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Nov 26

Equal Opportunity Discriminator

This past week I honored those on the margins. I did a presentation on disability. It was nice to speak my truth, and to have others receive that truth from me.

There are realities that those of us with both vision and hearing loss face. When we step out our front doors, the world can be a hostile place.

My sister, who was more blind than I have been, expressed her issues with appearance this way: “If you cut your hair, I may not recognize you, so identify yourself.” As for me, I need several hours of “face time” with you so that your facial features get imprinted on my brain. Putting it all together for me is difficult because I spent the first year of my life blind.

The first year of development is when our brains learn to recognize and discriminate objects and people. As humans, we need to be able to identify people in all their detail, unlike how we would look at simple chimps or monkeys. We need a highly effective visual discrimination ability, and I have had to learn to do it because visual recognition skills develop during the first year of life. It’s been hard to do, and I’ve done much of it as an adult when I’ve been able to fully understand what I’ve needed to do to learn people’s faces. 

Stepping outside of my house also unleashes so much helpfulness in others. Then, suddenly, when I need a helpful soul, they are nowhere to be found. I think this sense of helpfulness is more about people being uncomfortable with the disabled, and needing to relieve their own discomfort. I’m fine with who I am and what I must do—even the difficult things.

Right now, the city I’m in is redoing the main street to create a better bus line. I’m cut off from my universe! The city didn’t ask me how I’d be affected, and once again I’m out in the nowhere, and they’re already two months behind.

“Where’s my village?” is something I ask more frequently now. I think those in the disabled community are asking this just as much as I am these days. With the fact that villages are disappearing, I shouldn’t be shocked that, once again, I’m posting on the cruel nature of what life can look like for those of us who must cope with a less-than-abled body.

I reflect back to being asked if I’d change it all for sight. My answer is still a resounding NO! It is all about who I am and what my disability represents. To be honest, I can’t imagine who I would have become without the disability. As much as I’d like to be able to see like you and hear like you, I wouldn’t be able to deal with it now. It would be as if my brain would struggle to make sense of it all. That really is a gift I would refuse.

Just as much as I love my petite body, I do love who I am in it. So, maybe living on the margins is also about accepting ourselves on the margins.

I have said that disability is an equal opportunity discriminator: it doesn’t discriminate at all. It doesn’t care about gender, race, age, intelligence, financial status, or anything else. If your number comes up, you’ll need to learn to cope with it. So, be kind to me, as someday it could be you needing the same help you want to give me when I may or may not need it.

I was saved the trauma of having to deal with disability later in life. In an odd sort of way, I’ve had it a little easier than my siblings, who had to greet their disabilities in their thirties and forties. I grew up this way. They each had to deal with another type of existence and coming to terms with the losses that disability brings, as well as the belief that they can still do it all.

I step out my front door, walk to the bus, and then a train, and am thankful that they are there for me. I still am dwelling on the margins of society. I’m self-sufficient in a world that prizes ability.

Nov 19

External or Internal?

I sat with someone as they went through a memory of an event. They were in the past, seeing it in the present. My job was to calm them down. It took a while.

Trauma is both internal and external. Surviving a heart attack is internal, and we also witness it externally. We’ll carry the memory with us inside our head forever.

Trauma can also be deceptive. What we experience as being within ourselves is actually outside of the self. A physical reaction to external cues might cause internal reactions. We might come to believe that what we experienced was internal rather than external trauma. And so it goes that we might live years believing and thinking about our experiences in one way rather than another.

When I was six, I was abused by those who used water to traumatize me. I wasn’t able to learn to swim… until one day when I was seven, and I figured out that the water would hold me up, and I’d be able to float on the top of it. Once I figured that out, I was able to take my feet off the bottom of the pool and kick. At first nobody could tell I had my feet off the bottom of the pool, and then I got it and you couldn’t keep me out of the water. Water is an equalizer. The memory of the water stayed in my head as I conquered the physical act of swimming. It was an external thing that lived in my head.

What we fear might be the monsters in our head, and for some people with mental illness the monsters become quite real. For most of us, the monsters we live with are easier to cope with.

Sometimes our liberations come via a comment, something others say and do with us that causes us to rethink the vision of ourselves. Trauma can cause a great deal of self-doubt and second-guessing who we are. We second-guess who we are to ourselves and to the world. What if we need to cut ourselves a great deal of slack? Most of the time we need to offer ourselves kindness.

I’ve witnessed the trauma perfection cycle, and I believe it stems from thinking that “if I just do this right, all will be well.” The problem with this type of thinking is that you can never do it well enough.

When trauma is discharged, and we set our loyal soldiers free, something amazing happens. Our ability to love ourselves increases and, with it, the loss of perfectionism. Along with this loss comes the ability to react differently to what once bothered us. We tend to look at those old rainbows in new ways, and our minds are blown away by our new actions. Now the rainbows are alive with vibrant colors that we may have never been able to see before!

I’ve talked about arriving on new shores after crossing the river Styx, and this is different. Whatever this is, it brings deep peace. It satisfies. This is a different internal that resolves the external stuff. I think it is to be defined for each person in their own way. What I understand isn’t what you will understand. Once again, I thank the loyal soldiers who served. Once again, I stand in amazement for what they did for me. For now, peace has come and made a home in my soul.

Nov 11

Please Do! Suicide and Trauma (Revisit)

blue sky and ocean

Originally posted September 30, 2019.

When someone takes their own life, what do you say to those left behind who must rebuild, pick up the pieces, and move forward?

If natural death is difficult for people to deal with, traumatic death and death by suicide are far more complex. This post is about what I call “the death bubble” bursting and making a mess. Oh, what a mess a traumatic death can be! And a death by suicide is far more complex than any other type of death. Why? Maybe it has to do with the unthinkable, and that the person taking their own life, in a sense, is “playing God,” or choosing to control a process that society says, and believes, should come at a natural end-of-life sequence. To so many it is “taboo.”

Maybe this taboo is what makes others pull back and not say anything to those affected by the death. In so many ways, those who are faced with a death caused by trauma or suicide need different support than others. I’ll try to say some helpful things here.

This Grief Is on Steroids 

The grief that surrounds suicide is intense and feels like a volcano erupting. The catch here is that it erupts in stages, each of them violent. It quakes, it steams, and at some point in time it will explode, and then all that lava slowly runs down the sides, burning everything it touches. Everything about the event and its aftermath will alter how most people who survive those they love will alter their world view. This subject matter can be addressed in another post. For now, the reader can choose to accept that the above-stated fact is fact.

As I’ve stated in other posts, grief does not have stages—it never has. Grief, at its best, is messy, and grief that surrounds suicide is best likened to a catastrophic eruption in slow motion.

During the first days, people might have to deal with a biohazard team cleaning up a very unpleasant mess. There might be a loss of possessions. These possessions could be meaningful to family and friends. The biohazard team takes it all away. If authorities in the area the person resided in still place crime tape at the scene of a suicide, there is that added burden on loved ones.

There may or may not be a viewing. There may or may not even be a funeral or memorial service. The closure that these events offer to those who mourn can be shadowed by the difficulty of these events.

During the first few years, those who mourn are forced to come to terms with their own lives, deal with the contents of a note, or the lack of a note, ask the “Why,” say over and over “I should have,” process guilt, come to terms with the death on a spiritual (not religious) level, as well as process any religious beliefs around suicide and possibly confront them. Simply stated, many survivors of a loved one’s suicide face an existential crisis. Supporting such a crisis is challenging.

What Can You Do?  

Everything I stated about death still applies here. There is more, and here it is:

The First 24 Hours

If the death has occurred in the family home, please, if possible, provide another place for the survivors to sleep. Try to keep everyone together. Ideally, a hotel should not be on the list of places to gather together.

If sleeping somewhere else will not work, the next best thing is to move in with them for the first two nights, make sure the family is fed, cared for, and assured that for right now, they aren’t required to show up for life. They are going to need to deal with arrangements for the service if there is to be such an event. They will need help on so many levels.

If there are young children involved, and if schools are in session, ask the children what they would prefer to do and arrange for it. YOU be the one to make school calls. Empathetic staff will understand the gravity of the situation and support the children in their needs.

Assistance with meals and errands can be helpful. With meals, consider the fact that clean-up needs to be kept to a minimum.

The Death Bubble 

If you’ve been through a death, you know what I’m talking about: that place where the world stops for you, and the focus isn’t about getting it done. And for however long it takes, you are in this place, or state, of surreal being. The world has stopped. Then the memorial or funeral happens, and society tells you that you have to get back to the races. You step outside, see the cars and people whizzing by, and you think, I have to get back on this grand people mover that is whizzing by me a million miles an hour! How? So you jump for it, and maybe you make it, but most likely you fall off again and wonder, Why? What is wrong with me? Then you stop and you think, I forced myself to move, and I tried to leave the bubble, but I’m still really in the bubble, and HELP! With suicide, it is as if you jump into the people mover, but you are hanging in the air and you miss the people-mover, and you get all banged up. Re-entry into the bustling world happens at a slower pace.  

When someone finally reaches a place of resolution and forward movement, it is because the hard work of grief has been journeyed. And while all might not be as it once was, a new normal is emerging.  

I tell you all of this so that you, the reader, who have not been in this place, can be aware of how to help in the beginning, the middle, and the continuing future. You get through it, but you don’t get over it. For those of us who have faced this in our personal lives, there will be differences in our process, but the understanding is there.  

Please Do! 

1. Look with your eyes. Act with those eyes and be proactive about bringing in meals, coming to clean the house, take the children for playdates, or whatever else is needed. In other words don’t ASK when; TELL your family, or friends, when you will show up! Then show up.  

2. Listen to, and provide a place for, someone to talk—if and when they want to do so. 

3. This is about them, not you. If someone is behaving in a self-centered manner, they are doing so because the pain they are facing is raw. Gentleness is needed. 

4. Keep in mind that no two suicides are alike. Once again, make no assumptions that what your friend or family member is now dealing with is anything like what you dealt with. Ask what the experience is like for them. 

5. Never ask about how the suicide happened. It isn’t any of your business. If the person wants you to know, they’ll share it. The fact is that you might not really want to hear the details that would be shared. This is not violence on a screen—this is real.  

6. What was in the note? Once again, this is private. Some people leave a note, and others don’t. Some notes give detailed reasons, and others don’t. To share a personal example, my husband worked on several versions of a note which I have. In the end, the note I found was only for me, and it was short and signed in a way only I understood. The note doesn’t get shared with others for that reason.  

7. Please stay near your friend and family member. Now, more than anything, they will need you to be present. They won’t need “fixing,” just lots of love and support.  

8. Please support them and remind them that while they may have the urge to make major life decisions, now might not be a good time to do so. If a major life change has to happen before the first year is completed, be present to support it.  

Why is #8 important? If you are in a place of dealing with trauma, the chances of making a good decision in your life is slim. Staying in a routine can help to calm the eruption that is occurring during the first part of the process. When a volcanic eruption happens, you are in “fight or flight” and survival modes. This means that cognitive functions might not be functioning as they need to in the realm of competent life choices. Offer to be a sounding board and sit with them to help them flesh out the “why” of the process.  

9. While there are no set stages to this process, there might be some feelings that are common to suicide. Some of the most common feelings and emotions that arise are anger, guilt, shock, hurt, “If only I’d known,” and being stunned into inaction by what has happened. This is normal. You don’t fix it; you listen to the survivor. In understanding this, you might also be better placed to listen as someone works through #8.  

10. Could this suicide have been stopped? This might seem strange, or out of place, on a tips list. It isn’t. I’ll share some things I learned from living with a man who was bipolar, and who discussed his ideas about why some people decide that suicide is an option.

People in emotional crisis need resources that work. They need psychiatric and other mental health people to be fully present and fully willing to serve as holding containers for their pain. The family and friends that surround them need to be open to serious listening. For instance, I had to go to some very dark places with my husband. It was going into these places that enabled me to understand the magnitude of the pain he was in. He had a workable cocktail and a great psychiatrist, and psychologist, who were extremely supportive. It wasn’t enough. For this post, it doesn’t need to be explained.  

One of the things he shared is that when the urge comes, it could be just that: an urge. I would remove what he asked me to remove from the house and get him calmed down. Those three seconds of non-access to tools made all the difference for years. He knew that I understood.  

