Posts from the ‘Musings and Insights’ Category

Apr 30

Revisiting Our Hardwiring

Author’s note: I’m involved in a book project that is requiring me to submit one chapter on the idea of perfection. This is huge, and I’m going to write about some of what I’m musing about today.

Today’s meditation was one of exploration. I began by asking about why humans are hesitant to include those who are disabled. My path of thought led me to question many things.

Animals may kill a defective offspring. Maybe they smell it, see it, or somehow sense it, and then they kill. As humans, we judge our species based on different criteria. We struggle to accept humans who are diverse.

We run from diversity as if it were a disease that it isn’t. We struggle; as humans we are born hardwired to fear diversity. What we fear we push away or shun. Like animals, we react rather than question.

A doctor friend once told me that back when he was in medical training, they didn’t teach doctors how to properly react with the parents when a disabled person was born. They handed the newborn to the parents and sent them home, only to have the concerned parents show up at the pediatrician’s office with the disabled baby, where they’d experience the same attitude. Things have gotten better, but we still push away what we as humans can’t cope with.

It is a process that makes sense but doesn’t make sense at all. There is Enneagram theory that supports the concept that we all begin as type six, and then slowly move out and around the circle to other types. Type six souls have a fear component in their makeup, whereas type eights lack this fear. Eights have fears: we just deal with it differently. Humans are wired to fear diversity. Can we change as humans to evolve into people who can learn to not fear other humans?

There are more type sixes than any other type on the Enneagram. While I might want a type six in a crisis where we run out of crazy survival stuff, I don’t want a six who hasn’t done their work on themselves in other situations. I digress.

We tolerate diversity, and in that tolerant space we still want sameness. We thrive in sameness, and when there is failure to thrive, we label it abnormal, stick it in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), and many times tell the mother that she’s doing it wrong, or that the baby isn’t “right,” and try to move on. Meanwhile a little human needs help.

Jon and I had a kitten who couldn’t get the milk she needed from her mother. Jon fed the kitten, who we named ‘Roo. She bonded with Jon, and we adopted out the mother and kept her. ‘Roo grew into a beautiful cat who loved us and the other kittens we adopted. From ‘Roo I learned to love in new ways.

Humans bond with all types of critters but not all types of humans. We are like animals who are selective in who they allow into their space.

Over the past forty years, we’ve begun a movement to change all of this. This morning during meditation, I began to wonder if we can change from fearful to naturally curious and wanting to know about the differences and embrace them joyfully.

I want to live in a world where I’m understood. I want to live in a world where the questions I get are ones that lead to that understanding instead of more intolerance. I’m confronted by the human condition: fear.

Here in The Netherlands, the word “revalidation” is used when someone must recover from injury or stroke. The word means to be made acceptable again. It is no different than saying rehabilitation in English. We value a certain level of acceptability, and we attempt to have conformity. While societies choose to punish the nonconformist, those of a different color, religion, economic status, the LGBTQIA+ community, and the disabled are separated from many in society.

A quick search on Google shows that the Han Chinese are the largest race in the world. Other facts that turned up are that the U.S. still thinks that it is the world. And this is not good for the human condition.

My Monday meditation has taken me to a place I would have rather not gone. Is there hope for us as a species? I suppose if I could raise Mr. Darwin from the dead, he’d tell me that the human condition is set, and that evolution will occur, and we will all evolve, and some of us will be wiped out.

I think I’d tell Mr. Darwin that while we are evolving, we’re devolving. While children are becoming more tech savvy, many are losing the ability to form human relationships, and relationships are what it’s about. If we fail to teach children to put down the tech and look people in the eyes, we’re not evolving.

Tolerance is one thing. Understanding and acceptance of what causes us to fear is another thing.

I wouldn’t change who I am because my disabilities have been a part of that process. I’m happy with who I am. The problem is that society doesn’t fully understand me.

Humans are hardwired in a weird or confusing way.

