Posts tagged with “grief”
The Surprising Way a Breakup Can Help Heal Your Heart
“Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart … Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside awakens.” ~Carl Jung
There is nothing quite like an unwanted breakup to rip your heart open and bring you face to face with your deepest shadows.
At least, that’s how it was for me.
Nearly six years ago, on a typically warm and sunny Saturday October afternoon in Los Angeles, I was lying on the floor of my apartment, wallowing to my then-boyfriend on the phone about how everything in my life seemed to just be hitting walls: My career …
8 Things to Remember When You’re at Your Lowest
“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in.” ~Haruki Marukami
Last year was both the hardest year of my life and the most transformative. My partner and I had started in vitro fertilization after years of infertility. The daily hormone injections and invasive procedures were tough, but when we saw two blue lines on the …
The Art of Bereavement: A Simple Creative Practice for the Grieving
“When we lose someone we love we must learn not to live without them, but to live with the love they left behind.” ~Unknown
If I look like my best friend just died, that’s because he has. Not the one whom I played with every day growing up and haven’t seen in years, nor the one with whom I went to high school and stayed connected with on social media.
No. I lost my very best friend of nearly four decades. My gay “husband,” who lived with me for fourteen years and helped me raise my two youngest sons, from …
I Won’t Let My Losses Break Me: How I’m Choosing Growth
Loss is confronting. But I ask you to please walk beside me while I address this most challenging aspect of life.
Losing those we love.
While loss is inevitable, it is something that we always think happens to others.
Until it happens to us.
The last six months I have had a steep learning curve on loss.
The spiral began in May this year.
On May 18th, my partner suddenly walked out. I was blindsided. Heartbroken. I would later learn the truth about his duplicity. But that is fodder for a memoir at a later date.
Two weeks …
The Magic of the Mountain: My Perfect Healing Recipe
When I woke up this morning, the first thing I did was a guided meditation titled “Cultivating Joy.” In this meditation I was taken back to a time when I felt joy. The first thing that popped into my mind was a time about three weeks ago; my husband, my dog Lily, and I had traveled to Wintergreen Resort to celebrate my birthday.
Wintergreen has always been a magical place for me. I was born and raised in the same county, but just on the other side of the mountain. My idea of a birthday celebration has become much less …
How I Cherished Every Beautiful Moment of My Daughter’s Short Life
In the spring of 2012, I heard this word, “rest.” I realized how horrible I was at it. I wasn’t even sure what it was. Was it extra sleep? Was it not working on Sundays? Shortly after I heard this word, my life began changing. For one reason or another, one by one, the things with which I occupied myself were stripped away until I found myself with nothing left to hold.
A year later I was in a panic, wondering how we were going to make ends meet. Everything in me said to do what I had always done: …
How Embracing Grief Can Open Us Up to a Beautiful New Chapter
“When we are brave enough to tend to our hearts, our messy emotions can teach us how to be free—not free from pain but free from the fear of pain and the barrier it creates to fully living.” ~Kris Carr
It’s crazy how you go about your life thinking all is okay, and then BOOM, something happens that changes you forever. Grief and loss come and hit you in the face.
You know… the days that you start as one person and end as someone else.
But it’s not your first loss or trauma! You had a childhood of pain …
How I’ve Been Shaking Out My Pain Since Losing My Daughter
“Movement has incredible healing power.” ~Alexandra Heather Foss
My ten-year-old daughter, who had been ill for all her life, was dying. She was hooked up to tubes and monitors, and they were always going off. Her numbers were off the charts, and the doctors kept saying, “Your daughter’s numbers aren’t normal, and we would normally have a team coming in here to check on her breathing and to rouse her.”
After the last operation, one doctor said she was surprised that she was still alive when she came into work. We all were. She kept fighting. She would just be …
How Trauma Affects the Brain and How I’m Healing from PTSD
“Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we’ll ever do.” ~Brené Brown
Several months ago, I was stoked about writing a piece on the living legacy of trauma, sharing how much we think we know about these so-called injuries of the mind, body, and spirit when, in reality, we know diddly squat.
I thought that a piece on this topic would inform and help folks like me. I’d suffered long and hard from PTSD, triggered initially by the sudden death of my brother and, simultaneously, the unfortunate finding of an email that confirmed
5 Things to Remember When Heartbreak Feels Too Heavy to Bear
“If you feel like you’re losing everything, remember that trees lose their leaves every year and they still stand tall and wait for better days to come.” ~Unknown
For a big lover like me, heartbreak has always gotten the best of me. I have felt heavy pain from the ending of a relationship, the ghosting of a situationship, and the loss of what could have been with someone I never dated. And I’ve experienced the sting of friendships leaving my life.
It’s all heartbreaking.
It starts with a crippling, piercing full-body agony. And eventually it grows into a dull ache …
Accepting Fear and Sadness as Normal Parts of a Good Life
“Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.” ~Naomi Shihab Nye
I knew it was around that time. When I opened my eyes, it was pitch black outside and I couldn’t yet hear the chickens in the distance waking up. It was 4 a.m. again.
In the past few days, I have loved this gift of jet lag; transitioning to a thirteen-hour time change has afforded me this dark, mysterious quiet that has woken up inside of me the place from which I write—a place that spontaneously arises when the
4 Types of Regret and How to Leverage Them for a More Fulfilling Life
“Regret is not dangerous or abnormal, a deviation from the steady path to happiness. It is healthy and universal, an integral part of being human. Regret is also valuable. It clarifies. It instructs. Done right, it needn’t drag us down; it can lift us up.” ~Daniel H. Pink
It happened when I reached midlife.
I’d experienced regret before, but this was different.
In my forties, I struggled with several deep-seated regrets all at the same time.
And I didn’t handle it well.
If only I hadn’t chosen to fall into unhealthy habits that were hard to break, like smoking cigarettes …
Why I Don’t Regret That I Didn’t Walk Away from My Relationship Sooner
“The butterfly does not look back at the caterpillar in shame, just as you should not look back at your past in shame. Your past was part of your own transformation.” ~Anthony Gucciardi
Before I finally grew the courage to walk away from my boyfriend, I contemplated walking away many times.
There was the time that he had ghosted me for a week without communicating that he needed space. Then after promising me a timeline for telling his mom about me and our relationship, when the time came to do it, he made up another excuse. And there were …
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