I’m glad that places like NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) and Suicide Prevention are around. They do good work. I’m especially glad that they are present for children, adolescents, and those in early adulthood. When the brain isn’t fully developed, understanding the consequences can be challenging at best.  

I’ve said it often: no one should have to find the note or the body.  

The above is complex. No, not all suicides can be prevented. There are several reasons why this is so. I’ll list them in no particular order: 

  • Lack of accessible resources
  • Lack of support, or ability to get to the resources
  • Undiagnosed mental issues that could have been treated had the person sought help
  • Family structures that are too rigid and do not tolerate outside assistance
  • Religious beliefs that prohibit mental health consumerism 
  • Lack of understanding by others of what the person is really dealing with 
  • The person masking the severity of the symptoms
  • Secrets that are thought to be so terrible that they can’t be shared with another person
  • Intense mental health issues that are so painful and untreatable that the only way out for that person is to end it
  • Uncontrollable impulsivity
  • Isolation that has gone on for decades

I’ve listed just a few of the reasons the person who completes their suicide chooses this route.  

I’d like to make a plea to the Western world: Please do take the time to know your family and embrace them for who they are. Please recognize that while we can’t save everyone, we can support and help those within our reach. A smile, a hug, sincere concern, and understanding go a long way to stopping the flood that causes so many to cross over and reach for whatever they have that will end it forever.

Please Do!

Nov 4

2 Comments

Losing Our Villages

“Please, tell me what to do.” I’m hearing more and more of this from clients of many ages and generations. The first time I heard this, I didn’t think much of being asked this. By the time I’d heard it multiple times, I had to stop, and I had to ask myself why. Why was this coming up for people?

As I think about this, a few things emerge.

Being Young with No Life Experience

Adolescence is a proving ground. In this phase of life, we need to test the waters, try new things, discover ourselves, and make the crazy mistakes that cause family members to smile, laugh, and say “Oh, that kid!” Then they hug us, and we know that we’re loved, and that we can learn from our mistakes. We get up and move forward in life.

Failing Is an Option

When we test the waters of youth, we come to understand that maybe we don’t know it all, and that we might be less capable than we thought we were. We start asking questions.

Some parenting styles also set a person up to be expected to know what they can’t possibly know. This happens in many abusive situations where the child is told to perform tasks that are age-inappropriate, or where a dysfunctional parent forces a child to make sense of something they are not mature enough to understand the entire picture of what is needed, and how the world works. This can, and often does, cause trauma and leave emotional scarring that bleeds into adult life. People become crippled by not understanding what to do in any given situation.

Another issue here is that parents set their kids up to “succeed” at the cost of not allowing failure. If you never learn to get up after a bad fall, how are you going to know you can survive the survivable? The gift of being able to dust yourself off and to learn from mistakes is HUGE.

More and more people are coming to therapy with struggles that are not really struggles but that turn into struggles because they never learned in childhood.

Being told to go get a job when you’ve never learned how to get the job creates genuine difficulties for both teens and younger adults. The job market has changed since the time when our great-grandparents, grandparents, and parents had to go out and get their first jobs.

At one point in time, the job was in a family-owned business, on a farm, or a formal apprenticeship process. Now, farms are large, and fast food isn’t a person’s first job; many teens do neither fast food nor retail. They want to create their own jobs and a company. The trades are not attracting as many people, and soft skills dominate hard skills. Yes, it’s messed up! It has changed.

Falling down is still needful; poor job reviews and the learning that comes because of failure is a good life skill to possess. You still learn to ride a bike by mastering balance, and by falling down and getting back on the bike. Those that master the basics master the art of success in a healthy way.

Covid

I realize now that Covid really altered how children and younger adults do things. The shutdown of school and other common social areas where life skills are learned shattered expectations.

When you are young, you plan it all out, and you believe that the dance will come, and your friends will all gather for the Friday and Saturday night fun. There is a belief that it can all be yours. And then a worldwide pandemic sweeps in and sends us all scurrying to our favorite messaging platform; Zoom expanded like it never had before. While we could communicate, we could not gather as we had, and social skills were lost. Our sense of knowing what to do—our how to deal with life situations—got stomped on. This pandemic affected everyone. Common sense was questioned.

Overnight, the waitlist for therapy rose to new heights as people attempted to cope. Therapists were needing to work it out for themselves, and at the same time help others. The world sank into a sink hole of “HELP ME! WHAT DO I DO?” People who once had healthy self-confidence now questioned the world and how to successfully cope with basic life choices. It was during this time that I started seeing clients again. Several years of a grief journey that sent me into reframing my life in new ways altered how I did life. I had to rethink and struggle before the pandemic hit, and I saw how it was affecting people.

When I think about this, and how we learn to get through the hard things, it boils down to learning in childhood that a crisis can be dealt with by having community support. This is why a healthy family system is so important, and the family blends into community. It really does take a village to raise a child, and we’re losing our villages.

It is time to recreate functional families and the villages around them that will turn into supportive communities. Lately, this is what I tell clients to do.

A village and a family are made up of all ages and identities. We need our village elders, and even the village dreamer. The elders have lived it, and the dreamer creates the unthinkable and challenges the norms. A healthy elder advises wisely, and a healthy dreamer challenges our norms yet has common sense. The elders push for homeostasis, and the dreamer pushes the limits. We learn from both sides.

I don’t want to see either the elder or the dreamer not be present in our learning process. 

There was a time when villages also had the religious, the spiritual, the skeptic, and the atheist, and everyone else in between. It seems that the village makeup is shifting, and I’m thinking we need it all. We need it all, and we need it to be healthy. We’re losing our balance and, with it, the ability to understand how to cope with basic life situations.

Elders and dreamers and everything in between teach us how to discover for ourselves what we need to do to get up and do it better the next time around. It is the circle of life.

Oct 21

1 Comment

Healing and Icebergs

I stand in an empty place. The battlement and castle that once stood as a fortress have been carried off to a place of full discharge. There are no loyal soldiers here anymore. They’ve been honorably discharged, and they served well.

It is a peaceful feeling to have said goodbye to all of them; they were tired and in need of the rest of the valiant warriors they were.

At the beginning of the discharge process, I was sent something by my therapist, and it made me cry. It felt safe, and as if the process I was about to undergo was one of healing. It describes the therapy process well, and it fits my way of thinking. I’ve fallen into a mad crush with the iceberg, and I have my own whimsical vision of what she looks like. I want you to know about this gem of a description of therapy, and so, I’ll share it here.

THE ICEBERG

A tale of therapy

Author unknown

Once upon a time, in a place at the end of the earth, there lived an iceberg. The iceberg was quite a small one, part of a much larger one from which she had broken away and floated free in the cold water.

Sometimes she found herself brushing up against other icebergs, but she learned to steer clear after a particularly painful bump during a patch of stormy weather. On the whole, she managed to stay out of trouble, watching the weather carefully and adjusting her course to suit the conditions. She was weary and lonely and wanted to find a place where she could be with other icebergs who wouldn’t hurt her and where she could relax a bit.

Now we all know about icebergs and how that part that shows above the water is only a very small part of the whole. This particular iceberg was bright on the surface, and when the sun shone on her, she sparkled and twinkled and danced about on the water, bobbing up and down as if she didn’t have a care in the world.  This was the part that showed above the water, but below there was a great weight of ice into which lots of debris had become frozen. All the flotsam and jetsam of her own and other people’s lives had become entangled and was firmly lodged into this heavy submerged part; it was slowly dragging the tiny tip of the iceberg right under the water. Steering herself had become more and more difficult and dangerous.

Then one day the iceberg found a small sheltered bay on the edge of the land and she floated into it without even realizing where she was going. She just felt she was safe at last and able to stop worrying about bumping into other icebergs for a while. She rested herself and basked in the warmth of the sun that shone on her. When night came, she thought that she would find that she had floated out again into the dangerous waters, and every new day, when the sun came out again, she marvelled at it and wondered if it could possibly last. And it did.

After some time, she really began to trust the constancy of the sun and found that she didn’t need to worry about it anymore. Sometimes a cloud passed in front of the sun, but it soon passed and afterwards the sun seemed all the warmer by comparison.

The longer she stayed in the sheltered bay, the warmer the water became, and then a strange thing began to happen. The edge of the ice beneath the water began to melt, freeing some of the debris trapped in it. Every day the sun shone, and the ice melted a little more. The iceberg watched in amazement as bits floated to the surface; she realized that these were bits of herself that had been submerged for a long time, causing her to feel so heavy, dragging her down. She began to understand why things had been so difficult for her, and she was glad to watch the rubbish drifting away into the wider waters.

The sun’s warmth had also changed the bit of iceberg that showed above the water. The great deep, jagged clefts etched down her sides had been smoothed away by the great rivers of water that streamed down her as she watched the debris floating to the surface. The tip of the iceberg, instead of becoming smaller, had actually become larger as more of herself showed above the water, freed of entanglements.

This affected the iceberg in different ways. At first she found it hard to recognize herself and she wondered if the other icebergs would know her, or if they would notice a change in her. She wondered if her new size would cause her problems when she went back into the wider waters, and if she would be able to steer clear of the other icebergs in quite the same way. But then she realised that, now that she was bigger, she would not need to be so fearful of being bumped or hurt. And, being free of the debris, she would be able to steer more easily and have more choice about the directions in which she moved. She was less likely to be dragged down or tipped over, even if she did occasionally bump into other icebergs. She began to feel more whole, as though the part below the water was less separate from her.

Although there were still some bits of rubbish frozen into her submerged parts, at least she knew they were there and how they might affect her, and that, in time, they, too, might work free and float away. Now, it may seem that all this happened a little too easily, but it was not so. Whilst the iceberg basked in the sun after first finding the sheltered bay, there was a lot of turbulence beneath the surface, and the iceberg was very anxious, not knowing exactly what was going on down below. At times she was frightened of the degree of agitation in the waters and wondered if she would be able to maintain her balance. But all the time the sun kept shining, and that reassured and comforted her and made her feel that, whatever was going on beneath the waters, all was still well above.

When the iceberg had melted enough to free the debris, the disturbed particles began to hurt as they broke free, and the pain was worse as the icy numbness dissolved away. The iceberg was dismayed when she recognized some of the debris that had floated to the surface: bits she didn’t want to see; bits she had forgotten she had picked up on dark and stormy nights; bits she was frightened about and with which she wished she had never come into contact. But she had to admit, they were all parts of her, whether she liked them or not. And the sun still shone.

The sun shone on the good bits and the sun shone on the bad bits; somehow that made the iceberg feel as though things couldn’t be so bad after all. Some of the bad bits didn’t belong to her at all, but were parts of the larger iceberg from which she had broken away. As the debris floated in the water around the iceberg and the sun shone on them, she was able to look at them more closely and see how they had been harming her. She allowed herself to feel angry about the bits that had been attached to her by others and that she had thought were hers. She had always realised something was there, weighing her down, but she had not known what to do about it. Some of the rubbish might even be quite useful, like lots of flotsam washed up on the shore, useful at another time, in another place. It had made her the shape she was and now her shape had changed to something that was much more her own.

The iceberg looked out towards the wider waters and wondered if it was time to risk herself out there. She knew the sun that warmed her would still be shining down on her, and that it did not only shine on the sheltered bay. She still needed the sun and the wind and the rain in order to be fully aware of living, experiencing, and growing.

She felt the breeze stirring around her, tugging gently at her, and she let herself go, with new hope and courage, out into the wider waters.

Oct 14

Pearls

When I was a child, my mother and I went to the Japanese cultural center in San Francisco, and I selected an oyster that had a black pearl inside. Eventually, that pearl was turned into a necklace. My understanding of how pearls are made increased, and I found I related to the pearl in many ways.

As a child, I loved to look at my mother’s pearls, and I enjoyed the box they were laid out in. The pearls lay in a spiral, and I thought they were beautiful. On my wedding weekend, it was those very pearls that made up the “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.” The blue were the shoes and the bow on the dress. The borrowed and old were the same things: the pearls. I would inherit her pearls a few years later.

I had purchased my own pearls when I was single, but her pearls had deep meaning to me.

Then there were the engagement pearls: a necklace and a set of earrings and a pearl I had for an engagement ring. The earrings became a part of me and were my favorite things to wear most days. They were a constant reminder of the journey I had taken, and was still continuing on, in my self-discovery. 