Apr 16

The Secrets We Keep

Since coming home from the rehab center, I’ve been playing catch-up. This weekend I binge watched Netflix.

Why? There are two reasons. My birthday was this last Friday, and I needed a break to reboot it all.

The physical therapist is doing house calls right now because I’m not walking distances yet. In talking with her today, I told her what I’d done, and how good it felt. She commented on the fact that I’d been through a great deal with it all. Yes, I have, and no one has asked me about dealing with the stress of it all! I commented on this fact, and her response was that it’s different for each person. Here I am writing this, because someone should ask everyone about the stress of such injuries.

The fact is, injury that requires a rehab stay is hard, and dealing with it all is difficult. I knew the signs and still felt that I couldn’t ask to talk to someone! I will now.

This is all about understanding our needs and tuning into ourselves, and yet I was overwhelmed and couldn’t ask. When you’re in the soup, you can’t see out of where you are. Trauma of all sorts causes us to need assistance. A grieving person is stuck in the soup, and they need people to come and “please do” for them. It might be the dishes, the garbage, a meal, or something else.

I try to be independent, and I need help at times. My enneagram type eight can be a hindrance if I don’t get to my two arrow, which softens me, and then I can ask for what I need. So now I’ll go there and get what I need.

This makes me think of all the things that are hard, that we don’t speak about, and that we keep in until we discover that we’re not alone in our thinking. I get that we need to hold things confidential. Confidential isn’t a secret, and we keep things secret to ourselves. There are many things that we all fail to process in the time period they are happening to us. Then it makes it easier to hide from the facts. My spiritual director has been a real resource for this. She calls me out and asks good questions, and in reflection I learn where I am. My therapist makes me work to fix what is going on within, and I go there when I need to do short-term work and fix-it work. Both are helpful.

My hunch is that we don’t talk about some of the stuff we need to talk about because of old taboos. In the past, depression and sexual assault and molestation were two of the biggies that got buried deep down. Addiction, and all of its variants, was another area that was not to be spoken of. Here we are in a time when we can speak, and we hesitate until it gets so bad that it may be critical. Opening up about what ails us can be good for the soul.

Sometimes we wind up on a new soul journey, and as we navigate the river, it feels like we might be evaluating old relationships with all areas of our lives. I think we’ve crossed a river of time in how we talk—and don’t talk—about things. We’re distracted, and so, maybe we hide it all. What a wild web it all is.

We’re distracted by tech, the fast pace of life, and the stuff that happens automatically that we don’t see. We’re caught off guard by the global pace of change. What we need to do is build in time for ourselves to reflect. This weekend was all done on instinct. My psyche knew what I was ignoring: I needed to vegetate and do nothing. Today I can face the world again. The time not thinking seems to have reset an internal clock that needed resetting. This week, the catch-up will hopefully move to the caught-up phase. This week I’ll ask for more help. Lesson learned.

Mar 5

Change, One Fall at a Time

“Raise your leg.”

It is spoken easily, and yet how often do we think about the effort it takes to lift a leg? Many of us don’t give it a second thought. We do it; we move our legs, our arms, without thought. Three weeks ago, that changed for me. I fell and broke my hip. I got lucky, as my hip didn’t shatter, and the surgeon put two screws in. I still need to stay off the hip for six weeks. I’m in a rehab center.

The “How’d you do it?” phase has come and gone. Let’s face it, citing the fall is only good for so long. What is before me is six weeks of learning to sit in a wheelchair, and being confident that I will leave here walking. It is about intention, and about understanding my reality. Right now, my reality is about getting my leg to do as I need it to do six times per day. Right now, getting my leg to raise a wee bit more with each cycle is the goal and the world I live in. Listening to my body with intention is altering the way I go about things.

