memories

Reflection

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The week between Christmas and New Year’s, I always find myself looking back at the year that is ending. I reflect on my favorite things that happened, consider things I would like to have been better, and think about what I would like to be differently in the new year.

Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief was published in January. My Zoom book launch celebration was magical. I’m grateful that we did it online because so many friends were able to attend from far away who wouldn’t have been able to if it was on ground, even if it was in Maui! I am grateful for all the love and support expressed during the celebration, and for all the books we sold for the launch.   Maybe we’ll celebrate my next book launch in Maui. Watch this space!

Because of the low enrollment at CSUB, I didn’t teach this year, so I was able to focus on getting the word out about my book.  My intention in writing the book is to provide comfort, support, love, and happiness to all who read it, and to do that, people needed to know that it is available.  I had heard about the commitment that M. Scott Peck made when he released his book The Road Less Traveled. He wasn’t well known, so he committed to doing interviews wherever he could every week. This worked.  He has sold 6.5 million books worldwide. With that inspiration, I focused on being a guest on podcasts and doing radio and television interviews. So far, I have done over 100 including in places like Singapore, Germany, New Zealand, Canada, Spain, Australia, and more! And I’ve made lots of new friends along the way.

After Jacques died, I struggled to be positive.  I found the bestselling book Happy For No Reason by Marci Shimoff and reading it changed my perspective. Jacques was such a happy, positive person, so I knew he wouldn’t want me to just stay sad. Marci’s book was wonderful and helped me to change my perspective on life. I discovered this year that Marci has an online program so that people can become Happy for No Reason Trainers. I realized that was what was missing in all I was doing to help people deal with grief and loss, so I took the program and I focus now on grief AND happiness in all I do. This opened even more opportunities.

I have been facilitating Writing Through Grief groups first at my home, then with the pandemic, I switched to online. The people who attend love what they learn and love meeting new friends who are also dealing with loss. We can go deep into our feelings and support each other. In contemplating how I could incorporate happiness into this, I was inspired to create the Grief and Happiness Alliance, an online group who meets weekly, writes together, learns happiness practices, and is full of new friends.  Dear friends have come together to form an organization to support people dealing with grief and loss: The Grief and Happiness Alliance Nonprofit Organization. Their initial focus is on providing the financial support necessary so people can discover that comfort, support, love, and happiness that is my intention to provide with no charge to the participants. And now that we have started, we are coming up with many other ways to help people dealing with grief and loss. They are thrilled to take tax deductible donations in any amount.

This year I have also done so much with social media. Every week I send out a newsletter that contains my blog and news about podcasts I am featured on, seminars and conferences I am featured in online, and more. I am on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. In doing all this, I realized I needed a podcast on my own. So, I learned how to do that, launched my weekly podcast, Grief and Happiness in October, and have episodes recorded now all the way to March! I would love to have you listen, review, and follow the podcast which you can find on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ACast, and other places podcasts are available. The people I talk to have amazing stories and inspiration to share!

My book is doing well and is available anywhere books are sold. Mango Publishing is doing a wonderful job of marketing the book. Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief has all 5-star reviews on Amazon. If you have read the book, I would love for you to rate it and review it on Amazon because the more reviews the book has, the more Amazon will feature it so more people can discover the book to help them find the comfort, support, love, and happiness they are searching for.

I am grateful for all the wonders of this year, many more than I could fit into this blog! I am thrilled to be doing the work I am doing. I know 2022 is going to be a great year with so many positive changes coming our way. I will be teaching at CSUB again starting in January. I am working on another book. I am looking forward to opportunities to speak and also to teach people how to be Happy For No Reason. And mostly I am looking forward to building relationships with friends and meeting new friends as we discover our best that is yet to be!

I encourage you to write a reflection of your 2021 and a forecast for your 2022.

I wish you unconditional love, especially for yourself, and much happiness in 2022!

 

 

 

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.

Holidays and Grief

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Christmas used to be such a special time. When I was growing up, we celebrated with my mother’s three sisters and their families. All the children slept on the floor like a big slumber party, and we would be very quiet because we were anticipating Santa’s reindeer on the roof. And they always came! We knew because we heard the reindeer’s hooves, sleigh bells, and Santa’s jolly Ho Ho Ho’s! As I reflect on these joyous family memories, I am amazed that the older cousins didn’t spoil the illusion.

When my children were young, we would travel to my mother and father’s house to gather with the family who had remained close enough to still come.  My husband Jacques used to call it Hazel’s Hassle (my mom was Hazel) because so many people crammed into mom and dad’s small home. My cousin still tickled me every chance he got even though we were adults by that time. Mom and her sisters provided a feast. I loved watching the four of them gathered in the small kitchen laughing and smiling.

