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  • What I Did on My Vacation

    Dan and I went to a wedding celebration last week. My goddaughter got married earlier this summer on a family vacation and held a party for friends and family to celebrate her marriage. We had a wonderful time connecting and reconnecting with friends, some we hadn’t seen since we moved from Chicago in 1993. We also experienced a few difficult moments.

    Weddings have been hard for us since Leah died. Knowing we would never celebrate her wedding with her, never witness her stepping into partnership with her beloved. The first several wedding we attended were most difficult. Seeing the bride escorted down the aisle by her dad was almost more than we could bear. We would step outside for the father daughter dance at the reception. We did what we need to do to care for our fragile psyches. As hard as these times were for us, it was important for us to honor each new bride and groom as they made a new family. It was a way for us to affirm life and celebrate with our friends and family.

    We emerged from this latest wedding celebration with the knowing that our attendance at the party was as healing for us as it was for others who know our story. Yes, we did step outside as the bride danced with her dad. It surprised us how fresh the feelings of grief still are at times.

    We did not let our “close to the surface tears” stop us from dancing. One of the songs that was played was “My Girl”. Dan and I used to sing that song to Leah when she was a baby, and she loved it. She always danced to it herself. We knew that she too was in attendance blessing the marriage and reminding us that she remains close to us when we miss her most.

    If you find yourself in a similar place after the loss of a loved one, do what you need to do to take care of yourself. If attending an event is too difficult, honor yourself where you are. Or change things up from what you normally do. There are ways to get through the difficult special events and milestones. The first step is to acknowledge your feelings as they are. In a future blog I will share some specific ways to meet a milestone day or holiday.

  • Where are you Being Called?

    My guidance lately has been scrupulous devotion to the present moment. Deeply diving into the mystery of each moment. The stories in my head are active. They ask me that how can I be productive if I am spending all my time being in the present moment. And while “production” has not been my biggest goal right now as I come out of the processing of the most recent dip into the well of grief, things are getting done. I am pretty sure I am doing them since I made the list that has items crossed off. My inquiry each morning is, show me the mystery of each moment. I am getting clearer and clearer about what that means.

    These are some of my discoveries:

    Time takes on a different dimension.

    When I am in the moment I am lost in my activity. I am not looking at the clock, or checking email or Facebook. I am more focused. There is more flow in my day.

    I am living more and more from a place of abundance, nourishment and pleasure rather than deprivation. I ask myself more often if my actions support life. When they don’t, I take some time to bring those feelings to my heart and ask why they don’t support life.

    I can’t describe the mystery of the present moment and I yet I know it when I am there. This is another way of saying I am getting more and more comfortable being in the unknown. A place where I do not need to know why, a place of surrender.

    The present moment is where the magic happens.

    Where alchemy happens. It is where the unexplainable is transformed into the understood.

    I am not suggesting that you take on my practice for your own. For too long I tried to mimic the practice of someone I admired as my own. What works for one person may not necessarily work for another.

    I would like to invite you into your own heart to discover what practice, what self-care ritual, what creative endeavors are calling to you.

    Take some time each day to ask yourself one or more of these questions. Choose the ones that call to you.

    What inspires me?

    What nourishes me?

    Where is life calling me?

    Write down all of your answers. What keeps coming up and just will not let you alone? That is a clue for you. Maybe it is something that you do now and you are being called deeper into that practice. Or maybe it is something brand new to you. Whatever it is, take some time to investigate how you can add it to your life. Remember you can think of it as an experiment. Try it for a while. You can always try something else later. This is your life.

    Create the life that expresses your true essence.

    A life that inspires you to live your best life possible.
    I’d love to hear what you think. Send me an email, or leave a comment below.