During the past few months, as I’ve rediscovered who I am in this phase of my life, I’ve found that my pearl earrings are a reminder of the me I was and the new self I’m evolving into. Discharging loyal soldiers is hard work. I’m finding that, with the healthy goodbyes, there are also some refreshing old yet new hellos. The pearls that had been an old “Gail wardrobe standard” are now a new reminder of the strength that comes from taking it all down and rebuilding. Last week the call within my heart to wear the pearls again could not be ignored.

Engaging in life, with its many colors and possibilities, is a delightful journey, though sometimes we’d rather wish it away and stay cozy in our beds.

The downside of the process I’ve been engaged in is that I must rediscover and claim parts of myself that I haven’t wanted to see and live with.

The upside of discovering the self for the next new time is that it is liberating. It’s kind of like going grey when you’ve been coloring your hair, and you think, “Why didn’t I do this sooner?” We go grey when we’re ready to reveal that part of ourselves. Freedom from the bottle is a liberating experience.

The journey from where I was to where I am now has softened me, taught me patience with others, and enabled me to be called out on my stuff in new ways. We deconstruct and reconstruct in wonderful new ways.

My pearls have been with me for most of my life, and I don’t think I’d want to be without the message they remind me of. Our lives generate the stuff of pearls in all their colors and splendor. I’m glad I have all my pearls, and the memories they hold for me.

Oct 7

When (Revisit)

Originally posted on March 30, 2020.

“Mommy, are we there yet?”

The woman in the front seat of the car is fighting the urge to turn around and duct-tape her child’s mouth shut—permanently. This phenomenon has happened on every long journey since time immemorial. Then the mother has this flash in her mind that carries her back to the beginning of time and particles smashing together. Maybe it even happened with the sludge of the universe as the Big Bang occurred. Imagine two atoms: “Are we there yet? Are we done yet? Can we get on with the Paleozoic Era?” But, duct-taping them would have caused a disaster. She smiles to herself instead and continues to focus on the road ahead.

Maybe in the grand scheme of the cosmos, delayed gratification is one of the great laws. The universe took the time it needed to come to its present state. That can teach us something. The universe was formed with only what it had on hand from the first moment all things slammed together and all things followed in order. No credit here. It waited. The universe used its resources where it needed them, when it was ready for each new phase.

Let’s face it: Putting pleasurable stuff off is a drag, but a necessary drag. Delayed gratification is about learning to respect the journey. Delaying gratification is about knowing that you can never have it all, instantly. Delaying gratification is about learning to work for what you want—waiting for the good stuff until you can get it in a healthy fashion.

But isn’t that a myth? You well remember that last flick that showed someone having it all: the big house, expensive car, fashionable wardrobe, fulfilling job, loving family and friends, and, let’s not forget—physical beauty. But, it rarely comes instantly. Real success, like the universe we live in, is painstakingly forged one item at a time. Yet, today, there are those who can’t wait. Saving is a thing of the past. Sorting out needs from wants is becoming blurred.

Remember childhood with its lazy times of fun and exploration? If you are old enough to have been raised during a time when play was really creative and done outdoors, you perhaps remember when books were a passage into another world (and not instantly made into movies), and TV was something that you watched for very few hours weekly. If your childhood was like this, then you are one of those who learned a valued lesson: doing fun things takes planning and time.

It is also highly probable that chores and learning to work were a natural part of your life. You had to save for what you purchased. I remember going to the store to purchase some shoes I’d saved for. For weeks I walked by that store window and looked at those slingbacks. Getting them made me feel “adult” and responsible. I earned those shoes. I wore them out proudly, had them repaired, and continued to wear them out.

For each of us the lesson is different: Anticipation is a good thing. Anticipation makes the gift we are receiving more intriguing, the new dress more exciting, and the new car that we saved up for more valuable. Anticipation gives a deeper meaning to most things we have and desire. There is a type of magic to working for something. Keeping it becomes valuable to you because to discard it when it still works means that you are discarding your hard work. Tossing it out just to get the latest thing can be an issue.

As I think of all the technology that has evolved since I was a kid, I remember that sunny, July day when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin touched down on the moon and life as we then knew it was altered. The moment was electric. Now it seems that much of the “electric” has gone out of innovation and progress. Progress is a constant in an advanced society. More and more, having it all instantly is a must. Trading up for the latest in tech, when the old is still of value, is common. To suggest that you keep what you have might be heresy. It is about having the latest and dumping the old. There is a rush on to have it all NOW with no waiting period.

We now have smartphones, smart drugs, and smarter cars, and yet we have not become any smarter ourselves. While results are faster, we as humans are still finite. We live through our technology. We live, thinking and feeling as if all answers must come fast, as if deeper thought should somehow be instant. We want that insight NOW, rather than being willing to let life teach us. We might even become impatient when our first few searches on Google fail to turn up what we need. Searching shouldn’t take us so much time. Why can’t we get it faster? Well, searching on Google is hard work, that’s why. Finding the correct answer does take some deeper looking and heavier reading. In the process you might conclude that there is not a perfect, or good enough, answer to your search, and that maybe it DOESN’T exist out there in cyberspace.

Remember when science was supposed to save us? Remember when the Peace Movement was the answer to conflict? Remember when autonomy was the answer to authority? I think we need to reread The Glory and The Dream by William Raymond Manchester.

Maybe we as a world need duct tape on our gratification instincts. Okay, that is an eensy, weensy, bit extreme. Or is it?

I have taken up baking. It is wonderful to create something that comes out of the oven and is warm and yummy. The fact is that baking demands that you wait. There is a proper time when eating will bring the desired pleasures of good food. Just think of something you love melting in your mouth and your brain will light up in anticipation. Your mouth might begin to prepare for the pleasure as you read this. BUT, you have to work to make it, so you had better make lots of it to enjoy!!!! Yikes!! I want to eat those scones I plan to bake for Saturday, but I want them right now!!!

The whole idea for this commentary came from a conversation I had with someone about the guide dog I’m working on getting. I’ve been in this process since 2010. At this point, I just want to move on. I’ve had to think about whether I’m ready, or even wanting, to move forward, because I can’t wait. Like the universe, I have had to work with raw thoughts. I’ve had to shape and train them. Crossing the street in safer places has become a must. Thinking about HOW I’ll do it and memorizing routes takes time. Learning the train stations and bus stations has been fun, but I’m glad I’m past that.

I’ve had to reevaluate my established walking routes, my future needs, and the needs of our cat, Penelope, who will have to welcome a dog into the house. Getting this dog is life changing, and making the correct choice at the right time is important for our family.

I’ve spent 15 months in Apeldoorn learning what things that I’ve needed, and lacked. While I was in Apeldoorn, I was also able to observe others with dogs. My process is of more value because of all of this. While I don’t want to rush things, I feel the time has come to move things along. It isn’t about “when” but rather about the process and how secure I feel with it.

Childhood is all about “getting there.” Young adulthood seems to be moving in the direction of attempting to get it as fast as possible and show it off. Eventually there comes a time in life when you reach “wisdom,” or the point when you accept that you never will fully have everything you think you need, but that you can have the “needful things.” The journey is what it is all about. Saving up for the good stuff is where the greatest reward lies. Understanding our real needs and allowing ourselves to have wants that might become realities brings peace through expectation.

“Mommy, are we EVER going to get there?”

“Yes honey, count the green and red cars, and tell me how many you can find.” I’ll be content to count the red and green cars until the doggy enters my life. I hope it is sooner than later because I feel better about “it” coming into my life now.

*Note: The dog turned out to be a no go.

Oct 1

I Suppose (Revisit)

Originally posted on July 10, 2023.

Before me is a blank document. What do I put on the page? This time of year used to be gentle; it has become hard. What were once simple lazy days with blue skies have become days of reflection and wondering. I tend to review, explore and wonder where I am now compared to the last year. I suppose that surviving a suicide of a husband will do that to you. I realize that his suicide freed him from a very painful life, and it presented me with a rare gift.

I am not shocked or upset by this thought. He gave me the ability to move forward myself. I was given the time and freedom to explore our relationship in ways I couldn’t do when he was alive. I was an innocent when we got together.

Before I met Jon, I didn’t understand that you could doubt or question someone’s love. Yes, I got that there was love that is dysfunctional: manipulation masking as love, and love that I had not seen. In my life, and in my mind, love was gentle. My relationship with Jon educated me in new ways. 

Relationships teach us the good, bad, and questionable things about ourselves. Living under the same roof brings with it challenges and a need for commitment to the process of growth. If there is one thing that enabled our relationship to last, it was a commitment to growth and exploring the hard things together.

Sometimes we couldn’t resolve an issue in a day, and that was OK. Being in hard places is good for growth and exploration. I learned to become more adept at remaining open to the long-term solution. There are things that only time and deep insight can resolve, and the commitment to do the work “until” is essential to making it work.

The best counsel I got from his psychiatrist was to give him space. OK, I needed to give myself space too. Walking away enabled us to resolve issues faster. I’m thankful for this knowledge, and the gift that it is.

There were times when I wondered if he could love me. The bipolar cut into him in ways that he couldn’t even express. His upbringing cut into his soul in other ways. My heart ached for the both of us at times. After his death, the love question surfaced, and I knew I’d have to face it.

There is a time in the grief process when it all gets put on the chopping block. It all has to go on the block. It is the deep work of grief and the exploration of the shadows that we hide from. If we’re willing to do the hard work of grief, we must extract the ugly, unpleasant stuff and dive in. This is where many stop their work. It is ugly and messy, and do “I” really want to face this truth? My innocence committed me to explore this place of shadows. Sometimes innocence is a great motivator.

Some couples do this hard exploration while they are together in life, and some widows or widowers are forced to do this difficult exploration after the death, and before moving into a new relationship. I had to cross into this place after, and I’m glad I did. My willingness to do the work didn’t make it any easier. I’ve always invested in self-improvement and growth.

What bipolar takes from relationships is debatable and unique to each person. It took my innocence. In saying that, I’ve had to admit that while I love Jon, he opened my eyes to a very dark side of the world. I would not have chosen to go into the dark abyss of a hell few can explain, and fewer still can understand, and yet I went, and I find that I don’t regret the journey to this place. It is a gift I wasn’t looking for, and I’m richer for having taken the time to open this gift.

The gift of knowing you are loved comes in many forms. In the first few years after his death, my reflections led me to explore the “he didn’t love me” side of things. Sitting with the doubt, the hurt of things done, and understanding who he was deep within, moved me to the place of love. I came to a realization that through all of it he tried his best, and so did I. There was love in the tiny things he tried to do. There was love in the sneaky things he pulled off; there was love in the gifts he thoughtfully gave, and in a mixed-up way, even in the way he ended his life. In that velvet way, I didn’t even notice the change I’d made in my thinking. Wow!

When I think about what it means to show love in deep ways, he did his best to do that. I accept what he wasn’t capable of doing. I can also view my side of things with more realism. I can take responsibility for the failures and the successes of my part of the relationship, and some of it hurts.

I suppose this journey is about being able to find the deep peace that I’ve needed to put things to rest. Coming to this knowing also brings up the fact that nothing is ever at an end point. Only the final eye closure can and will bring things to an end.

I find that I’m standing taller; I’m wiser, and at the same time I question more.

As I pass into this new place where the gifts are for opening and exploring, I turn, look back, and realize that the lazy summers of exploration have gifted me some cloud-filled summer days. I suppose that’s just fine.

Sep 23

1 Comment

Dear Helpful Soul (Revisit)

Originally posted on October 24, 2022.

Dear helpful soul,

I realize that when you see me at a street crossing, you want to take my arm, tell me it is clear to cross, or even help me to cross the street. Your kindness, while well meaning, is not appreciated. I’ll explain why this isn’t helpful, or needed.

I’ve been living with disability my entire life. For many within the disabled community, this has been our situation. For some who are disabled because of illness or injury, this is not the situation. Their journey into disability might be more traumatic. They may slowly lose function in an area of their body, wake up one morning to the horror of lost capacity, or find themselves in a hospital bed with a missing limb. Many of us, if not all of us, within the disabled community deal with trauma surrounding the disability, and some must cope with ongoing trauma due to a gradual loss of even more function. Imagine someone with Usher Syndrome, who faces this on a daily basis. When sight or hearing can disappear, or you watch as you see less each day, or can’t tell what is gone until there is a radical difference, it is traumatizing.

