and I am thankful to be in a position to give back, it’s my duty, dig?”

How inspiring is that! I love to follow her example.  This year I am participating in Marci Shimoff’s Your Year of Miracles. One of our activities is to create a theme for the year.  Mine is “Inspired Fulfilled Opportunities.”  I have been paying attention to this intention I set, and I realized I am inspired all the time, but this inspiration is wasted if I don’t pay attention to it. And my inspired intentions easily come to fruition when I commit to acting toward them. And recognizing the opportunities that come my way, I pay attention and act on them and voila! There they are! Isn’t that grand?

Much of my life, I wasn’t paying enough attention to inspiration. I would reflect and say, “If only I had done that when I had the chance.” Do you do that, regret actions you didn’t take? That’s the first step: recognizing what you didn’t do. Now that you can see that, you can change that behavior. If you think something like, “I wish I knew how to draw pictures, or sing, or play the bass,” what happens if you don’t take action? Nothing. That’s right, no action, no benefits. Now that you recognize that, when you say “I would love to be able to (fill in the blank),” you know exactly what to do. Take action on your desire. That’s the only way you will get it.

My friend invited me to help him with a grief retreat that’s coming up.  I’ve been thinking for a couple of years about how much I would love to be in on the planning of a grief retreat to be sure happiness is included, and I got asked to do just that. In the past, I could see myself talking me out of doing this. Not this time! We are going full steam ahead to help create an amazing retreat at Unity Village in October!  I hope you’ll come! Actually, I know you will come if you follow your inspiration to do so.

What are you ready for right now? Have you been putting off taking a class, hosting friends for a game night, dancing to a live band all because of the pandemic? If you are ready, take action! Of course, there are still considerations to stay safe, but you know how to do that. Or have you been thinking you should donate to something to help the people of Ukraine but you haven’t yet because there are so many choices you could make. Don’t let choices paralyze you. Take action on what you believe in.

What advantages have you had in your life that inspire you to give back in honor of that? I learned so much from learning how to play the flute, and I put that into use when I was in my high school band, which was an exceptional group. From doing that, I learned so many values, like integrity, dependability, kindness, and self-confidence. I took what I learned there into raising my children, teaching my classes, writing my books, creating my live theatre and school of arts, and supporting Maui Jazz Camp that Katie and her very talented husband drummer Matt Witek created. All these opportunities enriched my life as well as the lives of all those involved.

How can you give back? What can you say yes to? What kindness that someone did for you can you pay forward by helping someone else?

Would you love to be happy? You can! Just pay attention to your inspiration. Stay open. Stay ready. And say yes!

 

 

Sign up here for the very special gathering of the Grief and Happiness Alliance where we’ll introduce you to what we do. A great place to make friends! https://www.griefandhappiness.com/special-events

 

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.

Bird Lessons

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A new pet has adopted me.  I probably wouldn’t have chosen him.  He just ended up in my yard and decided it was the place for him to be.  My son even named him Rodney the Rooster.  Roosters are ubiquitous in Hawaii. You’ll see them at airports, in parking lots, and at outdoor restaurants. Unfortunately, Rodney didn’t learn the lesson about crowing at sunrise. He crows all night and during the daytime, too.  Now he brought home a lady friend, and I am OK with that since he’s not quite as noisy, and together they feed on bugs that visit my garden, especially my roses. Watching him strut around my property, I started thinking about all the birds in my life.

When I was a child, a neighbor built an aviary in his back yard. I could hear all the birds and just had to see what they looked like, so I ventured out to peek over his fence.  He noticed me and invited me in.  I was fascinated. He was raising parakeets to sell to the store in town that sold birds, cages, and bird food.  He taught me how to take care of them, feeding them and cleaning up the aviary. He even taught me how to clip their wings. I was so much help to him that he gave me a light blue parakeet and a cage, with my parents’ permission of course. I very carefully clipped my bird’s wings so he wouldn’t be able to fly away from me. Unfortunately, he couldn’t fly away from my sister’s cat either.  The last I saw of him was his tail feathers sticking out of the cat’s mouth. I was devastated with this early lesson on life and death.

A favorite bird we had after I was married was a finch amazon parrot. He was huge, beautiful, and loud. He used to say “Hello pretty boy” all the time, and our whole neighborhood knew when it was dawn. We learned to cover his cage at night which fooled him into thinking that it wasn’t dawn until his cage was uncovered.  We had to leave for a couple of days, so we made sure he had plenty of food and water like we had before whenever we went away.  This time though, somehow, he managed to knock over his water, so we found that beautiful boy laying in the bottom of his cage when we returned home.  I felt responsible. It broke my heart.