  • Another Turn of the Spiral of Grief

    I didn’t think it was possible to go any deeper into the initiation of my daughter Leah’s death, I really didn’t. I’ve been at it for almost 14 years now. It led me out of the depths of devastation. It led me to step fully into this work. And yet I find myself going deeper. As I spend my time writing my book and preparing my speech I am revisiting memories that I haven’t thought about for a long time. Each time I do there is a little more insight into my life, Leah’s life and my path here on planet earth. What I realize is that the grief process is a spiral. As I revisit memories of her life and death today, I am ready to go deeper than I did before. The spiral is taking a new turn and from this vantage point things look different. As I look at memories from here and gain new insights, I am reminded that this is now my work. The extent that I am able to engage my own ongoing grief journey is directly related to the way I can show up to help others. This is a humbling realization. The heartening thing for me is that my journey does have a purpose. I really have come into the true expression of myself, a longing that I always had. It just looks different than I ever imagined it would look, and the path it took and is taking is certainly not what I would have chosen, at least consciously.

    Do you have a longing to step into a life that you have always known is possible?

    The good news is that you already have what you are looking for, and the ways to excavate it are already present in your life. If you are ready to discover what your heart already knows, here are some steps you can take to bring you closer to your longing.

    Take a look around.

    Are you finding yourself in some of the same situations again and again and wondering why?

    What is the common denominator with all of them?
    What lessons do these situations have for you?

    Every experience you have is bringing you a lesson that is valid for you and you alone.

    You will continue to have similar experiences until you learn the lesson they are presenting. Take some time to sit quietly and contemplate these questions. If you have been following my newsletter or blog for a while and have been cultivating your Samyama practice you can bring these lessons to your heart and ask what message they may have for you.

    Be willing to not know what the answer will be.

    The answers may not arise immediately; however if you are faithful to this practice you will begin to notice a shift in your perceptions. You will begin to see a different way of being or of doing things.

    Pay attention, whatever shows up for you is valid, no matter how small it seems.

    Don’t discount it as not important, or applicable to others and not you. Become familiar with how your intuition communicates with you. Once you begin to trust this process in you, it will become second nature.

    I am telling you this as someone who not only didn’t trust my intuition, and who for a very long time denied its very existence. It took me a long time to realize that the way I experience things are valid for me only.
    When you begin to embrace the qualities that make you who you are, you will begin to feel more comfortable in your skin. Use this feeling to confirm that you are on the right track.

    I’d love to hear what you think. Send me an email, or leave a comment below.

  • Silence Speaks Louder than Words

    In my last blog I wrote about dancing with my inner rebel. In the days that followed I found myself wondering if there were any other parts of myself that needed my attention. The part that spoke the loudest, paradoxically, was the part of me that craves silence, the part of me that needs to go in and be really quiet so that the other parts of me can thrive. I have known about this part of me for a while, and it has only been in the last year, since I have had less structured time that I have had the luxury to fully explore it. I’ll admit I am not as faithful to nurturing this part of myself, as it wants me to be. It shows up in my restlessness, my inability to stay focused for long; even to stay focused enough to be in silence, kind of a contradiction right?

    When I surrender to the silence I am filled in a way that nothing else can fill me.

    It’s hard to explain. It is in the silence that I come into direct contact with my heart, with my deep inner knowing, with how that intuition feels in my body. I come to know my true essence, and it informs me at my deepest level. When I come back here, to my heart I always wonder why I leave, why I think that I can get by with shorter or fewer sessions of silence. Why I forget what sustains me. What I do know is that when I am scrupulous with my practice, everything else flows effortlessly. One of my clues that I have been neglecting my practice is that I have to try to get things done, rather than allowing them to flow through me. When I start looking at how I am going to structure my day so I will be more productive. All I really need to do is sit in silence and drop those questions into my heart.

    Have you wanted to start your own practice of sitting in silence?

    When I was first called to sit in silence I resisted it for a long time. I was being called to get out of bed 15 minutes early to just sit in my heart. This was at a time when I was already getting up really early for my job.

    The stress of resisting rising earlier became greater than the stress of actually doing it.

    When I finally surrendered to the resistance and got up earlier to sit in silence my days became easier, I had a reserve of what I needed when I needed it. If you are resisting starting this practice, or any other practice that is calling you, here are some tips that might help you.

