Month: March 2019

… and you never expected to end up on the rollercoaster…

“Life brings change and change brings grief.”

...all but the most pessimistic of us are surprised by it every time...

You get a diagnosis and your life changes forever.

Your spouse gets a diagnosis… your life changes forever.

Your sibling, your kid or your best friend gets a diagnosis… and your life changes forever.

The people we know and love cause ripples in our lives that bring pain, loss and celebration.

All those things bring grief.  

I hope you’re spending this weekend with people that you love and the loop-dee-loops of life are the fun kind but if they’re not, the Grief Recovery Method can help.

Please be gentle with yourself this weekend. xo

Most folks like to believe that they are good listeners.

But listening requires more than giving someone half an ear for half a moment.

“Yup, Yup, Me too, Uh Huh, Uh Huh…”

Translation:  “Get to the point, get over it and be gone, I’m busy….”

When we’re hurt, upset, grieving, or distressed by any of the things that life throws at us, the last thing we need is to be dusted off, tidied up and dismissed.   People need to be heard.

The Grief Recovery Method listens.

Life is messy.

We like to talk about it as though it isn’t.  As though there is only black and white and always easy reasons for why someone or something turned out the way it did.  But that’s never true.   It’s never just one thing.   Life is Always a Feast for the Emotions.

I signed paperwork on Friday, put my house on the market yesterday and was told to clear out early this morning so that buyers could look at the place today.

I returned home, to a signed offer.  My house has sold.

It’s been less than 24 hours and I got exactly what I asked for.

I can barely breathe.

It’s time.   And I’m excited.

And there are 10 days until all the conditions come off…

I’m sure the 10 days will drag on like an eternity.  But once they’re done I’ll have 21 days to pack and move and vacate… and that will go by in a blink.

It’s never exactly what we expect.  Even when we get everything we asked for, there are always tag-along aspects that we didn’t anticipate.   Whether we’re having a baby or moving house, getting married, or divorced or something else.   Life is big.  And Messy.  And usually pretty wonderful.   Except when it isn’t.

I’m glad that I have the Grief Recovery Method to help me make sense of it all.  xo

“Did The Grief Recovery Method work for me?”

Yes

Without a Doubt.

Every time I have turned to it my life has improved measurably.

The Grief Recovery Method is a powerful tool for change.

The more I use it the more I understand just how powerful it is and that makes me want to use it more.

The Grief Recovery Method is not just about cleaning up old messes.    

It is also about preventing future ones.  

Because when we see where we’ve tripped up in the past, we can make new choices in our future.

Moving is hardly ever a simple thing. Most often it is a complicated arrangement of goodbyes and uncertain plans, hellos and new adventures. At some point, you decide to leave where you are and for at least a while, you are unmoored. You’re not moved yet, the house isn’t sold yet and the new adventure hasn’t begun yet… it’s a time of anticipation and waiting. Or maybe you didn’t want to move and it’s a time of sadness and dread. Some days it’s all of the emotions you could possible imagine, tumbling round like clothes in a dryer.

“Grief is the conflict of emotions that arise

when a familiar pattern changes or ends.”

By its very definition, moving causes grief. Moving means that things will change. You’re likely to have a new commute to work, you’ll find new favourite stores and coffee shops. You’ll see new people and hopefully make new friends. Along the way, you’ll likely miss your old friends and yearn for that special spot you liked where everyone knew your name. All of those feelings are normal.

It’s normal, if slightly exhausting, to feel up and down, excited and sad, each in turn. What isn’t helpful and isn’t healthy, is trying not to feel these things. If we hang out with friends who only want to hear about the good, the exciting and the anticipation, the sad and scared and nervous stuff doesn’t cease to exist, it simply collects in the corners of our mind like dust bunnies.

“Feelings matter.”

“and if we don’t deal with them, won’t deal with them,

can’t deal with them, aren’t allowed to deal with them… they wait.”

Feelings are incredibly patient things and they will wait as long as needed, to be felt. In many cases, they wait until someone or something dies and then as we open to the fresh grief of the new death, the emotions that waited so patiently, rush in and we can’t figure out why on earth we’re feeling so nostalgic about our old home… It seems out of time and place and it is, but that’s because we put those old feelings on hold.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

When you learn the Grief Recovery Method and you Do the Work, you learn to feel your schtuff when it’s fresh and you don’t let things pile up on you.