Trauma may look different for the disabled. Please, ask and listen to understand. Someone may seem to be reacting abnormally when it is normal for their circumstances. When someone lives with ongoing events that are traumatic, and treatment for the trauma doesn’t completely solve the problem, cut them some slack. They may need it.

In most of the above situations, the journey of learning to live again may take a person to a rehab center. My journey into a rehab center began with the realization that I’d lost more vision and couldn’t see as I once had been able to see. I was down to twelve percent of my vision. For me, rehab was about learning better ways of doing things, using less of my vision, and confronting myself in a new way. I’d spent most of my life trying to fit into mainstream when I didn’t fit into a mainstreamed situation. I had to come to an understanding that now, more than ever, I had to embrace new ways of doing most things. When I think of leaving my home without my cane, I cringe and know I’m not safe without it.

Why do I need a cane? At first, I thought the need for the white cane was to enable me to navigate tricky spaces. I understood that I needed the help at night, but why did I need it in daylight? The longer I used the cane, the more I became aware of a few things. The cane let me sense areas to stay away from, such as sand or gravel. Both sand and gravel do not allow me to feel what I need to feel underfoot. I need to avoid both sand and gravel because I could slip and fall. The same scenario goes for ice and snow.

The cane also serves as a warning to others that I’m not going to see you clearly. I may not see you at all because you are out of my field of vision. People need to be prepared to take evasive action to get out of my way! This brings me to my first gripe: anyone on their phone and not tuned into their environment. Do you want me to collide with you? No, you don’t. Prevent this by walking with 100 percent of your attention on the task of navigating the space you are presently in. Having had several close calls with people who have been inattentive to their environments, I know it would be appreciated by so many. We don’t want to injure you or become injured by you. While you may not be driving, you are navigating spaces, some of which are very crowded. Please look out for oncoming people because if you don’t, someone might say something like “Watch where you’re going!” to you. They’re correct in saying this to you! Your phone can wait, and if it can’t, then move to a safe space to focus on what you need to do.

If you feel I’m being harsh, I’m attempting to protect myself in an environment that isn’t always friendly to me because I can’t see everything.   

Offering Assistance

Here’s some handy advice on assisting those with visual disabilities. You’re at a street crossing where there is no signal. You can see that the traffic is nonstop (the visually impaired person may be using their hearing to know when to cross). You also see that there are gaps that would be difficult for the disabled person, even though you could make it to the other side rapidly. You could make the offer of assistance in this way: “Wow, this traffic isn’t going to slow to let you cross easily. Would it be helpful to you if I assisted you to make a faster crossing to where we need to get?” If they say yes to this question, ask them how they want you to walk with them. This approach places the disabled person in the position of accepting or declining, and it comes with a reason for the offer. It is good help that may be very much accepted and causes us to accept the offer because it isn’t a rescue, allowing us to remain dignified—and that is a win for everyone! If we’re at a signal with a walk feature, we don’t need your help.

Speech and Hearing

Imagine not being able to hear clearly. When you can’t hear clearly enough to distinguish a D from a T or and S from an F, or other consonants and vowels, the life of a hearing-impaired person becomes stressful. 

Imagine trying to spell words that you can’t hear properly. Imagine not being able to pronounce those words properly. Add the challenge of uncertainty when you’re not sure if the word you heard spoken was “who” or “shoe.” The conversation becomes draining, confusing, and if you’re in a crowded room, it can become difficult. Social situations can become a challenge. For those with a hearing loss, the issue may be about isolating as best one can. 

While at the rehab center, those who dealt with the added hearing loss gave voice to the difficulty of hearing in the crowded dining area. I spoke with staff about not being able to enjoy the mealtime, and the need to engage in conversation at the table. No one had spoken up about this issue before. I was asked for solutions. First, I was isolated. That didn’t work. I didn’t want to eat alone. The next step was to ask others in this situation if they were experiencing this. “Yes, I am!” This was the common response. The next step was to reserve a table for us. This table was on the edge of the dining area. Nope, that didn’t work. Then they put us on the other side of the space. They were hoping the distance would solve the problem. Distance didn’t work as the noise trickled into our space, and it was difficult to filter it out. When I left, they were still working on the situation.

I’m faced with the fact that I need to semi-isolate in social situations or avoid them altogether. I’ve tried it both ways, and enclosed social situations with heavy noise levels are a pass for me.

I’ve been in The Netherlands for over twenty years now. I’ve tried to learn to speak and hear Dutch. It has been a challenge to learn a second language with a hearing loss. For the most part I try my best to converse in Dutch, and for the most part people are polite. Then there are the ones that judge and condemn. I’m told it is my fault that I can’t speak this language fluently at this point in my residency. The people who respond to me negatively are few in number, and to them all I can say is that given my situation, I do my best. Don’t judge until you understand that hearing is my challenge.

So, helpful soul, please listen for understanding. Understand that I know what I need, and above all treat me, and my disabled brothers and sisters, with respect. We’re having to face this every time we step out of our front doors. Cut us some slack, please.

Sep 18

In Hearts, Homes, and around the Table

When I was growing up and attending church as a child, there was a song we sang that had the line “kindness begins with me” in it. For much of my life, the act of simple kindness was not something I experienced. In the past few years, this has changed.

Since my fall in February that resulted in a broken femur, I’ve had the experience of kindness. It might also be possible that I’m more open to such acts now.

Maybe I’ve healed enough to allow kindness into my life. Maybe I’ve softened. Or maybe I have drawn people in that are kind. Whatever the reason for all of this is, I’m willing to accept it, and explore it.

As a disabled child and younger adult, I was faced with people who were less than understanding, and who didn’t understand my abilities and saw only what they felt I couldn’t do. Not having a fully abled body does not mean I am not fully capable. Being treated as such really hurts the soul.

I’m coming to believe that kindness is an attitude that we both learn and come to understanding within ourselves, and our own motivation for behaving in a kind manner.

There are some people who are naturally willing to give of themselves to others. The compassion switch gets turned on at a young age because they are raised to notice people in need. There are others who learn to offer help because they feel that is the proper thing to do. Another group of people I’ve come to know have a desire to give and serve others because they’ve developed gratitude and also thankfulness for what they’ve been given. The result is that they want others to enjoy the pleasures of life in simple ways.

I grew up in a household where we were taught to give to others because they had less. While that is all well and good, it builds an attitude of privilege that is not healthy.

Since my fall, I’ve encountered small acts of kindness that have caused me to grow into being kind because I want to see others receive from me what I can give to them. Sometimes I’m sneaky about it, and at other times I’m learning to offer and allow the offer to be accepted or rejected.

I think about things that have happened to me.

A recruiter could have but didn’t blow me off when I needed extra assistance to get onboard with a new contractor. A home health care worker made sure I had what I needed when I needed it so that I could work from my home. A nurse took the extra time to come in and show kindness when she could have been in someone else’s room. A guy paid for a meal before I could get my card out to pay for it. People didn’t complain when I was walking in unfamiliar areas and had to go slower. They chose to walk behind instead of pass me.

Kindness is a simple act: a smile, a friendly hello, the offer of a glass of water or other drink. Kindness is radical hospitality at its best.

Kindness comes from the heart, and it begins in homes. It begins around the table where we laugh, cry, share, and come to understandings that we haven’t experienced before.

Kindness is an art and a way of being. It begins with one person deciding that today they will go out and make their community a better place by doing something simple for others.

Kindness enables us to build stronger homes, communities, and lives, and it is not always easy but well worth the effort. It begins in our hearts.

Sep 2

Three Minutes

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The summers come and pass into falls; the ground hardens, and winter calls the earth into its slumber. Awake, and come forth out of the ground, sweet spring! The cycle continues. And so it goes with grief. We spiral through the cycles of the years. With time, the tears change in quality and quantity, until one day, when we least expect it, we notice ourselves standing on new shores and feeling new emotions.

The longer I move forward, and as the years fade one to another, I realize that if I’m doing this well enough, I’ll find myself challenged in new ways. At the beginning I thought the process of grief was to arrive on the new shore and celebrate something. The something to be celebrated never came. What I came to understand was that doing grief well enough is not for wimps.

The further out I move from what happened eight years ago, the more I find myself in the forest of uncertainty. That place where the monsters of exploration and uncertainty dwell. In a strange and surprising way, this summer gifted me with sanctuary. I wasn’t expecting any of what has happened in my grief journey this summer.

Three minutes of my life have affected me for eight years. In July of 2023, a sequence of events began to unfold in my life that set me in motion towards resolving three minutes of a conversation that had scared and wounded me in a way I’d never been hurt before. I’m healing from his suicide in a way I could not have imagined a year ago.

I tell people that there is grief, and that all grief is difficult, and some of it is filled with unexpected trauma because life is not predictable in any way. We may not see a death coming. We don’t see a person who exits life by suicide coming. They’ve done the unthinkable. They thought of it and carried a plan out. We’re left with a puzzle. Why?

If they left a note, it explains their thinking, or sometimes the lack thereof. Jon left several notes, and they did explain the why. It has taken me eight years to unravel the crazy of the last three minutes of our life together.

He was sick, and while I was in the room with him in that moment in time, I didn’t understand just how sick he really was.

Healing this wound has required me to examine our relationship, and it has led me to a place of forgiveness for the last three minutes of our married life. Forgiveness should never be done without thought. When we forgive, it doesn’t mean that we won’t remember what happened. We’re human, and humans can’t forget things. In time the pain can fade; the relationship can heal to something new. You can’t go back. That will never work.

Forgiveness is about being able to move forward with a new understanding and a new normal. It is about seeing an old rainbow in new ways. Forgiving is about growth and understanding by all parties involved. It is about authentic acceptance on both sides. It is also about realizing that the other involved person or persons may never be able to get to a place of doing authentic forgiveness.

There are reasons why someone may not ever be able to authentically forgive, and so the process backfires:

  • They are being rushed or pressured to move to the “forgive me or forgive someone else” place.
  • The religious may see forgiveness as a sign of healing and progression and lack the insight and understand that this can only happen when enough healing has occurred.
  • “Hug your brother or sister and say you’re sorry.” This one is a doozy! What this actually teaches children is that they don’t really need to think about the wrong they’ve done if they do an action and say two words. 
  • Forgiveness stems from our hearts and souls and has a spiritual base. 

There are also readiness factors for accepting someone’s apology:

  • Has enough personal work been done on the receiving end so that the matter can be discussed and resolved?
  • Is there clarity about how the new relationship will move forward? Have the appropriate changes been made?
  • Is there understanding that a new trust will need to be earned, and that trust takes time to build?
  • Can both parties agree to work on the trust in in an open manner?

Jon isn’t here for me to talk this out with him. I understand now just how sick he was, and that those three minutes of my life happened due to the fact that he was in unspeakable pain. If he were here, I’d now accept his words asking for forgiveness, and the relationship would move forward with new understanding, and we’d both grow. Today I miss Jon.

Aug 26

Reaching towards the Sun

I ended a recent post with these words: “Maybe a candle will be lit, a chocolate offered, a sunflower presented as a means of closure on this chapter of my life. Maybe a new dress? I know it will be meaningful to me, and to what the future can bring. I’m beginning to cry just thinking about it, and that’s a sign I’m on the right path.”

As I stepped away from writing that post, my heart was full. It’s been a very long journey, and it is ending in being able to say goodbye to the old, and welcoming in something new. Discharging the warriors of the past has been a labor of both love and pain. I wasn’t certain where I’d be led to in future days.

I’m choosing to say goodbye slowly and treating each warrior with respect, cutting them some slack for the hard work they did in my life. I’m welcoming them all in with open arms, and dismissing them with love in my heart. To do less would be to dishonor the process of the discharge, and myself. I needed them to stand for me when I couldn’t stand for myself through painful times.

I’m discovering that, in saying goodbye to the old in my life, I’m also saying goodbye to old things that served the process of defending me, thereby preventing me from moving forward. One such thing is podcasts that I no longer need to listen to. And so, after sitting with the concept of not needing them, I unsubscribed. The algorithms will show them for a bit and, in time, these unneeded coping tools will fade away.