    Do an experiment. Tell yourself you will do it for two weeks and if you decide it is not working for you, you do not have to continue. Take note of the changes you notice. If there are no changes ask yourself if there is another version of the experiment that you would like to try.

    You don’t have to get up earlier to sit in silence. Take some time in the middle of the day or right after you come home from work to sit in silence for 5 minutes, set a timer, sit in a chair, close your eyes and breathe. Five minutes will seem like a long time when you first begin and the timer will help you to not have to look at the clock. Notice the impulse to get up and do something else. Take another deep breath and know that what ever your mind is telling you needs to be done now will still be there 5 minutes from now. You can increase the length of time as you get comfortable sitting for 5 minutes.

    If you decide this is a practice you want to include in your daily life you may be surprised as you begin to notice shifts in your day. Take notice of them, be curious. If you miss a day, or several notice the difference that makes in your daily life. Your practice may fluctuate from time to time. As I discovered this gives you information about the effect of that practice on your life. When you go back to it ask yourself if it needs to change and how that would look. Embrace it as your practice and make it work for you.

    I’d love to hear what you think. Send me an email, or leave a comment below.

  • Dancing With My Inner Rebel

    I’ve been thinking about my inner rebel a lot lately. She’s the one who tries to get my attention by eating gluten, or having that one more glass of wine, or “just a few chips”. She gets my attention all right, my body no longer wants gluten or wine or chips. My body feels better without all those things, but she is persistent. I used to try to ignore her or try to reason with her. That didn’t work; her attempts to get my attention would get louder and more insistent. So I decided to talk to her, to find out what she wanted. As soon as I asked her what she wanted, my body felt lighter, my headache subsided. Now I will tell you that I have engaged her before, she is a part of me that needs to be met, but I never approached her in quite the same way.

    I asked her to dance.

    Yep you heard right, I asked her to dance, and she got giddy, she was noticed, she didn’t have to get my attention by other tactics. She just wants love like all the parts of us that feel neglected and abandoned. Is there a part of you that needs attention? A part of yourself that is trying to get your attention in ways that take you away from living your life to its fullest? This is the gift in learning to listen to your body. You learn what your body needs to feel fully alive. The bonus here is you also meet parts of yourself that have been acting out. By meeting them fully and hearing what they have to tell you, you can harness their energy and they can contribute to your whole self.

    So I danced with my rebel, (yes, literally) and I asked her what she wanted. I have come to love my rebel and I told I want her to express herself in my life. And I need her to express in a way that does not debilitate my body, because these days if my body isn’t feeling good, I don’t have the energy to dance with her. We made a pact to support each other so we can both live fully and joyfully.

    Is there a part of yourself that wants to be expressed that you are fighting? Here are some ways to begin to make peace with those parts of you.

    Every part of us wants to be loved.

    If that sounds like too much right now you can start out by just noticing the parts of you that you may want to “get rid of” or “stop what they are doing”. Just notice, breathe, and start by letting that part of you know that you are noticing. Do this until you feel like you are ready to move deeper with your work around this. If you’re not sure what part of yourself to start with, you too may have a rebel, or a protector, or a teenager, or a vigilant part of yourself. You may have all of these, start with one, the one that you are noticing the most. You can also ask the age of this part of you. Often times a younger version of you did not get their needs met at a certain age and will show up later as that same age with the same unmet feelings.

    Ask the part of yourself you are working with what they want.

    They may not answer right away, this part of you is not used to you paying attention to it. Be compassionate with yourself, and keep asking. You can ask the part of yourself you are working with to write to you, ask any questions you want and let them write when they are ready. There is no time limit on this work, some days might feel easier than others, notice any shifts or changes in your relationship with this part of you.

    As you continue to engage these parts of yourself that you usually try to keep hidden,
    you will learn that they have gifts for you.