This place has a two-month turnaround. Friendships aren’t made here because Europeans don’t do US-style friendships. This I know, and so I don’t expect any such thing here. I expect to work hard, to build strength, and to rehab a hip. And so I will focus on that. I watch as I tell myself to raise a leg, and I watch as the leg struggles to obey. Each day a little higher, a little easier, and somewhat stronger. I marvel at what I do as I sit in a wheelchair that is locked in the center of my room, and I am becoming more secure in many things. I need to do this, and so I dive into it.

The courage to heal from pain and trauma in one’s life is a challenge that some choose to hold on to with all they have, because they understand that the only way forward is to go through it. Every time someone writes or phones a therapist, an act of courage is taking place. Saying that you need help is an intentional act.

The evening shift just came on. The transition to less-intense activities has begun: dinner, and then the evening. My work hours are coming up; many here will retire to bed and television. I’m on the younger side for this place.

I think about intentions. What will I learn tomorrow that I didn’t know today? What new low level will I need to grasp on to and raise to a new height? It’s about simple range of motion that I don’t have yet. Just like all change: raise it higher and fight the pain. I am learning, once again, to tell myself to raise the leg higher with each try! This is how change happens. One fall at a time.

Jan 27

Dancing in the Sunlight

The paths we walk are each different, and sometimes we are so engaged with our own selves that we are brought up short when others make fantastical progress. And so, it was a client this week, who went to that place. For some time, I’ve noticed that movement from the past and into the present. Then, like the wind carrying the leaves to new places, the miracle of change blew in, in its full color!

“I want to know more about…” The words caught me off guard. I’d hoped for these words, and as a therapist I understand that I can only watch, and lead, this person to new waters. Drinking is their choice. All a sudden, they were ready for the next step, and it was a moment to bask in, not for myself but for someone who has done some very hard work.

Insight therapy is about becoming acquainted with the you that is locked deep inside and for whatever reason hasn’t been able to dance in the sun. This week a client made the break to enter into the warm sunlight. This week, someone stepped off the old conveyor belt and into the unknown. They don’t know that yet; I do. I’ll continue to watch and to learn from them. I try to learn from everyone. Some of the lessons are easy, and others are hard.

There is something about growth that has always energized me. I’ve never been able to pin it down; I just understand that it causes me to burn with passion. Whether it is myself or others, it is the process and progress that ignite amazing things in our souls. It is a soul journey that takes us to new places of the heart and mind. Growth feeds our souls and our spirits. It causes us to gaze back for the WOW moments, and to look from our boats out on the river of life. Yes, we have crossed into new places: new territory that opens its arms to welcome us to a new and brave uncertainty. Sometimes, we’re on the river, and at other times we’re inland. It seems that our souls intuit where we need to be and move us to the places of exploration.

Growth is friendly, painful, and wonderful, and it is always a challenge. Growth calls us to the crossroads of being and enables us to question our past and our present, and then wisdom takes hold and we understand that we can’t go back. Going back is self-betrayal.

When you see this on someone’s face or hear it in their questions, you understand what this work is all about. It isn’t about the research, the studying you’ve done that has delivered you to this point in time. It is about the gift of standing with someone in their courage, and having your eyes opened to their sun dance. I can’t claim this dance; all I can do is witness what is now, and hope for what will become.

I entered therapy to grow, to change, and to discover my own path in life. I became a therapist for reasons I thought were good, and I thought that I would walk a different path than I have walked. Tonight, as I type these words, I marvel at my own journey and maybe, just maybe, I’m doing my own dance in the sun.

As I sit here, the tears come, and I’m gratified by them. They are tears of joy and thankfulness. I’ve been given a gift of a dance in the sun, and I feel alive!

Jan 22

Changes

This past week I spent four days in Wales at the home of some lovely friends. I was fed and watered and dosed with a smidge of teasing, and it was sad to leave and fly home. The letdown was coming home to a cold, empty home.