Doing the deep work of the soul is also about accepting the birth of new things in my life. This work takes us into the liminal or thin spaces. You will find it spoken about by Richard Rohr and other authors.

I’m in the process of replacing some plants. I’m discovering that what I might want now is far different because of the change in my life direction. This change is opening me up to new ideas and new colors. The cool colors of the past need to be greeted by warmth along the fences of my garden. I want the colors to embrace me. I think it is about the sunflowers that have become a place of connecting in spiritual ways. I first considered them as spiritual friends after reading Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire: The Christian Practice of Praying with the Elements by Christine Valters Paintner. She took me on a journey to places I hadn’t been before, and I engaged with the sunflowers.

Deep Shadow Work

I believe that if I haven’t done my own deep work, I won’t be effective with those I work with. You can’t ask someone to heal wounds that you haven’t looked inside yourself to heal. You may not have the exact same issues, but everyone has wounds and, left unchecked, they cause problems for us. Henri Nouwen wrote on the wounded in The Wounded Healer. Nouwen had his own set of challenges. This priest found rest in his own way, and by doing his own soul work. His writing is telling.

What I understand is that one of the most powerful places we can dwell in is the place of uncertainty. When you don’t have all the answers for all the things everyone wants answers for, it brings a sense of humility to our lives. Saying “I don’t know” may be the wisest thing we can say. I can tell my clients that I can lead them to healing. They have to do the work and discover their own answers.

Engaging our shadow side brings us knowledge and understanding of ourselves that we can’t bring to the surface in any other way. We are also faced with the reality that there isn’t much we know because we’ve just dug deep into the ground of ourselves and unearthed our deepest truths. This place leads us into the liminal places that cause us to rethink it all.

Not knowing is a gift not only to ourselves—it is a gift for others. As we engage with others and have the attitude that we’re open to learning their truth, we add to our knowledge base and maybe recognize within ourselves a portion of our own truth that had been blocked by our arrogant knowing.   

Having written “Solidiers of the Mind: Honorable Discharge,” I find myself sitting in the quietness of more uncertainty. I find myself asking who or what will show up in my garden to teach me something I need to learn. I think I instinctively knew that sunflowers needed to become a symbol in this process. And so, I will reach towards the sun.

Aug 20

Chasing the Fly (Revisit)

Originally posted on June 12, 2023.

I’ve been wondering why there is a rise in stress and anxiety among younger adults. At first, I thought it was because they didn’t learn to play and create as my generation had done. That is one part of the problem. Then I noticed the influence of marketing on these kids. Maybe, and maybe not. As I dug deeper, there was a realization that in competition everyone had to get a trophy, and be special. The topper was the safety issue. When we can’t hear opposing views, something is terribly wrong. Yes, this is going to be a wild post. 

The last few weeks, parents have been posting on Facebook about their kid graduating from kindergarten. KINDERGARTEN!!!!! Get real, people. When, and how, did this become a thing? Personally, I think it’s a retail scam, kind of like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Let’s promote buying something, and don’t forget “Black Friday,” which has now left the U.S. and is doing a migration to Europe. But I digress. Back to what is going on here: adults with anxiety, teens, tweens, and kids with anxiety and depression. Oh, I won’t go down that rabbit hole. 

My thoughts wandered to a question that couldn’t stay buried in the rubble of the mind: Have people become so set on getting ahead and providing all good things that all good things are becoming lost on the way to the getting of them? (I need Bill Bryson to do the research on this and put it in a book so that I can synthesize it and digest how we got to this topsy-turvy place on this hot rock of ours.)

Then my editor told me about Jonathan Haidt. His research is brilliant. I spent the weekend devouring two of his books. They provided some grounded answers along with some thought-provoking questions. 

I think of parents over-scheduling children and not allowing time for relaxation, creativity, and free play. Sorry, people, “play dates” are not free play. There you have it!!!! Play dates!!!! OK, so I’m from a different generation when kids did really crazy things, like when we went to our friends’ homes on the spur of the moment because we could walk or ride our bikes there. When my mother called my friend’s mother, telling her that my friend’s brother had fallen out of the tree at my home, her mother yelled at us to “stay in the house, don’t go outside until I get back!!!!” Yes, George had a broken arm; Jenny and I remained at her place, and our mothers remained calm but concerned. We understood that play had its risks, and falling out of a tree or falling off a bike were some of the risks we took. About a year later, I was the injured person. While at a friend’s home, I broke my collar bone. Life happens. We didn’t stop doing creative things. We explored and discovered things about life. When riding down a steep slope, you must slow the bike and not fly over the handlebars. I rode the bike to my friend’s home, where her mother took a look at things. Yup, I needed a doctor for this one. It hurt. I was OK, and I’d be out of play for a bit.   

This brings me to the thought that we’re sending the wrong message to children now. Life isn’t safe. There should be healthy conflict and exploration in our upbringing. We should be teaching children to explore new things and new places. They need to discuss all sides of an argument and search out opposing points of view. Are we learning to think? Are our children and grandchildren learning to think? 

In 1999 my husband and I accepted a job assignment in Germany. We risked and stayed here in Europe. I didn’t know what I’d be facing as a disabled person here in Europe. What I found was a freedom I’d never had before. In 2016 I made the choice to remain here as a widow. It’s been a challenge, and I’m glad I’ve done it. It was a risk that has been stressful at times but worth the life balance I have because I chose to remain here. My childhood of roaming free, playing freely, and learning from it all provided some useful building blocks. 

During the last thirty years, some of those freedoms have come and gone for many children. In 2018, Utah, followed by Oklahoma and Texas, passed “free range” laws that restore the rights of parents and children to be on their own, just as I was when I was younger. It will be interesting to follow children in these states as they mature. Will these kids display lower levels of anxiety and depression? Will they be capable of riding a bus on their own? Will they know more of their neighborhoods? Will these laws get kids outdoors? Will they exercise more, and will obesity in children decline?  

Will children begin to have less homework and more free time to create?  

When I think about why I began to write this over a week ago, I realize that I want children to experience the fun and delight to be had in life. Remember the Dr. Seuss book Oh, the Places You’ll Go? If children can go to wonderful places, will things become better for them? Will depression and anxiety levels lower both in schools and homes? This would be great for children, and yes—bad for all the pill pushers hoping to get parents thinking that their kids need drugs when they may not need them. Before you scream, I’m pro wise use of medication if it’s needed. To quote one of my favorite books from childhood, and a book that takes the reader on an adventure with a boy and a fly: 

“I sat at the lake. 

I looked at the sky, 

And as I looked,

A fly went by.” 

(From Mike McClintock’s A Fly Went By.)

My hope and wish is that children will once again have life adventures where they will learn, explore, question, and connect with life in real ways. Let them sit by the lake and chase a fly.

Aug 12

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Soldiers of the Mind, Part 2: Honorable Discharge

Continued from Soldiers of the Mind, Part 1: Walking the Battlements.

As I write this days after my therapy session, and having sat with my thoughts, I still don’t know how I will discharge this soldier that defended me from something that wasn’t mine to defend. Decades of living, and I realize now I held on to an order of defense that wasn’t mine at all but had gotten routed to me by others who failed to soldier properly.  

Why hadn’t logic and reason won out in this situation? In moments of reflection, I felt relief. I hadn’t seen things in the proper perspective. I kept thinking at lightning speed that I knew better! No, I didn’t. Not really. 

How Our Soldiers Trick Us

The lie I was telling myself was that I needed to protect the people who should have been protecting me, and who failed to listen to the child and young adult in a vulnerable position. My own inner warrior was hurt, angry, and tired of carrying something that wasn’t mine to carry. This heavy backpack had been placed on me at a young age by people who turned their heads instead of seeing the wounded.

Here I was, in a war of the mind because I had not been able to let go and say that it wasn’t my responsibility to defend. As I write this, I’m angry. I’m angry at people who should have cared enough to stop the circle of violence that raged in my life. I’ve not had one broken bone due to abuse—the brokenness was in my head. The warrior screams out patriarchy! Now there is new understanding surrounding some of the choices I’ve been guided into making over the past decade.

Our soldiers believe what they are programmed to believe. It starts when we’re young, and it creeps in slowly. By the time we’re adults, our thoughts and behaviors have become ego-syntonic. All seems normal. We don’t question what is present, and we defend our inner normalcy. The disruption comes when the cracks begin to form, and what we once believed as syntonic, or in harmony, with ourselves becomes ego-dystonic.

A good way of thinking about this is to think of how you first thought of your home as normal, and then you went to friends’ homes where there wasn’t chaos, or a parent or sibling wasn’t abusing someone. There was a different feeling in the home. Things were done differently.

Inside your head, that soldier is having to sort it all out. Wait a minute! Slowly, how we once viewed our world is altered. In healthy adolescent development, we begin to challenge and to rethink it all. We rebel to grow and to find our own personal normal. It is when we fail to question our own status quo that trouble begins to brew, and our soldiers light torches to signal threat when there may be no threat at all.

Soldiers must be called off because they are trained to act according to procedure. Most soldiers don’t question the orders because questioning can get you into a court-martial situation. Teaching our soldiers to question in intentional ways and to break cycles in our minds is needful.

A year ago, my head began to spin after a close encounter with death. It took about five months for everything to unravel and for me to really understand that my soul was not at peace. It was a thought that began to nag at me and to challenge the ego in new ways. Syntonic became dystonic, and I knew I had more shadow work to do. For that, the soldier had to leave my head and be told thank you and goodbye. The defender of my mind needed to be honorably discharged from service. It was time to stop a raging internal war and to survey the carnage. This run of the river would be much different than other stretches I’d run.

Running the River

It would take months of research to find the new therapist, and that would be helped along by an incredible spiritual director who would support what I was about to do.

In The Way of Discernment, Elizabeth Liebert lays out the framework I used to enter into the process of discovering who to see for this healing process. I found a gifted healer.

As an enneagram type eight, I understood that I’d need to let myself navigate the entire circle to bring to the forefront everything I’d need to prepare for the crash that was about to arrive. I’d let myself prepare and plan for the journey by spending time thinking about what might happen and planning for the unforeseen that would arrive. I’d observe myself closely and track it all, and I’d not stop the emotions from surfacing. I’d also ask for some helpful companionship. I’d do all of this prep before the first session, and so when the first day of talking came around, I was ready to have the soldiers of the mind face confrontation.

With many soldiers ready to be discharged, the last one stood, steadfast in her knowing that she alone was right. She wasn’t right at all. This warrior woman was not going to leave the castle battlement without a good reason to do so, and I was being handed reasoning that made sense. It wasn’t I who needed to protect anyone! The fault lay elsewhere.

Ritual and Healing

For me, rituals that I construct have always played a role in freeing me to go to new places.

In the fall, winter, and spring, my home is filled with the scent of burning candles. I breathe in the scent of a room and move to peaceful thoughts and days where the light and darkness move me to a quieter place. As the spring returns light and new growth to the earth, I hope for new things.

This past spring was a time of preparation for the castle battlements to be cleared.

My first therapist had created a story for me. It featured a lost girl who sat on the edge of a forest, and she knew that she had to go into that place, and she was scared. She went in with a guide, and in a meadow beyond the scary she discovered a butterfly with a gift: a lavender pearl.

That pearl has traveled with me for decades. I’ve crossed through many hard places, and the butterfly and pearl have been with me.

Building our own rituals of healing is a multi-level thing. It requires finding our spiritual, emotional, and mental epicenters.

I do know that my goodbye ritual began with a prayer of healing, hope, and understanding that I was not walking into this particular forest without two friends by my side.

I admit to not knowing how I’ll send this last warrior away, but she is on notice. It has been a week, and as I make my way to the battlement to hand this warrior woman her honorable discharge orders, I’m uncertain of what the goodbye ritual will look like.

Maybe a candle will be lit, a chocolate offered, a sunflower presented as a means of closure on this chapter of my life. Maybe a new dress? I know it will be meaningful to me, and to what the future can bring. I’m beginning to cry just thinking about it, and that’s a sign I’m on the right path.

Aug 5

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Soldiers of the Mind, Part 1: Walking the Battlements

“Gail, this is not your shame. This is your x and y and q’s shame.”