    They are a part of you and you can learn to accept them and integrate them into your life. Do you have to dance with them? Only if that is what they want. Maybe they want to write, or draw or paint. Maybe they want to garden or take a walk, or listen to music., or maybe they don’t want you to be so busy. You won’t know for sure until you meet all the wonderful parts that make up you and
    ask them what they want and need from you.

    Meeting all the parts of yourself that you want to hide is the path toward stepping into your fully expressed life.

    I’d love to hear what you think. Send me an email, or comment below.

  • The Cycle of Life…

    As I start this new business I am reminded that is has been almost a year since I left my job to begin my new work. It still amazes me the direction it is now taking. I was reflecting recently about grief as a normal cycle of life. The grief that arises when you leave a long time job, even if it was stressful and no longer serves your higher goals or purpose in life. Or the grief you feel when a relationship changes or ends. Or the grief you feel when you lose a job unexpectedly. Each time your life does not proceed in a way you expected or wanted it to, there can be grief. We don’t often look upon these types of occasions as times of grief. We may be told that everything happens for a reason, better times are ahead, or just to get over it. None of that is helpful when there is grief. How can you meet grief that is a normal cycle of life? I offer a few suggestions below.

    When you lose a job, end a relationship or your life takes some other unexpected turn,
    name it as grief, as a loss, as something or someone you will miss. Take some time to feel the feelings that this loss evokes.

    What are some ways you can make space and time to let these feelings in?

    Honor your feelings.

    Everyone has their own way of processing feelings, and feelings about grief are no different. If you feel sad, let yourself cry. Write about your feelings. Sometimes capturing your feelings in your journal can give you some perspective. How might you honor your feelings in a way that feels true to who you are?

    Give yourself the time you need to process your grief.

    No one knows how long it will take you to shift your feelings, not even you. By diligently attending to your feelings and your process, one day you feel a shift, receive a new insight or awareness and see things differently. Allow yourself to acknowledge these new insights when they come.

    When you allow yourself to process grief in the normal course of your life, you will gain understanding into how you process grief when it is a bigger grief experience. A friend shared with me the observation that all the everyday grief experiences are practice for when we face bigger grief experiences.

    How can you honor your everyday sorrows so you can become more adept at feeling these feelings?

    Be open to surrender and let go when it feels right to do so. Hanging on to things from our past that no longer serve us keeps us from being in the present moment. When we don’t honor our own grieving processes we tend to hold on to things, hoping our experience will change and things will go back to being the way they were. What are some ways you can surrender what no longer serves you? How do you know you are ready to surrender old stuff?

    When we are able to grieve those everyday occurrences in a way that honors where we are we can then move through those experiences and be ready and open to receive whatever is coming our way next. For instance, if we are constantly wondering why we lost our job and rehashing what happened, we may not see the next new possibility that is just around the corner. Staying open requires we stay present.

    How can you stay present?

    What has worked for you in the past?

    I’d love to hear what you think.

  • Howling at the Moon

    Last Friday was my birthday.

    It was not only Friday the 13th and a full moon, (hence the howling) it was my 60th birthday.

    As I approached this milestone I wondered how that number could be associated with my age! Since my experience at the retreat 2 weeks ago, everything has changed. I stepped whole-heartedly into this birthday portal because I have stepped whole-heartedly into my life’s work. I now have a sense of comfort in my body. I am relaxed. I am finding so many of the strategies I used with my eating psychology clients apply here. I have stepped into my true calling. Things are flowing effortlessly, writing, talking about it, and inspiration about how I will bring this work to the world. One of the first things I am doing is mapping out my milestones into short term and long term goals.
    Here are some of the activities that are showing up on my map.

    • I am writing a book.  I have always said I was going to write a book about my experience and now is the time. My book will be an accounting of my experience with Leah’s death and how I navigated the territory of grief to live a joyful and purposeful life. The book will define and inform the programs I will offer to help others navigate their own grief process.Right now the working title of my programs are “3 Levels of Engagement”, with each level going deeper into the process. The first level is early grief, learning to be with your new reality.

