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  • Tales From The Ammo Box

    Tales From The Ammo Box

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    Preface: The ammo box is a physical illustration of how I stuffed my grief.

    As I start this storyline, I begin to understand the relationship that I have with my father who died less than a year after I got married. That was 45 years ago and I can’t help but think that our hopes and dreams were never to be realized due to his health failing him. It was ironic that the man who never seemed to have a sick day or failed to go into the office could go as quickly as he did.

    I realize now that the long hours he put in contributed to his early death.

    Not only working at his regular job but his commitment to many after hour drafting jobs to help support the family that he created for three children relinquished through adoption. His health decline, rapid as it was had signs that as a young man I did not recognize. After all, I was going to live forever so why didn’t he?

    As is true with many who suffer loss, there was an expectation that there was time to plan and act upon those plans. How quickly that evaporates when life throws you a curve. The more unexpected, the more unprepared you are the harder the new reality hits home and knocks you flat. It was true for me and my siblings. Each of us had expectations of how dad who be there for us. My sister would miss him walking her down the aisle for her marriage. My brother would miss Dad’s attending his graduation. I would miss the opportunity to work with him on projects, working side by side as my dreams changed after he died.

    Remnants are all I have.

    The ammo box is just one of the token pieces of his life that I have to reflect upon. The ammo box which now represents the place where I buried my emotions after the death of my daughter and never had the tools to constructively deal with my grief. The contents of this real ammo box reminds me of the contents of my psyche, bits that surface from time to time to remind me of my success and my failings. For example, after he passed I realized that it held among other things drill bits. A perfect metaphor for drilling down into grief and the emotions struck when trying to get to the my truth.

    Now as a father, I have come to realize that as much as I attempted to have a better and different way of raising my own family that there were gaps in how we raised them. Conflict was one of the blindspots where I failed to show by example how to deal with one of the troublesome aspects of humanity. Namely, we don’t always agree with one another and that this gives rise to conflict. The basics of fight, flight or freeze are not the only options to deal with conflict when it arises. There is a constructive conflict option that allows for open questioning and the attempt to reach a satisfactory resolution without resulting in a harmful conclusion.

    In our family, my initial instinct was to freeze when I would get myself into a situation where my parents had to reprimand my actions. Whether it was getting caught smoking as a teenager, bringing home grades that were not up to my potential or being late for family dinner. I was stuck like the deer about to get slammed by the truck frozen in the glare of my parents eyes.

    In grief, we likewise have options that usually manifest as freeze because we are unaccustomed to being in the situation of having to deal with what is confronting us. It stops our forward motion and it seems like time is paused. Fleeing isn’t an option in the case of an accidental or unexpected death and there is no fight response because you have lost what you would fight for. Freeze is usually accompanied by a general disconnect from the situation and many poor decisions and choices can affect the outcome.

    What Nancy & I have come to realize is that having the conversations now before a crisis is involved can deepen our connection and opens our hearts to our loved ones. Then when the time occurs, the communication is already there. Then the bedside watch as death comes knocking, isn’t as much a traumatic drama. What has been revealed in these preemptory conversations will have filled the gap, salved the hurt and have made way for a better death. Preparing for a better death by breaking the seal that locks our words in our hearts and de-ices the chill that keeps us silent in our inner dialogue. That is our hope in continuing to explore this uncharted territory and to change the conversation around grief.

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  • Creating Community

    Creating Community

    One of the questions I find myself asking myself as well as my clients, is,

    How does your grief journey call you to a greater purpose?  Or

    Where is your grief journey calling you?

    These questions have been crucial in my own unfolding and transformation along the course of my grief journey.  Dan and I have found that connection with others has helped us to find meaning and purpose for ourselves.

    Over the course of the last 8 plus years we have created and hosted a Grief Meet-up and been a host table for The Dinner Party. Both of these endeavors were in pre-Covid times, and before we moved from Raleigh. We’ve also been a part of the Raleigh Death Café, as well as an End of Life Professionals networking group.

    In each of these initiatives, we’ve found that the community aspect of these groups have helped us, and all of the attendees think about grief differently than we did going into them.