I sat in my chair, stunned, completely speechless, and relieved. I was also feeling so many other things in that moment. At the end of the session, my therapist looked at me and said that I looked exhausted. I was, and it is taking time to sort out what happened to me in that hour.

Decades of sadness, anger, and a feeling of needing to protect something washed over me. Logically, I understood I’d been protecting something. But what? I loved those people, and yet I didn’t love what had happened. I’d ripped the duct tape off the final wound and insult in my life, and there was nothing to say at first.

First, I needed to think about what had just happened in order to open up the way for the words to come.

What I was feeling in that first moment with my therapist was the shame of a burden that had been placed on me by others. Vulnerable, and with my heart wide open, I sank. And then I asked a question only I could answer: How do I resolve this? How do I jettison decades of damaging thinking? 

My usual process after such a session of deep shadow work is to let the heavy stuff sit in its juices, and then return to it hours or days later.

This time, things are slightly more intense. I’m sitting with the verbal release of the burden and am now asking myself how to let go of things spiritually and emotionally. It is going to take time to figure out what I need to do to let go completely. This is new for me because other issues have healed naturally.  

The difference between knowing what to say and feeling what has to be said is vastly different.

Feeling what needs to be said is about more than empathy; it is a different type of knowing. It is a real understanding of what is at the bottom of the dark well shaft where the light doesn’t reach. It’s dark and cold, and it doesn’t smell so good down there. At times people live in the well shaft, and people need to know how to find an exit.

Most of the time the help we need to exit the well comes from within ourselves. Healers can guide with questions so that we can find our way out of what might be equated to crossing the river Styx.

Richard Rohr, in Falling Upwards, speaks of the need to discharge our loyal soldier. This concept stems from Japan and the end of WWII. Soldiers had returned to communities where their warriors were no longer needed, and yet the communities still needed the men. How could they become useful in new ways? The soldiers needed to be released to make way for the new.

Many times, our old defenses are like soldiers walking the battlements of our castles. They are alert to our needs long before we realize we need to defend ourselves. They send the signal by lighting the torch. Slowly, as the message gets passed from one waypoint to another in our psyche, the soldiers that are needed are called to the front to defend us from our own monsters and goblins.

This journey is rarely pleasant, as most soul work isn’t easy. Acceptance is the process of facing what our psyche would have us deny. Our soldiers stand strong in defending our status quo. Our status quo is all about having us stay in our comfy clothes when we need to put on the clothes of work so that we can leave the safety of sheltered environments and look at the hard things of life.

Next week, in Part 2, I will share how it was to leave that safety of my sheltered environment to look at some very hard things.

Jul 29

The Relationship File (Revisit)

Originally posted on June 22, 2022.

In the last decade, I’ve lost my husband, mother, brother, and sister. I’ve jokingly told my younger brother that he’s under orders not to die on me. I’ve also said goodbye to an old faith home and welcomed a new place of faith into my life. All of this comes with grief, loss, mourning what was, and needing to reexamine relationships.

Of those who have exited life, only one was old enough to do so; the other three were all far too young to go. The reality is that they are all gone. The relationships now stand for review in the memory file, and what is done is done. The past faith home also stands in a memory file. Everything is up for discussion and it’s all fair game; nothing is sacred, not even my mother, whom I love deeply.

In looking at all of this, I must turn back the clock to the year 2006, when my husband’s questioning of his faith began. At the time, I wasn’t questioning, but I did want to hear about what he was thinking, feeling, learning, and what was making him angry about it all. The process altered the way we communicated, and it led me to my own path of discovery. It was a good thing, and ultimately, I took from it that relationships can change and that the change can be for the better. We didn’t need to go to antagonism. The concept that we could be different and have a healthy relationship was new to him. We could talk and nothing was off limits. That was where we were when he made his exit. Because examination of things was possible while he was alive, it made it possible to return to the relationship after his death and turn over some of the things that I needed to look at.

Relationships don’t end at death. We carry them forward; they are woven into the tapestry of our ongoing existence. As much as we may wish to erase someone or something from our lives, we can’t. We learn through turning over the rocks to look at it all.

This is also true of my relationship with my mother. I was fortunate that for approximately eighteen years, my mother and I spent every Monday in conversation. We’d giggle, laugh, cry, learn from each other, and talk about things that were deep and serious. Obviously, we spent hours before that time in conversation. When she made her exit, the “I love yous” had been said, and the one question I never asked—the one that I’d like to go back and ask now—I think I know the answer to. Her death came less than six months after Jon’s traumatic death, and I did not go to the memorial. My not attending was a bad choice, and I learned from it. Being there is needful in so many ways.

As I examine my relationship with my mother, I can make peace with what negatives there were. I think the fact that we had that conversation base to draw on has really helped. Pushback was allowed.

Then I look at my sibling relationships. My two older siblings and I didn’t always understand each other. I’m sad about this, and I also know that it wasn’t of my making. I tried. Could I have done more?

In looking at the hard question of putting things right in life, and after they’ve made their exits, I’m challenged by the meaning of our relationship. What is “right?” I love them both. I know that they, each in their own way, loved me. As I take relationships apart, I arrive at the same nasty conclusion that I did in life: They never understood disability the way they needed to understand disability. They were never able to completely understand me. I’ve come to the conclusion that I can be at peace with my end of the relationship and that is the best I can do. This brings up another question for me, and it is one I’ve been musing on for some time.

Why is it that in death, loss, and grief, many people choose to move forward without the work of examining the loss they’ve had in life? The urge to replace someone or something can be strong, and it can also damage us. The more I sit with this question, the more I wonder if it has to do with the fact that our society has radically changed relationships, trauma, and life in general. I’ll explain using WWI and WWII.

Both of my grandfathers were veterans of WWI. They came home on ships. They came home together with war buddies, and in large numbers. On the ships they had time to process the violence and the trauma, and they supported one another. WWII came around, and their sons enlisted and went off to two different fronts: Europe and Japan. They also witnessed violence and trauma, and they came home on ships. They also came home to a hero’s welcome. Their fathers had processed the war and now could mentor their sons. War breeds atrocities, and WWII left the world with several that can never be undone. Old times weren’t any simpler, but they were slower. What’s changed? My grandfather knew the wisdom of allowing his son to prune the rosebushes and tend the garden. He worked through some of the trauma that way.

Leaving the site of battle is a matter of days or hours now. People now come home by boarding a flight that will carry them home. Veterans now come home to a fast-changing society, fast tech, and a culture that is in constant motion. They return traumatized and, in many situations, misunderstood by loved ones and society in general. It alters relationships. This is not to say that my parents’ and grandparents’ generation didn’t suffer from PTSD and other war-related issues. I’m pointing out that their return was slower and allowed for a different type of processing time.

I’m suggesting that maybe we’ve become immune to the damage we’re causing to each other by not slowing things down. In the past seventy-plus years, we’ve moved forward in both healthy and unhealthy ways. This applies to how we treat our relationships.

Are we willing to slow down and take the time to process our lives a wee bit more gently? Parting is hard. No matter how hard we try to avoid it, the past does catch us, and sooner or later what we failed to look at in the near or distant past resurfaces to bite us when we’re not looking!

I reflect back to a night around the dinner table when my father lost it over food. I realize now it was a war memory that he should have sought therapy for, but in those days doing therapy wasn’t common. At the time, it had been about thirty years post war—pruning the roses had not resolved it all. I wonder what would have happened had he looked, talked, and resolved? I wonder how our family would have been changed had he looked. I know how I’m being changed by working slowly and deeply on the past, whether it is peaceful or difficult. I’m moving forward in a healthier manner than had I rushed into my future life. I’m walking into something new, and I hope I’m doing it with grace.

Jul 24

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The Trauma Queue

This past week I read some Jonathan Haidt. He’s a researcher and writer. His latest book is titled The Anxious Generation, and it held few, if any, surprises for me. With the advent of the smartphone, and with younger kids finding themselves submerged in content that is not age appropriate, I’m not surprised at all to see the general mood of the world becoming less stable and less forgiving of others. The unreasonable push towards perfection has society caught with a noose around its neck.

I’m not against social media. That being said, I’m not for anything that causes our young adults and teens to not understand themselves. I’m for a compromise.

People shout about large pharmaceutical companies. I think we need to be even more concerned about social media companies that get people hooked on screens, who then find depression and anxiety kick in. I’ve surveyed clients informally, and I find that those who can turn off their social media feeds and decrease screen time are more capable of understanding who they are. They are more skilled at working towards constructive goals. These people are not trying to keep up with the Joneses—they are their own family.

As a therapist and spiritual director, I see more people with more uncertainty every day. They ask: “My life isn’t exciting, so what can I say or do that will make me interesting to others? I’ve got to keep people engaged.”

The “like” button is a curse to all.

I come from an era when keeping up with the Joneses meant getting the first or second pool on the block, or having the latest tech when that was a stereo system that had an amazing sound system with speakers that put out wonderful noise.

Now the things that tech allow are both wonderful and dangerous.

Anxiety has risen to unreasonable levels. Life direction for people in their twenties is questionable, and people don’t know how to be friends and form face-to-face personal relationships. Living under the same roof is really hard work. Doing things without tech is a skill that is being lost.

Michael Crichton, in Jurassic Park, asks us to consider the question of whether or not we should create even though we have the technology to do so. I’m thinking that, in the 2010s, this was a question that wasn’t fully asked by those with the skills to create this new thing on a screen. And yet, we’re finding answers that we weren’t prepared for.

A queue for the local or online therapist is much longer today than it was when I began this work thirty years ago. Back in the 1990s, therapists were marketing to get clients. Waiting lists are very real things now. The waiting lists are filled with people needing help with anxiety, depression, and claims of trauma. I don’t question the anxiety and depression, but sometimes what I hear as trauma is someone encountering a situation that they lack the skills to handle. I reframe this and do some teaching. Clients show clear relief and can move forward with a better outlook on life. Those with trauma want nothing more than to work through it and move forward. Trauma is soul shattering.

Do we ask ourselves if we’re doing the right thing? Do we follow the crowd? For some people, not understanding the process of decision-making is real. When you surrender yourself to the crowd, things can go wrong, and you might wind up in a queue that isn’t for your favorite ride at your favorite park.

Jul 11

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Leap Frog

I’m a child of an era when disability was not understood as it is now. And still there is so much that is in the unknown category.

This weekend, as I met with clients who must deal with disabled children who are in their home, and also try to teach the children who are not disabled about the need to understand and make allowances for the differences, my own upbringing flashed before me.

For some disabled children and adults, emotional development centers around the ability to develop in pace with their peers. For others, emotional development might be delayed by two to five years.

A younger sibling might surpass the older sibling in emotional maturity and leave their sibling behind. I like to think of this as leap frog for siblings. The pain and confusion for both siblings can be an issue. It can unravel the order of things in family structure. Jealousy and questioning about treatment can surface. If the disability is one where intelligence is not affected, the pain can be greater than the norm. As I heard my clients talk about all of this, my mind flashed back to my own youth. I had not been ready for certain things, but was in other ways far more mature than my peers, who didn’t have a clue about things in life that I had already had to confront and think about. I hadn’t thought about all of it in some time. It had become second nature to me.

I went off to an out-of-state college at eighteen and returned home to lovely California at twenty. I was then in a place to understand what I wanted and needed from a school. The fact is, I made a better decision at twenty for my future education. To be fair, most adolescents aren’t really ready to make major life decisions at younger ages. I knew where my interest was and took my time getting there, and in my thirties, I felt ready to follow the education I needed to fulfill the goal I had set long ago.

In 2011–2013, I participated in the rehab program at Visio Loo Erf in Apeldoorn, The Netherlands, and discovered that a culture will influence how the disabled are viewed as being able to work or having to sit it out. I remember thinking that, of course, I’d go back to work after I’m done here. Many didn’t have that attitude and would spend their days not fully engaged in life. That fifteen-month period of my life turned out to be a learning laboratory for my future life path. I was exposed to a side of disability I had not seen before.

I’ve spoken about the value of work, and how it is physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. I’m beginning to understand how deeply the disabled are shortchanged in the “work” department when others perceive or judge that they can’t grow to their full potential. This weekend I was reminded that there are disabilities that will prevent some children from being able to go off to school when they’re eighteen, and still others who are told that the proper path is higher education when the trades might suit them better. We need capable people who will thrive in the skilled labor area. My sink needs a plumber, and my home needs a serious electrician. There is a shortage.