Jacques and I were engaged our first Christmas together. We both were challenged financially at that time, so I got a small Christmas tree for my children to have at my house, and then we transported the tree, decorations, and all, to Jacques’s house because we planned to have dinner at his house.  What a mess to transport that little tree! We had decided we wanted a new Christmas tradition that we could establish our first Christmas together and do every year. We decided our tradition would be to make homemade ravioli. His mom was from Sicily, so she made the filling, I made the pasta, and Jacques made the sauce. Over the years, whoever was around while we were preparing the ravioli would help us put together the ravioli.

I still made ravioli when Ron and I got married. We also invited lots of people.  One year we even had two of his ex-wives!  It was always a beautiful celebration of love and friendship.  Now that Ron’s gone, I usually invite people who don’t have a place to go to join me for ravioli, but the pandemic has put a damper on that.

What has helped me the most now to deal with the holidays is to sit down and consciously write out my intention for the season. This intention is not a to-do list. Rather I decide what will serve me best through the holidays to create happiness and joy. This year I decided to have a small outside gathering with a few friends to create Christmas ornaments. I hosted that on a sunny day a week ago. The next thing I decided to do was create a Christmas card from a drawing I did and write a heartfelt message to send to those I love. And I set the intention to not stress about Christmas gifts.  The perfect things will come to me to give to the people I want to. In years before, the gift giving took so much time and caused stress, so now I am simplifying, and it feels good.

The gift I will give to me is to spend some quiet time setting one major intention for the new year that will guide my decisions and bring me happiness in what I do. I have found that focusing on one specific intention works so much better than having lots or resolutions to keep track of.

And the most important thing I am doing the holidays is to take good care of myself.  I do this by eating well, going for walks, doing my morning practice of writing and meditating every day. I say yes to invitations, and I say no when that is the appropriate answer. I also am sure to hydrate and smile genuinely often!

What intention can you create? What new traditions can you establish? When will you say yes or no? What will you do to take good care of yourself and to engage with others? Make these holidays filled with love and happiness.  You can do this. I know you can!

 

You can join the Grief and Happiness Alliance which will meet 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.

The Memory of Things

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Stuff seems to accumulate. I have bookshelves full of books I won’t read again, and this is after I have donated enough books in my lifetime to have opened my own bookstore. And I have enough kitchen equipment to run a catering company, and I am sure that is because I did have a catering company in the past. And I have taught cooking classes and had to have supplies for that. And I have done tons of sewing and weaving through my life and that takes a lot of stuff.

There was a time when I used every bit of stuff I have now, but I don’t use almost all of it anymore. Why is it so hard to let go? I see now that it is because of the memories attached to the stuff. I have a beautiful fish poacher. When I bought it years ago, it was pricey. I got it to be able to poach a large piece of salmon to serve as part of an appetizer spread that I put together for the guests at a celebration we had for the publication of Jacques’ new book. I remember Jacques being so impressed with how elegant the appetizers were for his party. The salmon with homemade dill sauce was a huge hit, so I did that a few more times. For years now that great big poacher has been sitting on a top shelf. I see now I haven’t gotten rid of it because it made Jacques happy when I used it.  Jacques died in 2006.  Maybe it is time to let it go.

And that’s just one thing.  I have a story for every specialized baking pan and serving dish I own, and for lots of other things that fill my cupboards.  When we moved from the mainland to Hawaii, we had an enormous garage sale where I released so much stuff, even stuff with good stories. I just didn’t want to load up the container we were shipping across the ocean with things I would never use again, yet we still ended up with lots of stuff here. So why is there still stuff in my life?

I see now that I am equating the things with the memories. I see 2 carving right now that bring such amazing memories about the people who gave them to Ron and me. Do I need these 2 works of art? No. But I do enjoy those memories when I see each piece. And I justify these pieces because they are art, but most of the stuff isn’t.  One time Ron and I came across a delightful little store named “Kiss My Bundt.”  They sold store-made mini and medium sized individual bunt cakes with amazing cream cheese frosting. Ron decided that when we moved to Hawaii, I needed to make and sell these dreamy delicacies. I knew how much work that would be, so I bought some pans and made a few batches of different flavored treats.  After he saw me do this, he realized I was right about how much work it would be, and how the cost for the quality ingredients that made them special made it unlikely we would make any money on this adventure. So ever since that experience, the mini bunt pans have shared the shelf with the fish poacher.