      The second, moves beyond the daily shock and numbness of early grief and prepares you to embark on creating a meaningful and purposeful life.
      The third is the alchemy of the initiation, a deeper journey to discover the purpose in your initiation, or rite of passage. It will investigate the lessons there are for you as you learn to live in your new reality and how you can manifest these lessons in the world.

    • I am writing my signature speech.
    • An exploration of grief as a cycle of life. Grief does not only mean the loss of a loved one. Any time life does not turn out the way that you planned, or your dream does not become a reality, there is grief. When you are able to grieve these losses fully you can move to the next phase of life without the burden of your loss. Some examples of this are the loss of a job, the loss of a relationship, or moving away from a place you love.
    • A group program to assist with facing milestone days or holidays.
    • A day long workshop to help those who know someone who has had a devastating loss and help them know what to say or not to say in times of grief.

    These are just some of the ideas that I am working on. I am ready to start seeing clients. If you know anyone who would benefit from my work, please pass this on to them. I am committed to bringing about a shift in the way grief is seen by most people in our world.

    Much love and gratitude for all the blessings I receive as I walk this path.

  • Another Deconstruction

    This past weekend I attended a retreat at the Joyful Journey Hot Springs in Colorado with my Business Priestess coaching group. The retreat provided for wonderful connection with the women in the group, yoga, feminine embodiment work, sharing of good food, breaks in the hot springs, and laser coaching.

    I started a novena, a 9-day prayer ritual, the week before the retreat. I planned it this way so that the 9th day would coincide with the last day of the retreat. My intention for the novena was,

    ” I am ready and willing to step fully into my work. I ask for clarity to unapologetically stand in my Truth to serve the world in alignment with Divine Intent.”

    I spent time each day sitting in prayer with my intent, and writing about my process.
    When it came time for my laser coaching “hot seat” I was feeling a deep connection with all of the other women. My time in the chair came after some amazing work by my sister business priestesses. I watched major breakthroughs and up leveling. I was in awe of the deep work we were doing.

    I wondered what would happen when it way my turn. As I sat in the chair and began describing my business, I also shared one of my revelations from day 2 or 3 of my novena. That the initiation of my daughter Leah’s death birthed me to do the work I was called to do in the world, that a life of joy is possible even after such a devastating life event. I was then asked this question,

    ” Why are you not helping people navigate their grief journeys and showing them the possibilities of a joyful life?”

    I gulped. A part of me said, “but what about all I have done to get Nourished Body Wild Heart launched?” Another part of me said

    “Finally!”

    The leaders of the group continued to skillfully guide me with questions to excavate my true calling. I felt like I was in the company of loving midwives. As I got closer and closer to stepping fully into work as a grief counselor, I felt my body aligning with my purpose. I felt the energy of this work rising from my core. I remembered all the times since Leah died that I said I was going to help others recover a life of joy after losing a loved one.

    And finally, I stepped fully and unapologetically into my work as a grief counselor, and Being With Grief was born.

    My skills as an Eating Psychology Coach will go into my medicine bag along with Samyama and other skills I have learned throughout my own journey.
    The work I did with Nourished Body Wild Heart (NBWH) is important, and I will still do that work with all my current clients, and future clients who want that kind of support. It will be a smaller focus of my business now. I always thought after I fully established NBWH I would add grief work into the mix. Now the reverse is true.
    Part of my work with NBWH is to help my clients step fully into their authentic selves, to discover the work they were meant to bring to the world.

    My own authentic voice finally made herself heard, and I can no longer ignore her voice. I have always said that losing Leah was too high a price to pay to not be who I was meant to be. The work of the past almost 14 years has led me back to my heart.

    “You must forsake a thousand half-loves to bring a whole heart home. ” Rumi

    I will talk more about my process in future newsletters and tell you more about Being With Grief. For now I hope you will continue to receive my newsletters in their new format. This will be the last Nourished Body Wild Heart newsletter; from now on they will go out as Being With Grief.