Is the world demanding unrealistic behaviors of this generation? I’m beginning to think that it is. While book education is great, the world needs plumbers and electricians. We need those who can fix broken things and make them work again. We need long-haul truckers, gardeners, and construction workers, to list just a few of the areas where skilled labor is necessary. The skill of the laborer is essential to our world economy.   

There are plenty of jobs that need doing, and the disabled might be good with their hands or see a path to repairing things that others can’t repair because our brains don’t see things as theirs do. The five-year-old kid who takes things apart because they want to know how it works is saying something loudly.

Skilled labor does not denote a low intelligence. The women and men who have cut my hair are skilled in understanding what my head needs to look like. They can picture it when I can’t. The carpenter knows how a piece of furniture should be made in order to function well. We need these gifted people!

Why do we force unrealistic things on people? What is it about career paths that panics so many? Keeping up with the Joneses?

I sit here writing this and think about the pain in my clients’ home, how some of it has been scripted by society, and how other parts of it might be due to not understanding the power of work that someone can do. The leap frog will be played out once again. It is played out in homes in Western society often.

I remember back to my childhood. My father couldn’t fix much at all but had a friend who was an on-call anesthesiologist at the local hospital. On his days off he liked to tinker. He said it relieved the stress from the intense work he was doing. He was our plumber. Knowing him taught me the value of the trades. And so, now I ask myself why there isn’t more of a dialogue about the trades.

A quick Google search brings up a good starting point for information on this subject: the US Department of Labor blog. Further searches will bring up articles on things the disabled should consider when opting to go the skilled labor route.

Having stated the above, and having known a guy who plumbed for the relief of it, I must mention that skilled labor needs to be valued for what it is: essential to society and its smooth functioning. High school education in the US would do well to make a case for the trades rather than singling out students in relation to “intelligence” level. The guy driving a forklift might do so because he wants to think about the book or art that is created in his head. The woman in the bakery may be using her knowledge of physics to engineer a cake that defies the norm and looks and tastes incredible.

We value the artist, and we sing our favorite songs. We marvel at the tech of a well-designed software program and are thankful when our doctor can explain what is wrong with our bodies, and why. When I need an electrician or a plumber, I’m told that I’ll have to wait because there is a shortage of skilled laborers that can do the job.

Not all work requires a higher level of education. Some work requires skilled labor and a knowledge of what makes something work. It would be nice to see students graduate and do what they want to do and have the skills to do, and not be shamed because they aren’t headed out to get more education. Our family plumber knew his physics and could save a life in the surgical theatre. My client’s kid is intelligent and understands physics. Most plumbers or electricians get the physics of clogs, flow, and making things work when things must work.    

I hope that Western society will soon settle down to allowing for career paths that make sense for each of us.

Jul 2

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Morning Has Come

The shouting, the screaming, the yelling that carries through the halls and walls of a home: the children cowering in rooms behind locked doors, curled up in balls at the bottom of a bed, hoping that if they do so, the noise will go away. It never does. They live in hopes that their parents will see the error of staying for the kids and end the terror of days and nights. They didn’t ask to be a part of this.

This is how you come to see me. This is how the secrets of lives get unbottled: slowly, gently, until they all spill out in their ugly horror. They fall to the ground for us to inspect, and when we dare to look, because we can no longer ignore what is present, we must come to realize and understand that the path we’ve been on can’t be walked alone. If we try to do the walk alone, it falls apart. We understand this because that is what we tried the last time, and it didn’t go well for us.

It is not reasonable to attempt to fix trauma by ourselves. To do so is risky. When you are in the forest, where it is dark, you need a light held for you so that you can navigate through the trees. The forest has goblins, witches, and wizards waiting for us. Some sit quietly, waiting to see what the trees tell us; still, others would cast spells. With the light, we see dimly to the next safe spot, and as we weave our way forward, the cries of the darkness begin to recede.

At times we stumble, and at other times we run forward, believing we see the light in its fulness, only to fall and injure ourselves. It is then we understand the value of the person with the flashlight. It is the guide who has been in the forest before. Guides understand the nature of the darkness. They run rivers and are willing to return to offer safe passage to others. These guides may or may not have run your river or walked through your forest. What they have faced is their own journey, and come out on the other end. 

We stand at the place of boarding, waiting to connect with the one who joins with us. We gently clasp hands, at first in timidity, and then more surely. Then we jointly launch ourselves into deep exploration.

In our transit to another place, there are codes that are both spoken and unspoken. It’s a sensing that the guide, able to transit us to new places, understands. In this place we learn from each other. We both have things to teach and to learn. 

Trauma is a teacher and guide if we allow it to be. It teaches us to be brave enough to heal and to listen for the lessons of the hidden passages. In healing, we discover unknown strengths and weaknesses, and we encounter questions that we didn’t want answers to and yet need so desperately. 

In discovery, we come to understand who we may have damaged along the way. We realize those we must part company with for our own well-being. We must also seek forgiveness from others we’ve harmed. The brokenness that we entered with is healing in ways we couldn’t imagine. Our bodies and our souls are made stronger for this experience, and as we see to the full light of day, we raise our heads high and walk slowly into the light of a new beginning, for morning has come.

Jun 25

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Not for Wimps

Therapists have therapists. What is to be said? Wise therapists have some form of professional that they can turn to for their own needs. Let’s call it professional self-care of the soul.

Our souls need to be able to be heard and assured. We need to explore our interactions and pamper ourselves. It is also good professional ethics, as it keeps us from making huge mistakes.

I’ve spent time thinking about the care and watering of our hearts and souls over this past week. At the end of a particularly difficult session, my therapist made it a point to ask me about what I’d be doing the rest of the day. Our conversation was different because of the work we both do. The result of my process that day was that I became aware of how long it took to calm my heart and let the results of the session work inside of me.

What can we do to exercise self-care in times of need? This seems to be something that people need to learn, and so I’m going to list things.

Free Stuff

I’m suggesting free things because self-care shouldn’t stress you out. If money is an issue, trying to pay for something will make it counterproductive.

I’m not suggesting things to pay for because you’re going to have your own personal favorites (mine is sushi).

The list below is meant to trigger ideas:

  • Listen to music
  • Enjoy a garden
  • Binge-watch an old favorite show
  • Watch your favorite movie series
  • Read an old favorite book
  • Stay in bed longer, but get up and take the day slower if needed
  • Observe nature from where you are
  • Find a pair of shoes to dress up your feet
  • Do something fun with a scarf in your hair, or with what you’re wearing

Why Do We Need to Care for Ourselves?

Why wouldn’t we want to show ourselves the compassion that we show to others? Self-care enables us to know our bodies and minds better. Self-care is also an important component of a balanced life. I posted about a holiday that I took to Wales, and along with it the hitches that come with my travel experience. When friends found out that I hadn’t done anything for myself in years, the push was on to get me to holidays. 

The first Saturday, I crashed on the comfiest lounge I’d sat on. The exhaustion of ten years of caretaking, and not feeding my spiritual, emotional, and social needs, sent me into a sleepy state of being. I didn’t understand the depths of needing to get away from it all. I’d done too many “staycations” and not enough real holidays. I returned replenished and ready for a new chapter in my life.

Self-care is about allowing ourselves to claim our inner strength and acknowledge that we need to feed all of the self. Self-care is about being brave. Self-care is not for wimps. Another way I practice self-care is to keep a lovely supply of scented candles in the home. I’m presently burning three in different rooms of the house.

Candles allow me to imagine the sea and smell different types of air: the pumpkin of fall and the fresh breezes of the spring season. It’s about the candles and the scent. They are a spiritual practice that I love.

Jun 17

Light On, Light Off

Over the last two weeks, I’ve had leg pain. I call the doctor, and I ask for something that won’t make me walk into walls during the day. We spend time on the phone, and she comes up with a pill. Great. I take the pill before I go to sleep and wait for an hour for it to kick in to working mode. Since it says I can take three pills per day, I do so in the middle of the night. I’ll sleep it off. RIIIIGHT.

I spent my Saturday fighting sleep—with no caffeine in the house. I now believe that there isn’t a painkiller that won’t make you dopey. It’s the nature of the pill, and what it needs to dull. Endure the pain and stay awake. Take the pill and let the body heal. But you’ll have to sleep it off at night and deal with pain during the day. So, I must listen to the pain during the waking hours.

I can take pain, but this time it made me cry as I walked on my leg, and this time I didn’t like what I heard. It was a cry of an animal in pain. It scared me to hear it. That is why I phoned the doctor. The physio says it’s neurological. She’s entitled to her opinion. I’m entitled to my thoughts: it hurts and I want the pain gone. I also want to know why the other leg is acting up, and the physio is most likely correct about why my right leg is hurting.

While pain can serve the function of letting us know that the body is in need of rest and care, it also lets us know we’re injured. Pain is nature’s message to us that we need to listen to our bodies. Pain also takes time to recover from. In Western society we aren’t good at listening to our bodies. We push them, abuse them, and, ultimately, and many times when it’s too late, pay attention to impending doom. And yet it is the same with mental pain. It is also a signal that something is wrong, and we need to listen and get help for the pain. That’s my job: to help you through the mental pain.

The body amazes me, and baffles me. I’m amazed that this thing I dwell within is complex and functional, and that it for the most part allows us to move and do things for ourselves from a young age. We’re the only creations that must be cared for during the first years of our lives. We have no instincts that kick in to tell us what is safe and not safe. Parents are supposed to do that. We’re born helpless, and we’ll die and go out helpless. I say this about death because we can’t control our deaths, and thus can’t control the process: we’re helpless.

The body baffles me because of its complexity and how things function. When things go wrong, we try to fix them. I marvel at the brainpower at Utrecht’s UMC. Every time I set foot in that place and I head to the right to all the outpatient clinics I must access, I understand that the physicians in those clinics are full professors and researchers. They are curious souls who want to know everything they can about a particular part of the human body. While something might baffle them, their response is to research about it. A statement of “we don’t know” means that they don’t have a legitimate answer for me. They keep plugging away at the questions that need answers.

When I think about animals and how they die, many go off alone. It’s instinct that drives them to separate from the group. It is a community preservation instinct. As humans who are older and nearer to death, our sleep habits change. Some people start wanting a light on, while others drift off to sleep quietly. Some become religious, while others swear like sailors. 

This last year has caused me to think more about the process of death. I don’t know what death holds. Do we just switch off? I don’t know. Do we drift off into the cosmos? I don’t know. Is there a heaven where we go? I can hope, but I don’t know. I think about death more now because I’m at that point in time where I have more life in front of me, and much more behind me. Hmm.

When you start thinking about death, it becomes an existential issue. What happens? What do I do with all my stuff? What do I need to resolve before it all ends? People might want to draw family near to them. The realization that soon it will be too late to say what needs to be said becomes real. This is why hospice and chaplains can be such a great gift for so many. Making peace with it all before we die is important.

Maybe that’s why sleeping with a light on when you’re older and near death is a thing. If you die, and it goes dark, you’re dead. If you die, and it gets brighter, you’re dead. If you die without the light on, will you know you’re dead? Light on, or light off? That is the question.

Jun 11

In the Living Years

There’s a video from 1994 where my hands are smooth, and my fingers are manicured. As I look down at my hands today, I see short nails; the skin is aged, and there is arthritis. In the younger years, you can’t imagine how your aging process will play out, and when it starts to happen, you only realize after the fact that it is really happening. Today we’re more aware of what will happen, and still it happens. We can’t stop the process; we can manage it.

When I was in my practicum during grad school, my first supervisor wanted me to gain experience with the geriatric population. I didn’t understand how I could possibly relate to someone thirty or forty years older than I was. I learned that I wasn’t so different, and that Dan Fogelberg sang about it in “Windows and Walls.” At the end of the video, Dan tacked on a comment that this is a reminder to visit and contact aging family members, because you’ll be there all too soon.

Those I worked with lived full lives. There are many people that would love to be fully engaged in life, and they can’t do so. My heart hurts for them.

One of the gifts of an extended family is that we see the aging. We are witnesses to what our grandparents, aunts, and uncles endure in years that should be filled with joy and love from family and friends.