    We were able to provide our insights into our own process, and facilitate conversations about our participant’s processes.  We gained as much from these conversations as our attendees told us they did.

    It is from this place that our latest venture is launching, our monthly webinar series,

    Changing the Conversation Around Grief.

    This series is a membership opportunity that will bring together grievers wherever they are in their grief journey.  We will do a live webinar via Zoom each month on a variety of topics, such as:

    • Why are we grief experts?
    • Why do we fear Grief and are reluctant to talk about it?
    • What is the cost to us if we do not express our grief?
    • Why is it important to feel our feelings?
    • What is the one question we are asked about grief?
    • Help find ways to grieve in alignment with our values
    • Having the awkward conversation with friends & family – How do you start the conversation?

    We will also invite guest into our conversations, people we have met along the way that we want you to know.  In addition to the monthly live webinars and access to the videos on our membership portal, we will host a private Facebook group to continue the conversation, this will be a safe space to share about your own grief journey if you would like, or witness a deeper conversation until you are ready to enter it yourself.

    From this place, Dan and I will be developing our first ever program together.

    Up until now we have each worked separately with our clients, and will continue to do so.  We are now being called to combine our wisdom to create a new offering.  We don’t know exactly with this will look like yet.  We do know that it will be created from the conversations we have in our community, and will meet the needs expressed there.

     

    To find out more about our community, and to join, click here.

    Or to schedule a call, click here.

     

     

     

  • Milestones and Holidays

    Milestones and Holidays

    Nothing can knock the wind out of our sails like the approach of a holiday or a milestone day.

    Even after over 21 years my daughter’s birthday can bring tears. Mother’s Day is bittersweet. The year-end holidays can bring sadness. All of these occasions also bring immense joy and celebration too. I didn’t come to this place easily.  It took attention to what I needed each year, along with the intention to listen to that guidance.

    One of the things that make holidays so difficult are the associative memories that come with them.

    Memories of Christmas tree shopping and decorating were so difficult for us that we did not put up a tree for over 15 years after the first 2 years. The first two years we tried to do things the way we always did, and the memories were too difficult. It brought all of us down, and we just wanted the holidays to be over.  We kept expecting to see Leah come bounding around the corner with her exuberance, and she wasn’t there.

    We started traveling during the holidays, visiting places we had never been before. A change of scenery helped to ease our tender hearts. We still missed her yet being in a place we hadn’t shared with her made space for us to breathe a little deeper.  So often in those first years it felt like we were holding our breath.

    Here are things that helped us, that may help you as well.

    • Change your traditions. No matter what holidays you celebrate, ask yourself what traditions are too painful right now; what new traditions can you do that will still honor your loved one? Ask this question each year because your needs may change from year to year.

     

    • As you anticipate milestone days, whether a birthday, or anniversaries of accidents and deaths, ask yourself what you need this year. Do you need to take time by yourself? Where? In nature, or at a special place to you and your loved one? Or do you need to be surrounded by friends and family.  There is no right answer, only you know what you need from year to year, and from milestone to milestone.

     

    • Make space for feelings to arise at each of these occasions. Even though you may have cultivated resources to meet your grief, the feelings at this time can be especially strong.  Allowing time to be with those feelings can help them move through.

     

    Holidays and milestone days remind us of the passage of time like nothing else does.

    We may wonder about how our lives would have been different if our loved one was still with us physically. Those musings have threatened to take me to a place of no return, to a place of wallowing in my loss, without wanting to find a way out. Yet each time I have found myself there, scrupulous devotion to my practices: Samyama, gratitude, self-care, and creativity always bring me back to myself.

    My grief journey has been about coming back to the self I didn’t even know I was missing. Everything I’ve gone through along the way is in service to that becoming.

    What practices or rituals help you come back to yourself?

     

     

     

  • Everyday Grief

    Everyday Grief

    One of the gifts of my grief journey was realizing that grief is a lifelong journey.

    That idea may have been peripheral before Leah died, yet as I navigated the months and years after she left us, I became much more aware of how grief affects our everyday lives.