It is often said that grief and loss alter the address book of those who have lost. What happens when we have someone exit our lives, or when death comes into our life, can be challenging or devasting for those left behind. Due to two different events in my life, my husband’s death and a faith transition, I lost ninety percent of my address book. The rebuild is being done in new ways, and with new understanding.

The above being said, that isn’t what I’m going to talk about. I’d like to talk about the changes that come because of the work we do in our process of rebuilding our lives after a deeply life-changing event or a death. The fact is that all of this can shake us to the core. I haven’t really heard this spoken about, as everyone talks about coping.

We might be sobered, or become more of a risk-taker. We could do a complete about-face and change our career path. We might change from not questioning our faith to abandoning what we once believed. Grief does a number on the body and soul. It is something that must be experienced to fully understand its jarring reality.

Grief sends the bereaved to the emergency room thinking they’re having a heart attack. It sends others into a hermit-like state of existence, and the unique possibilities are too numerous to mention, so I’ll stick to two of the most common ones.

So, as a friend, please do the good stuff of listening to the hard things a friend needs to speak. You might feel squeamish, but as you open your heart and mind to their reality, it gets easier. There are added do’s for suicide and trauma. Like death, everyone has a different version of trauma. Don’t compare.

I’ve often had to stop and reflect about how Jon’s suicide altered me personally. What I once valued changed. I had to question some major assumptions about myself and those around me. I found that certainty had been wiped out from my life. I discovered that my family didn’t know what to say after the suicide. I’ve now established a boundary around the subject because no one really wanted to ask and talk about the suicide right after it happened, or in the first year. Going on eight years later, it would be much too little, and way too late.

So how have I changed? In some ways, I’ve become more selfish, and in other ways much more generous. The pandemic and the lockdown caused me to question my safety. I was now alone, and it was not an easy world to adjust to. Most of all, certainty has been taken out of my life. For the most part, the loss of certainty is a good thing. Certainty can make one arrogant.

As I did the work, there were wow moments of realizing that things had been altered. There were also gentle velvet times that softened the harsh reality of my new life. Somewhere in all of this mess, I awoke to a new sense of self. Eights are strong souls, and we can tell it like it is. I was stunned when I began to realize how all of this had altered me. I saw myself not as the gentle soul I thought myself to be but a harsher person who I didn’t like. When we’re forced to see our new reality, it can get ugly fast. I’m needing to adjust to the me I really am. It isn’t that I’ve never been this way: I have. It is that I’ve never needed to soften the hard edges in the way I realize I need to do now. I’ve cried, I’ve become depressed for a few days, and then risen up to fight for a better me. I was blind to who I was, and grief called me out to new growth. It is a process that takes years. No one should be the same person at the end of any year. I’m not the same person I was in 2016. I’ve lived eight more years.

My beliefs have changed; my attitudes have changed, and I understand things I didn’t, and couldn’t, understand before. I also know that this process can breed trauma. I accept the trauma not as drama. I accept how I’ve been affected by all of this with an understanding that there are resources out there. I look back and I wonder how I could have ever thought there wouldn’t be some trauma with this loss. Time and wisdom have sobered me to a new reality. While change is good, it can be harsh.

Jan 15

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Saying “WOW!”

This last weekend, I began a project that I thought could be done in three days. It turns out that it won’t be done until I move through everything slowly. I’m reading every post on my blog! It is bringing up memories, tears, and moments where I pause with a “WOW, did I write that?!”

Reading through everything has been on my mind for some time, and I’d hoped to do it over the holiday period. It didn’t happen because another project that would also take me into emotional places took precedence. And so, life rolls on with its twists and turns. The bumps on the path are many.

What I’m learning from the reading is that grief and loss are teachers, and some of what they instruct us in is the unknown. The fact is a psychic with a crystal ball could not have told me what I now am understanding. When I gaze back over time, I wouldn’t take any of what I’ve learned back—none of it. It has sobered me, broadened my understanding, and increased my empathy. It has also pulled me up short and challenged me not to judge in new ways. I’ve gone back to school. For this I’m thankful.