This is why my parents made sure that we visited my great-aunt and my grandparents often and, as much as possible, my aunts and uncles who lived further from us. I didn’t think about growing older, and now that I’m older I realize what a gift it is to have family that call and check in when I’m thousands of miles away. I have a niece and nephew that take the time to check in by Zoom, and others that use Facebook to find out how I am. 

Sometimes, living nearby isn’t the catalyst for the check in. So, I’ll tell you a story about my family, and why checking in meant so much to me.

For the first twelve years of my life, my great-aunt was a part of my life. My parents made sure that we’d get to see her monthly. We’d make the drive into Berkeley and park in a place that scared me: her driveway. She lived on a hill, and the house was old. The driveway sloped downward and led into a garage. Quite frankly, I could never understand why anyone would build a house that way. They did, and that was that. I’d get out of the car and walk up to street level, and then climb the stairs into her house. It was her house that was filled with treasures that made that small walk worth it. Once inside, I forgot about the car, and the parking brake, and the fact that every time we parked there I fantasized about the car careening through the garage door.  

We’d sit in her living room, and she’d talk about history, the knowledge she had. Her enthusiasm for sharing it was contagious. Because of her, I fell in love with history and Haley’s Comet. She inspired me to read, and to learn even more. Talking to someone who has lived what you’ve only read about is what brings it to life. She was born in a time before automobiles, space launches, and women getting the vote. She was connected with people I’d only read about in books, and she was able to tell me more about them. She gave me a book written by Helen Keller, who was a childhood role model of mine. In her will, I was given many beautiful blue things, because she knew and understood what the color blue means to me. I still have most of the blue I was given. The memories are kept alive in looking at what she willed to me, and the stories remain in my head, and make the blue things more significant.

In her later years she suffered from dementia and begged my parents not to put her into a care facility. There weren’t the options there are now. We went and visited her there, and were witnesses to the slow decline. She was right: her mind slipped from her, and she didn’t really know us in her last months.

I’m proud to say that, as a family, my parents’ generation, and that generation before them, were loved, cared for, and engaged with. We were taught to make the time. Once they’re gone, they’re not here to ask about the stuff you’d like to, or should have, asked in the living years.

It breaks my heart to know that, out there in the world, there are those who sit with their phones, and nobody calls. Call those you love, because in your busy life, there will come a time when they are no longer around.

Jun 3

1 Comment

Snark

Learning to not walk funny is a process, and it is taking hours of focused training time. All of this is done in the home. I exercise on the treadmill, and I stand by a chair to do some of the work. I’m up to eight minutes on the treadmill, and it is still taking ten minutes per session for the rest of it. The goal is to get up to thirty minutes of walking time per day. At the ten-minute point I’ll try to leap to fifteen minutes twice per day, and then up to thirty minutes in one session per day.  

The truth is that this is eating my day.

Ticktock, the clock goes round, and as it does, I still walk funny. I’ve asked the physical therapist if she sees it, and she says no. I know that when I get up from a chair, I walk goofy. So, I don’t want to sit that long. I think I’m becoming impatient with this process. When I think about it, I have to admit that it is better to be here at home than stuck in a rehab center. I can do this at home.

I’m caught up with some things, still catching up on taxes, and now I find myself attempting to figure out how to get my hair cut and my hearing aids checked. When I stop to think about things, sending me home was needed, and I need to have a driver on call until I can really walk again. Being mostly blind and not walking in a steady manner is not a good combination. Not walking well shows me how bad my vision is. It is scary to see it.

When I take notice of what it is I’m not able to see, and I allow myself to think about what fully sighted people see, I cringe. What I see when I look is the places I can’t walk safely. This last week, while heading home from the UMC in Utrecht, I was confronted with a construction mess. For sighted people who could see, the process was easy. I had to figure out that I couldn’t get to the tram and would have to take the bus down one stop, get off, and then walk to where the trams pulled in. I got lucky, and people were helpful. The shock of it all is never a good thing. Someone with Usher syndrome told me that for her, every time there was more vision loss, there was more trauma.

While I’m not affected by Usher, I do understand the risks involved in going out when you can’t see or hear as others do. It is important for me to be steady on my feet, and to get back into a safe walking mode.

As much as I post on this—and I may sound like a recording or a broken record—I have to say it again: being disabled is traumatizing.

Last week I had to call for help with something. The woman at the other end said, “Perhaps you can ask your neighbor for help.” I replied that I’d done that earlier in the week, and that while my neighbors are kind to me, I am asking you for help.

G: How would you feel if this was said to you constantly?

Rep: Oh, I understand.

G: No, you don’t.

She had nothing to say in response. She had not a clue about what I deal with daily in an abled world as a disabled woman. She never will, unless it happens to her or to someone she cares about. I hope that someday, when she’s still got all her marbles, she’s bugged by her neighbor.

May 27

What’s out There?

I had a minor stroke in October of 2014, and altered my lifestyle to take it slower in the mornings. I’ve gotten to like the morning. I’ve enjoyed the lazy two-hour waking up and relaxing before I do anything. I sit in bed and listen to podcasts or read. I meditate. I wander downstairs, eat, and begin the day in earnest. It’s really been nice.

I’m giving it up.

I’m giving up the lazy part of the morning due to the fact that I’ve been confronting myself about why, after so many years, I’m still doing the lazy. It’s time to call out myself on being lazy and loving it. It isn’t a helpful thing for me to do. It has served its purpose. It was needful for the first two years post stroke. It became a habit after that.

After Jon’s death, I felt at liberty to heal the mind. Reading a note that your husband killed himself, and being told where to find the body, and trying to open the door that is locked from the inside is traumatizing. I needed to heal. I healed, slept odd hours, ate at strange times, and took two years off to begin the process of getting back to a new normal. I was fortunate in that I could do a two-year break from working.   

There is not one normal thing about doing the work of grief and becoming the new person that lies beyond the death or serious loss of someone in your life. Many years of reflection is what it took for me to feel like I’d come out of the fog and daze that grief causes. Getting up off the bench I was sitting on yet again is what it’s all about.

There have been mornings when I’ve wondered about how to fill the days, and days when I’ve wondered how I do anything. The changing times seem to allow for the seasons of loss to come and leave their mark. I think back to my grandmother and my mother and my aunts, and now I understand that lonely of not having a life partner next to you in bed. With eight years gone by, I think I get it.

Now I understand why getting back to a more active way of living is so hard. This other life, the one where I can do lazy mornings, is habit forming. I have had no desire to place myself in a position where I’m accountable for the exit.

Yesterday I changed the way I identify my personal appointments on my calendar. It was an eye-opening experience. I took out the nickname my husband used, and I replaced it with Gail. It felt like it was time to do that little act.

I have been fortunate to have several family examples of how to get through the grief process. I’ve been able to observe my grandmother, two aunts, and my mother. Some of the family pattern has been useful, and other parts have been strewn with problems. I hope that I’m doing it in a healthy way.

I’ve had my own set of challenges with being disabled. I’ve had to build up new confidence and come to terms with my own past demons.

Now, it is my turn. Eight years going on nine, and I’m asking the question, “What’s out there?” I’m finding good things to explore.  

May 20

Going In and Coming Out (Revisit)

Originally posted on February 28, 2023.

It is a fact that grief is unique to each of us. We go into the process thinking that there are rules, and we emerge knowing there are no rules. Nothing is certain because nothing in life is certain. As much as we may deny it, at the beginning we’re grieving because something happened that was unexpected.

After Jon left this life, I didn’t do anything major for two years. My rule was simply to not make a life-changing decision during the first year of a life crisis, and I extended that to a second year. 

When the severe crying was over, my days were mostly calm, and I was moving into year three when the real changes began. I’d taken over the larger room and turned it into my space for when I would return to work. This meant sorting through things that had to go. They were his, and I didn’t need his stuff in what had to become a new space. This process has taken several years. 

I decided to let things happen in a natural manner. My desire to trash things has gotten the better of me at times, and this time I’ve exercised a great deal of caution.

The big change has been sitting with the space, thinking about what I really want for it, and allowing the thoughts to come as my head let them come. It is also about making decisions that are realistic. Like a person becoming sober and clearing their head, grief—and the journey out of grief—will take us to places where our heads clear up. Think of it as grief sobriety. This doesn’t happen rapidly; it takes distance and hard work. Sometimes clearing the head takes years because we don’t have the ability to ask the correct questions in the beginning. 

Doing a reclaim of the self is about time. Who was I before this relationship? How did this relationship make me a better person? What did the relationship do to me that wasn’t good for me? How is my relationship with myself affected by this event occurring in my life? Each of these questions are questions that we answer as we look long and hard into a mirror. Ultimately, we answer the questions, and this allows us to move forward. 

One of the tiny things that I realized was that I’m living with chipped cups and plates. It began to bother me each time I took a cup or plate out of the cabinet. Last night, the feeling hit a fever pitch when I saw something that I liked, and for a price I loved. The thought entered my mind that I didn’t need to live with what was not pleasing me. I could replace my daily table setting with something that would make me smile. Ordering that blue set was liberating. Ordering the set triggered an insight into what I was doing in the home to make it mine. Now, with my eyes open, I was seeing clearly. I need to let myself enjoy the space I have here. I’m widowed, loving my space, and I can do what I want, when I want to do it. That is the plus side of moving forward.  

The Gift of Grief

There comes a time in the process when we ask ourselves: What do I want my life to look like moving forward? This is the gift of grief, growth, and exploration. 

Creating our future comes our way when we’re able to make peace with the past and move ahead with an understanding that we’ve done the deep work of our past life. We are usually older, wiser, and with the living we’ve done comes a freedom to think it through at a slower pace. 

The healthy side of grief allows us to slow down and to plan an unrushed future. I think of this place as being in a condition of contentment.  

Coming out of grief could mean we’ve been deeply affected by any number of life situations: death, divorce, realizing that we are LGBTQIA+, coping with a disability, experiencing traumatic events, growing up and moving out on our own, or something else. Recognizing that we’ve been in a foggy place, and now the skies are clearing up, is what coming out of grief is all about. Most people quietly leave where they were for where they are. We don’t even think that we’re glad it’s over because it’s a velvet transition. 

While entering the grief space is, for the most part, traumatic, walking into the future is soothing. 

If had been told at four years after the loss that I had to sit down and plan the future, I would have planned a messed-up life. At four years, I was ready to work and to learn again. I was ready to think about what I wanted beyond that point in time. For instance: I wasn’t ready to consider new tableware. I wasn’t ready to make the emotional parting: I needed time to say goodbye. 

Gail’s Learning Since 2016: a Few Tips

Allow the tears to flow and the anger to do what it needs to do within yourself and avoid others who tell you that you’re on a schedule. 

Don’t force something that will happen naturally. Forcing emotions that aren’t ready to surface can be distressing. 

Making life decisions before the end of the first year of whatever it is you are coming out from might not be such a healthy place to go. Take the time to let your head clear. 

With some types of life situations, there are things that have to be done legally, and they are on their own schedule. You might not begin to grieve until the resolution of an estate or other major happenings. You may need to sell the home, move to a new place, or do other things in a rapid manner that will affect your grief process. Cut yourself some slack. Do the essentials and work to calm things so that you can connect with your grief. 

Isolation within a relationship is not healthy. Being so content that you spend time only with a partner can lead to social struggles when the relationship ends. Stay engaged with others! Healthy relationships thrive on variety and a sprinkling of others that we can engage with. 

Your address book will rearrange itself. I can tell you from personal experience that some family couldn’t deal with a suicide, or a faith change, and they distanced themselves. It was the same with people who I thought were friends. Grief shows us who is able to stick around when the life waters get choppy. There are also others who show up in amazing ways. These are people who are living life in a way that allows them to join us where others can’t go.  

I believe the greatest thing I’ve seen and learned as I’ve traveled this path is that rushing into anything that can be slowed down will pay off in a huge way. Rushed relationships can end sadly; rushed life changes can land us in a pickle. Saying we “won’t ever_____” may cause us to need to recant the words. Judgment can come back to bite you, and wanting it to all go away will cause you to miss out on discoveries that will make all the difference. What we think we want at the beginning isn’t what we’ll need at the end of the process. We don’t need a quick fix: it’s a thoughtful journey, this walk in the woods. 

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