    Before Leah died, I had experienced the grief of other loved ones passing, my grandparents, my parents, aunts and uncles; yet it was my daughter’s death that cracked me open. In order to make sense of my life after Leah died, I had to come to terms with grief in all forms as it showed up in my life.  It seemed as if the collective grief of a lifetime saw an opportunity to be seen through the fracture that was opened in my life as I came to terms with what it meant to create a meaningful life in the midst of the devastation I was feeling.

    I saw that all the experiences in my life that carried grief;

    • The times I didn’t get chosen for a team in school,
    • Not becoming a ballerina,
    • That job that I didn’t get that I thought would hold the answer to my future,
    • My loss of innocence after the sexual abuse I suffered as a child,
    • The loss of a natural childbirth with my first pregnancy,
    • The school I didn’t get to go to.

    All the of my life’s lost dreams lined up for attention.

    I had a choice to make. I could recognize that I now had an opportunity, a gift really, to meet these places that needed healing, or I could push them away and lock them up in the hopes of never having to experience the feelings that were clamoring for my attention.

    The second choice would have been the easier road.  I told my self that many times as I traveled the first path, the one that brought me face to face with everything that allowed me to climb out of the well of grief into the light. It hasn’t been an easy path, it has been, and continues to be, the most fulfilling experience of my life.

    I’ve often been told that I am courageous for facing my grief the way I do.

    I used to think that it wasn’t courage at all, that it was the only way I could make sense out of what seemed senseless, and I thought that grieving for my daughter would keep my connection to her strong.

    My grief journey did all of that and more, in ways I could not have fathomed all those years ago. I now know that grief is a sacred journey. One that reveals so many gifts, what I call blessings and grace, that teach us about living a life worth living.

    It is an alchemical journey that transforms.

    It has allowed me to hold sorrow and joy at the same time. It continues to call me into my best life.

     

     

  • Connections and Touch

    Connections and Touch

    “One day every that Leah touched will be gone.”

    This thought haunted me in the early part of my grief journey. It felt like if I no longer had anything that Leah touched that our connection would be gone. I knew that this was not true. For example, I have her key ring with me keys. Her touch from it is long gone, but it was hers and it connects me to her.

    Things remind us of our loved ones; photos, clothing, objects that were special to them, or that they made for us. My fear was that if I no longer had anything of Leah’s that I would lose touch with her.

    Her room remained as she had left it for over 3 years.

    I couldn’t bear to even consider getting rid of her things; it seemed disloyal, it seemed invasive. Eventually, when I was ready to go through her things, I asked a friend who did not know Leah to help me. She was not grieving in the same way that a friend of hers, or mine would be grieving for her.

    It was not an easy task, going through her belongings, and deciding what to save and what to give away; yet it was made much easier doing it with someone who was not attached to her things like I was.  I kept a lot during that first time going through her things.  The next time I was faced with letting go of her things was several years later when we moved.  Moving from the house in which we lived when Leah was physically present was hard enough, letting go of more of her things seemed monumental.

    With each subsequent move I was able to release more of the material, physical things that I associated with having a connection with my daughter.  What I learned throughout that time is that while my physical connection with her was gone, she was still a part of my life in many other ways.

    As I tended to my grief, my connection with her spirit deepened.

    She would often visit me in other ways; in dreams, with a scent, with a memory, reminding me of her sense of humor, with a song. I came to see all of these little synchronicities as continuations of our relationship.

    All of the ways she connected with me were clear signs that she was still a part of my life, and  that she remains in my heart.

     

     

  • Blessing and Grace

    Blessing and Grace

    Blessings and Grace became the mantra of my grief journey.

    I found that each time I was able to meet my feelings of grief in my heart I would receive blessings and grace, each and every single time.

    When this first happened, I was perplexed.  I didn’t think that I deserved to receive blessing and grace, after my daughter had died.  On some level, I blamed myself, and I didn’t think I was deserving of anything that resembled a gift.

    Over time, I began to see that the blessings and grace were a direct result of feeling my feelings.