The reason the reading is going slowly is that reading all of my writing is bringing back so much. The tears come, and the feelings of where I was then flood into my mind. I must pause and think about it all. What I thought would be a technical exercise is not technical at all: it is a feeling exercise.

I recall the day I sat here, and as I gazed out my window to my right, and saw the sun on a window across the way, I reflected on the bad parts of the marriage. I sobbed. I had given myself full permission to do the work of serious searching. You can’t grieve only the easy and safe things. Grief work is about the good and the bad, and it is ugly. I sat there looking out and continued to sob. Then, when it had been let out, I was able to give it voice and admit to it. Compassion fatigue had blocked some things out.

So many people write on grief, and some of them mistakenly think that their solution, their workbook or program will fix it all. When I went back to work after Jon’s death, I was advised to write up a program and package it in a workbook. I declined that idea for one reason: no two people will have the same circumstances around grief and loss. I won’t grieve like you, and you certainly will not walk the path I’ve been on. The best resources I’ve found are good books and a good spiritual director. This time around I’d done the therapy work. I needed to refocus in new ways. I didn’t find that in a book: I found this path via community who were doing grief work in different ways. At this point in my life, the spiritual called out to me.

I’m not saying not to look at things. Just know that you might find helpful tools but not complete solutions.

I will continue to read the entire blog, and it will teach me new things. I will continue to be amazed at the teacher in my own words. How time allows us to reach back, and move us forward. Time pushes us off the bench for a second and third walk forward. When will it end? The journey doesn’t end: the view on the horizon changes, and as we look back and see the carnage of our past, we look forward and say “WOW!”

Jan 9

Calling Each Other Out to Growth

I call things out. I call myself out, which is ugly; my spiritual director calls me out, and I call others out professionally. Being called out is a must if we’re willing to risk personal growth. If my readers haven’t figured this out yet, you sure will by the end of this post.

I’ll begin with calling myself out. Growing up, I was hard on myself. I expected to do the work of personal change, and to move forward in life. As a child it wasn’t as noticeable as it was when I entered the university to study.

As I look back on it now, I need to divide it up into categories. There was the mainstreaming of Gail, in which I was made to feel, and was told, that I should keep up with abled peers, despite the fact that I was not abled. Mainstreaming can cause confusion. I was visually and hearing impaired. From the very beginning of my education, I was at a disadvantage. I had to work harder, study longer, and still turn out quality work. It was marginal work. When I transferred to a California university, it got better. I discovered that I could think with the best of them. I had a reader and was able to learn what I needed at a faster pace, and I could type it all up and turn it in. I became less critical of what I was doing. In the nineties, when PCs and Macs became a real thing, my ability to keep up with my grad school peers was increased. I had readers for that as well, and cruising through books was a must. Now I just get it via Audible or Kindle. The two years of certification work for the Spiritual Direction work I now do along with the therapy I provide, and access to Audible, meant I could take my reading outside and sit under my large parasol.

I escaped the harshness of a religion I was raised in because I blew off the crazy of perfection. I knew that wasn’t right, and when I left the LDS Church, that was one burden I did not have to resolve. I’d dropped the concept by age twelve.

I was all about being my best self; it was personal. I constantly pushed to do better, and to grow myself in new ways. I learned from my parents to be my best self, and my mother encouraged me not to beat myself up. I could call myself out on things and resolve to improve. I’m invested in my own personal, emotional, and spiritual growth. I’ve learned to be gentle on myself. As an Enneagram type eight, it has become part of the journey.

My spiritual director calls me out. Direction is not about fixing someone. Direction is about listening to where you are being led spiritually. For some people it is about God; for others it is about whatever they define as being within themselves that guides them. My spiritual director calls me out when she hears me saying or doing something that I need to be aware of. This last session she called me on the carpet by asking me if I meant “never” or “not now,” and as I sat in thought I realized that the binary options I was presented with also had an “I don’t know” option. As I sat with the not knowing versus the two options that were more certain, it caused me to rethink multiple thoughts. Sometimes our not knowing is the best place to go.