I was done with birds, and then we were given 2 little love birds. They we so cute and sweet with each other.  Then one of them got sick, then I got sick, then the other one got sick, and they both died.  We buried them in the backyard. This happened at a time I didn’t have health insurance and I got very ill. I was sure I had pneumonia. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep.  My breathing was difficult, and I had a bad cough. A friend dropped by who happened to be a veterinarian, and he diagnosed me with psittacosis (parrot fever) because the birds had died, and he and told me what the prescription was that I needed.  Fortunately, my aunt was able to get a prescription for me from the doctor she worked for. We had to dig up the birds and give them to the health department who confirmed the psittacosis.

I learned about life and death, and about the responsibility of having birds for pets.  I decided to only enjoy birds in nature from then on. Moving to Maui has allowed me to do just that. There are so many chickens here, and they always seem to be crossing the road. I am surprised we don’t have Chicken Crossing signs, but they’d have to be everywhere!

Ron and I would sit on our lanai, called a deck on the mainland, and listen to the amazing birds singing, especially in the morning.  So many different songs! They would come and play in the water of our fountain close to the lanai. They almost always were in pairs and were beautiful to watch, especially the cardinals. Ron would go outside at dawn every morning to watch the cattle egrets fly in formation up the volcano we live on the side of.  They always flew right over our house. I think Ron attracted them.

I loved to watch the birds gather components for their nest building.  I am amazed what they found to use.  One bird had a thin piece of plastic that flowed all the way down to the ground. We watched as bit by bit that little bird got all of it into the tree.  I imagined him sharing with his fellow birds since there are so many of them!

I am grateful that I learned the importance of the freedom of the birds.  They don’t live by arbitrary rules that we make up when we capture them. Being free, their songs seem joyful. I’ll continue to listen to all these beautiful birds and take the time to enjoy their lovely songs. And I relish their company even at this distance.

 

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.

Story Telling

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My family lived through the Depression, yet I never would have known that had I not taken a US History class in high school. People just didn’t talk about those days. Actually, my family didn’t talk much about the past at all. I was a curious child, but there were no answers for me. I was a young adult before I started getting any answers.  All my grandparents were gone by then.

I asked my father’s older sister about his childhood, and she did tell me a few things. Their mother died when Daddy was young from milk leg, that’s what we call thrombophlebitis. This happened when she was giving birth to twins and all three of them died.  Dad’s two older sisters, my dad, and their father had a wagon they took from one oilfield job to the next in Oklahoma. They slept in a tent in the snow until the ten caught on fire and burned all their possessions.  At one point, Daddy had to walk close to an Indian Reservation on his way to school. His mother was Native American, and he looked very much like her.   His sisters were terrified that he would be kidnapped and taken to the Reservation to live, so every morning they would powder him with flour to dull his beautiful bronze coloring.

Daddy and his family migrated to California in 1929 just when the dust bowl started.  I was in an original play when I was in college that was created from the oral history project of the Oakie migration.  I tried to get Daddy to share stories of that time, but he wouldn’t talk about it.   I think he was embarrassed. I missed so much.

I didn’t know much about my mother’s family either.  She had 4 sisters and one brother.  I didn’t even know my grandmother had been married twice, and one sister and her brother was from that marriage.  I found that out when long after my grandmother died, and I was cleaning out my mother’s garage.  I found a pile of letters all tied up with a pretty bow. The letters turned out to be between Grandma and her first husband. He worked about 30 miles away from where they lived, so they only got together on weekends. He got sick at work one day, so they put him on a train to go to the nearest hospital.  He died of appendicitis on the way. Their letters and all the condolence letters people sent to grandma were beautiful and filled with love.

My growing up stories had to do with my parents being involved with Veterans of Foreign Wars. Even though we lived in a small town in central California, my Dad was able raise through the ranks to become Department (California) Commander. Mom and Dad traveled lots to meetings while I stayed with my grandmother or aunts.  I did get to go along on a couple of trips. One was to Detroit for a national convention where two presidential candidates spoke, John F, Kennedy, and Richard Nixon, then Vice President of the United States.  I attended both their speeches, and I got to actually touch Kennedy and shake hands with Nixon. I shook with amazement for days.

In the summer after sixth grade, we drove from California to Miami Beach for another convention. We had wonderful stops along the way at the Grand Canyon, Carlsbad Caverns, New Orleans, and more. What affected me most as an 11-year-old was seeing signs for White’s Only and Colored Only drinking fountains and on restaurant doors. My parents couldn’t explain to me why those were there. I started trying to learn all I could about something that just didn’t make sense to me.

I could continue to write about experiences I have had that led me to be who I am today.  These things are all my story, my beliefs, my priorities. Telling stories is an art that is passed down through generations. Our stories introduce who we are.  In my book I share stories of my grief and the grief that other people have experienced.  Often it is easier to get a point across when prefaced by a story.

What stories do you tell? What stories have you not shared? What stories do you want to be remembered for?

Tell your story.

Start now—

 

 

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.