    I began to see that by bringing my uncomfortable and painful feelings to my heart; I was healing my heart and making it possible to receive again.  I began to see the gifts of blessing and grace were exactly what I needed to continue to meet my grief.  It was one of my early breakthroughs during a time when I thought my life was over.

    In truth, my life as I knew it was over.

    The blessings and grace opened me up to new possibilities amid the devastation in which I found myself living. They were the miracles that gradually brought me back to myself, to a new life, and to the work I was being called to do.

    Throughout the years the gifts and blessings have appeared in many different forms. I speak about some specific gifts I received during the early, most tender days of my grief. The gifts haven’t stopped. Each day I meet the day with gratitude for my ability to recognize and acknowledge the gifts and blessings. Some days it is a spectacular sunrise, some days it’s a photo of my granddaughter, and on others it is a reminder from Leah that she is watching over me. I don’t take anything for granted these days.

    The blessings I receive allow me to give my gifts with grace.

     

     

  • Grief is Not Contagious

    Grief is Not Contagious

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    “What is the unseen force that keeps people from wanting to engage (their own) grief and avoid those who are grieving?”

    (From Chapter 10, The Alchemy of Grief: Your Journey to Wholeness)

    The answer to this question is what keeps me motivated to help others engage in their feelings of grief, and be with the uncomfortable feelings they experience.

    Today, I am comfortable sharing my story, being vulnerable, and talking about how grief impacts my life. I’m still often surprised at the response I receive what I’m at speaking engagements, or at networking events with someone who doesn’t know my story.

    What I’ve also discovered is that most of us who are comfortable talking about grief have experienced it first hand.  We found ourselves right in the middle of our greatest fear.  We had a choice to either stay stuck or find a way through.

    Those of us who have found a way through wish we hadn’t had to. We too wish that our reality didn’t include finding a way to live without our loved one’s physical presence in it. And at the same time, we know that we have made a choice to meet our grief.

    We may each have our own reasons for doing that, such as:

    • Honoring our loved one,
    • Wanting to find out if there is more to life.
    • Wanting to be there for other children or family members who need us.
    • Not wanting to stay stuck in a place that doesn’t serve us

    To name a few.

    Many of these reasons overlap, and may become the lifelines that give us the hope and grace we need to continue on the path of climbing out of the deep well of grief.

    Each time we model how we are being with our feelings, and getting better at being uncomfortable, we show those who have no context for grief what is possible.

    On of the first times we did this after Leah dies was at a Remembrance Gathering we held for her on what would have been her 18th birthday, 6 months after she died.

    We invited her friends and ours to gather, remember, and share.  Our invitation was met with bewilderment, confusion, and many questions. No one knew what to expect, yet those who were able to quell their fears, out of respect for us, or to honor Leah were all surprised at the experience they had.  They called us brave, and innovative. They expressed their gratitude for inviting them. On that day we received confirmation that we are here to show others another way to meet grief.  Still, today, I receive messages from attendees who tell us how much that ceremony touched their lives.

    One of the many gifts of my grief journey is cultivating resources to meet grief when it occurs in my life.  When Leah died, I was ill equipped to meet grief, as many of us are when we meet unexpected, and/or sudden grief.  Now, when I experience grief, no matter where it arises, I give it the time and space it needs to move through, and be seen.  That is another passion of mine, to teach skills to help us have a place to start when we do find ourselves face to face with grief. Having the tools we need before we begin a task makes that task easier.

    I’d like to think the same is true of grief, and meeting our difficult feelings.

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  • Staying and Leaving

    Staying and Leaving

    All my life I had been fearful of endings.

    Endings meant I would have to change the way I did things.

    Endings were uncomfortable. I did everything I could to hold on to things for as long as I could.

    And then Leah died, and I experienced an ending that I couldn’t undo.

    It was an ending I hadn’t prepared for. It was my most profound lesson as my grief journey progressed; learning how to say good-bye to people, places, and things that were no longer a part of my life, or that I had outgrown.

    My grief journey opened me up to what was possible when I welcomed the initiation that I wrote about in an earlier blog, and in chapter 8 of my book. It was not a lesson that I learned easily, or that I wanted to learn. It was so much easier for me to hold on to the thing than to face the feelings, and then do the work necessary to say good-bye to things that no longer served me.