Not knowing is liberating! It frees us from certainty, and it allows us to sit, and to think about multiple possibilities. Not knowing opens us up to the unexpected options that are out there. The more I dwell in uncertainty, the more I appreciate what it offers. “I don’t know” is a legitimate answer to many questions.

Because of uncertainty, my family and friendship connections are things I cherish more than I have in the past. My desire to leave something lasting has become something I want to do.

Recently, my younger brother (and now my only sibling) and I were talking about the fact that our two older siblings had both died rather young. They both had not listened to their bodies. My brother died of a list of complications long enough that we’ll never know what caused his death. My sister died from liver cancer, and fought. In the end I think she wasn’t too certain of letting go. It was a hard death that could have been shortened by her willingness to let go and let it play out on its own. I bring this up because I think certainty killed her. Being certain is a trap.

Certainty cuts us off from all possibilities. So, I let my spiritual director call me out. My past therapists never did call me out as they should have. I’m better for the call-out situations that have come into my life.

That brings up the client and directee call outs. I approached therapy with the thought that I was doing the work to grow, and to be a better person. I was listened to but never called out on the hard stuff that I needed to be called out on. Maybe the therapist didn’t believe in doing such things. Maybe the shrink was afraid I’d walk out and never return. This is a legitimate concern, as clients leave out of fear for the work ahead of them. Another possibility is that the therapist didn’t think I was ready to be called out. Another option is that the therapist failed to understand that calling clients out can be a good thing for the client. For whatever reason, it never happened to me, and it took me longer than it might have to move to where I needed to go. I believe in calling stuff out.

This brings up the point that the average client may stay no longer than six sessions. It takes about six weeks to begin the deeper work. I do insight work with my clients. Insight work is challenging because it means that a person is essentially doing soul work. Working in the shadows is dangerous, and it requires the person to sit in the unknown. Grief and loss require us to take leaps into the unknown. More than anything else, what I went through after my husband’s suicide took me deep into the shadowlands of my soul. I bored through the mountain and came out someplace else, and on a different path. I’ve talked about it in terms of navigation on a river and crossing the River Styx. In time, I’ll most likely post some new insight along these lines.

Are we willing to be called out? Do we have the strength and courage to explore the hard things?

When I stop and think about why I go to this place, even though it is hard, I think it is because of what my disabilities have taught me. Society discounts the disabled person. Spirituality places the disabled on equal footing with every other human. It is like the deep roots of a tree that extend into places we go independently, and without the need for assistance. It is a good thing this growth stuff.

Nov 23

Switch-a-Roo

Nothing ever happens on track one. It is lovely to look at. I call it the saltine track because the wall is made up of blue tile and looks like the old Saltine Cracker boxes of my childhood.

Today, we all went to track two and waited patiently for the Utrecht Centraal train to pull in… until… that little blue notice popped up. I saw mass movement, and then read the thing… go to track one! Like I said, nothing happens on track one… until it happens. I went to track one where everyone, and a dog, waited for the train. That is how the trip began.

It didn’t get any better on the tram!!! The train for “Science Park” was on the wrong track. Fortunately, they had staff down there for confused travelers like me. Where are you going? UMC. Over there. Another switch-a-roo! At least this one was a quickie. Have I mentioned before that these trams fly? I’m constantly amazed at the tech that runs things, and I’m always thankful that it pulls into the station, letting me off with a short walk to the sky bridge. Once I board the train in Hilversum, it is all covered. On a day like today, when the cold has arrived, it is a gift.

Traveling is something I’ve written about previously, and on the eve of what will be celebrated tomorrow as Thanksgiving in the US, I pause to give thoughtful thanks for the things that work smoothly, even when they might sprout a glitch or two.