I do love to write, and as I have been struggling to release all this stuff, I realized that instead of holding on to them forever, I could give them away, but only after I wrote the story of the beloved object. The item is not the memory. The story is. So now I am in the process of a purge accompanied by some beautiful, recorded memories.  I can carry these memories with me always whether anyone else even knows they are there. I can see how much more space I will have as I release stuff, and I see how much richer my life will be as I remember the stories of my past with my loved ones, while I live now happily in the moment.

 

You can join the Grief and Happiness Alliance which will meet 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.

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.

Honoring Our Veterans

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Originally known as Armistice Day, November 11 is the day that was chosen to honor veterans because it is the day that is considered the end of World War One, The Great War.  This occurred in 1918 on the eleventh day of the eleventh month at 11 AM.  Where I grew up, Veterans Day was the biggest celebration of the year, even bigger than Christmas and the 4th of July. During the huge Veterans Day Parade, at 11 AM, the air raid sirens would go off and everything ceased. In the silence, everyone either saluted or held their hands over their hearts in recognition of all our veterans and their families.

How times have changed. Now many businesses go on as usual not recognizing the holiday. Parades and celebrations are few. When we think of serving veterans now, what comes to mind are the Veterans Stand Downs that are held around the country as a one-to-four-day event to give a break to veterans who are homeless or poor. They gather to receive food, haircuts, clothes, showers, counseling, and guidance on how to find services they may be entitled to. I found myself in tears writing this blog thinking how incredibly sad it is that we need to do this.  With all these citizens have done for us including sacrificing their own lives, why aren’t they all honored and revered always instead of given handouts once a year?

I was born and raised in a small town in California who had the highest per capita loss of those fighting in the Vietnam War. My girlfriends married their boyfriends when they were drafted because the chances were so high that they wouldn’t return from the war. And if they did, they often had significant losses related to the unimaginable experiences they had while witnessing man’s inhumanity to man.

Today as we celebrate the bravery of these selfless servants, take the opportunity to serve them back.  If you know someone who is serving now, reach out to thank them and their families for the sacrifices they make. If you know someone or have a family member who served in the past, write them a letter whether they are still in this earthly realm or not. I was just thinking about my uncle who had his leg blown off in World War Two.  I am sure I never thanked him while he was still alive. I just never thought to do this. But I am going to today, to write that letter I should have sent long ago. Doing this helps us get in touch with the significance of what our military has done for us.

There is a saying that those who don’t learn from the experiences they had in the past are doomed to repeat them. Let’s learn. Let’s reach out to people who serve or have served us and do what we can to brighten their lives. And above all, let’s not repeat the mistakes of our past.

Thank you, Daddy. Thank you, Uncle Jim. Thank you, Jacques. Thank you, Aunt Mona, Thank you, Ariel.  Thank you, Roy. Thank you, Uncle Glen. Thank you, Steve. Thank you, Jason.  And my deepest gratitude to all my other friends and relatives who have served us all.

 

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

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

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

Join my Facebook group here.

Sacred Conversations

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We almost never know when we have a conversation with someone that it will be for the last time.  In the case of someone dying from a terminal illness, you may know it is your last conversation, yet so often people die without warning, and we don’t get to have that last talk with each other. This can be devastating. You can, however, make sure this won’t happen to you, or maybe happen to you again.  The key is to always speak with your heart.

My last conversation with my husband Jacques was about an hour before he died when he asked me if he was going to get better. He was a brilliant man who had health issued for years with his final two years being the most challenging. He even taught the course nursing students were required to take at the college: The Ethics of Living and Dying. Shortly before he died, he asked me if he was going to get better.  I was shocked.  At this moment, I realized that he had been submitting to painful treatments and eating a diet he hated because somehow, he had decided that doing these things would heal him and he could go back to his wonderful life before the dressing changes, the constant lab work, the dialysis, the insulin shots, and the frequent hospitalizations.

I felt like a major failure. I was so sure that he realized that all he was going through was to keep him as comfortable as he could be in his decline. I was feeling that I had failed him by not helping him see what the reality of his situation was. As I reflect on that time now, this was probably for the best because he lived with hope. He never saw himself as dying.

Everything was different with my husband Ron. He knew exactly what was happening, and we talked about everything openly.  He focused his last week on having a final conversation with everyone he loved. So much love was exchanged that week and so much positivity. We left nothing unsaid.

Now I focus on love in every aspect of my life.  With this focus, I always tell the truth and don’t dwell in sorrow.  By being able to treat each conversation as if it is my last one with whomever I am talking to, I focus on smiling, being kind, and being truthful.  I recently had a friend die, and as I reflected on the last time we spoke, I remember the love and the smiles. I can live easily with that.

 

 

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

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

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

Join my Facebook group here.