    Everywhere I lived I had boxes and boxes of stuff that I couldn’t get let go.

    Everywhere I lived was cluttered as I delayed decisions to go through the piles to release old stuff.

    Saying the ultimate good-bye to my daughter caused me to come face to face with my fear of endings.

    I was called to leave a job that was no longer in alignment with who I was becoming, or the life I was meant to live. I had to take a stand for myself and risk my perception of what may happen if I left that job.

    Our perceptions of what may happen can keep us stuck for a long time. Mine sure did.

    Saying yes to the initiation of Leah’s death was not an easy task. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done. And it came with huge rewards.

    During our last move I let go of Leah’s school papers and report cards. I let go of wedding dresses, and baby clothes, and so much more. As I opened all of the boxes, all of the emotions that I hadn’t faced came pouring out. The good news is I now know how to meet those emotions.

    I gained a new understanding of endings. I felt lighter when I wasn’t carrying around years and years of old outdated stuff. I found that I had made space for new and wonderful things to enter my life, and that I had more energy for them.

    Endings are sad, even if they are welcome.

    It’s in learning to honor what we are letting go of that we receive the grace necessary to move forward and open our heart and lives for what is coming next.

    Imagine the image of a closed fist. If someone handed you a beautiful gift, when your fist was closed, you wouldn’t be able to receive it.  What if you opened your hand ready to receive the gift?

    My fear of endings was similar to having a closed fist. I spent so much time with my fists clenched and my body closed in around itself that I didn’t even see what was being offered. Now I can see what life has to offer me, I meet each day with an open heart.

    What a wonderful gift.

     

     

  • Grief As initiation

    Grief As initiation

    Rereading this chapter was interesting.

    It took me right back into the feelings that I had as I was beginning to find my voice in the middle of my grief journey.

    For years before Leah died, I had been working thorough childhood wounds. Leah’s death created a sense of urgency that I hadn’t felt before. What I realized is that all of those years I had been doing my inner work were laying the groundwork for the initiation of Leah’s death. When grief entered my life in this profound way, I was ready to make the changes, almost without thinking about them.

    Initiation is both the ending of one part of life, and the beginning of another.

    It is a rite of passage, and we can go through many initiations in our lifetime. I began to understand that the way I was moving through grief was an initiation each time I took a stand for myself, or spoke up for what I believed in. Losing Leah made the difference. Each time I was faced with a decision to speak up or stay silent, I was reminded that the cost of saying nothing was too great if I was to find the life I was meant to live.

    We often hear that in order to grow, we need to get passed our comfort zone.

    I was already out of my comfort zone as I tried to figure out how to live without Leah, and I had nothing to lose. That newfound urgency and the years of preparation were coming together to show me the way forward. Each time I heard myself take a stand for a belief, or set a clear boundary, I recognized that it was my grief journey that was giving me the courage of heart and the perseverance to be myself.

    All of this didn’t change my grief.

    It’s still there. It’s still strong but now I am empowered to meet it successfully.

    That is a distinction for me. Cultivating the resources to meet my grief allows me to be fully myself, which includes being with my feelings of grief when they arise.

    So often we think that if we resist our painful feelings long enough, they will go away, and we won’t have to feel them. Whenever we resist something, it persists. Our painful feelings don’t go away, they go underground, and wait for a crack in the surface of our lives to burst forth. And burst they do. Like a volcano erupting, our overwhelming feelings spew their wrath when we least expect it. And we crumble.

    When we develop and nurture tools to meet our grief in a way that makes sense to us, we are on a path back to ourselves. We are learning how to be who we were born to be.

     

     

  • Dan’s Thoughts on Holiday Grief

    Holiday’s can be really hard when you have lost a family member or had a difficult time this past year. Nancy and I have been talking about doing a series of conversations on grief. While I am new to doing videos, future postings will be a little less stiff as I attempt to improve my delivery and messaging.

    We do this work because our lives were turned upside down and we want to help others avoid some mistakes we made.