Gratitude has been a challenging lesson for me. I’ve had to learn to come to terms with a disability that has caused me pain, and taught me much. I’ve had to grapple with shyness, isolation, and compassion fatigue. The disability has challenged me to do things I thought I couldn’t do. I spent twenty-two years caring for my husband as we both witnessed the disintegration of his functionality. Yet, on this early evening, tears of gratitude come to me.

Today, a pause to give thanks to those who have loved me, given me support, taught me to go beyond where I am. Today I’m giving thanks for parents who cared, and did a good enough job parenting me.

Tomorrow my family will gather for the traditional picnic that we do at Lovers Point in Monterey, California. I will think of them eating whatever it is they decide to eat, especially the pumpkin pies that will be served up. I wish I could be there for that.

I pause to give thankfulness for the life I have. It isn’t perfect by any means, but it is mine, and I claim it.

As I sit in my warm home, and think about the fact that I have it, I’m content. I’m content to slow down some, work smart, and enjoy some of the simple pleasures to be had.

I’m keeping this post short because short works, and I need to switch off for the day. Hug those you love, send gratitude out to the four corners of the world. Most of all, practice self-love, care for yourself, and send a smile to those you greet. Smiles make the switch-a-roo go well.

Gail

Nov 14

The Because Place

How does it feel to not be believed? Think about it for a minute. It’s infuriating and humiliating, and it can raise self-doubt. When another human being or institution denies someone’s reality, there is something wrong.

I had to go into the hospital yet again, and yet again deal with people who did not believe me about having bad veins. Once again, medical staff proceeded to make multiple attempts to start an IV. They left me bruised and looking like I was the victim of domestic abuse. I kept telling them to go in with an echo, find a vein, and all would go smoothly. Finally, they did just that. I should have been believed. As I write this, my right hand is still injured and there is pain when I touch it. It has been over a week.

The multiple attempts at IV placement caused me to feel so many emotions. The question I ask is this: Why don’t medical personnel learn to believe a patient’s reality? I wasn’t spinning a tale. I was telling them outright that there is a right and a wrong way to do this with my sorry veins.

Believing the Person

My clients are important to me, and believing their reality is also important. As a therapist, I honor the realities clients present. Sometimes the reality is skewed in some manner, and my job is to help the person see it clearly. I need to call it out. Sometimes I’m gentle, and at other times I’m blunt. What people fail to think about is that they are paying me to enable them to make life changes, and sometimes the change process requires me to point out some uncomfortable realities and have people sit with them. It isn’t easy sitting in the shadows.

Shadow work is the hardest work of all. It requires of us the ability to sit in uncertainty. We don’t know where we’re headed. Much like crossing Styx, we must journey to the new shore to discover what our soul’s treasure is deep within. This journey is voluntary, and it is one we make multiple times in our lives because shadows are a constant.

My hospital stay has put me in a place of looking at what I know about myself, and the truth of my physical state. Due to PXE, my veins have taken a powder. I might build them back up with walking, and it will take time. My treadmill is waiting for me. How do I deal with not being believed from the beginning? I now have a shot of what my hand looks like. You’ve seen it. I plan on showing it as evidence, and not consenting to an IV unless it is done without trauma and pain. There is a time when a person must say “ENOUGH!!!” I’ve reached that point in time.

Validation

What do you do when your reality isn’t validated? The gift of being heard is the greatest gift we can give to each other. To stand as a witness of another’s truth, and to validate another human, is a powerful happening in any life. It is the title of this blog, and I will forever be thankful to Jon’s psychiatrist for the validation he offered me.

I wish validation were the norm. I wish that children who disclosed abuse were always heard, believed, and protected. I wish women who suffer the daily insult of abuse in all of its forms were always heard, believed, and helped to find their way out of such relationships. I want for people who see the moon purple to not have to argue their reality—even if it is impossible. Somewhere in their words there is a truth that much be heard. I think of my five Anns, and how important it is to hold every person in high regard.

I believe that more often than we think, we fail to validate each other. People are left to sift through the experience on their own. It is hard work, and it is made more difficult when the lack of validation causes one to fantasize about ways of getting back at someone. I’ve found in sitting with my hospital experience that finding an evidence-based response is helpful.

Here are some tips for how to get deeper into the self:

Play detective with yourself by asking questions.
Become a kid and keep asking why. “Why?” is a curious question. Sometimes the why question takes us “I don’t know.” This leads us to the BECAUSE place. “Because” leads us to realization due to the fact that it can be a place where we think we’ve hit a brick wall, and in facing that wall we push just a wee bit and dislodge one of the bricks. Once that happens, other things fall, and suddenly we have more information than we ever thought we’d have.
Sometimes sitting with the non-validating aspects of our lives moves us to new places. It isn’t that we didn’t need the validation. It is that the lack thereof requires us to rise in defense of ourselves and take constructive action. Rosa Parks and the Civil Rights actions are a great example of this. An entire race, blacks in the US, shouted in unison, “No more!” While this is a highly simplified explanation for one event during the Civil Rights Movement, deep reading and exploration of its planning will show its genesis to have been well thought out. Sitting with the question, and realizing its solution within ourselves, can cause an upheaval. Movement is good.
Sitting with it all is about being on the way to someplace else. We discover in our process of thought, and deeper reflection, that going deep inside is rewarding, and getting to the “because” of it all is a process of liberation.

It is true that some statements are easy, and others require time to sort out. Find a therapist if you need to.

The bruising from the multiple IV attempts hasn’t turned to the lighter colors yet, and there is still tenderness around each of them. I have the shot, and in a weird kind of way it is a multi-level touchstone. The thought process that spans out like a web began because of lack of validation, and it has carried me to new points on the horizon because I got a brick to leave the wall.

Oct 31

Wrong Species, Pooch.

What a crazy week it was.

When this fails to plug into what you need, and you need to inquire about what is going on: Apple Inc., you are certainly not having the best interest of your customers in mind, and governments must now legislate what you must sell to us so that we’re not stuck paying double the cost for what we should be able to get at a lower rate. Oh, and while I’m on the subject, I don’t want unwanted business calls at any time. Yes!!!! If I need you, I’ll find you. And while it’s on my mind, would the world governments get it together and agree on one time for the entire world? Forward or back, just make up your mind.

Yes, I’m really on one of my rants today, as it’s been an awful, bad last week, and I’m not a happy camper.

So, do tell me why corporations can’t be honest with consumers, and why they think it is OK to rip us off when all we really want is a good bang for our buck, or euro, or whatever else we trade in. I just want one cable that connects to all my “i-Gadgets.” Is it so much to ask? I don’t like profiteering.

Dear Apple: Have you thought that maybe you’d be better off serving you clientele with fewer cables and easier connections for charging our devices? I own an iPhone, an iPad, and a desktop version. The desktop plugs into the wall; the other two need separate charging devices. Why? So you can make more money. I lost my gadgets while in the ER on Thursday; the staff tell me they can’t find them, and of course, now I must shell out for new plugs and cables. On top of this, my vision requires that I get assistance to do this. Good golly, Miss Molly!!!! I don’t like this at all.

So, I’ll most likely go to Apple and pay more than I need to pay for what I shouldn’t need to pay for. Oh, and did I mention that the www.bol.nl website didn’t deliver, and that they told me I’d get it on Saturday? Nope, so there is also that. Yup, I’m on one rant, alright. I’m aggravated. Since mail doesn’t come here on Mondays, I can’t properly scream until late Tuesday. Nope, I’m not happy. If you want a snarky therapist, I’m your gal.

Then there are the unwanted business callers who interrupt me, telling me they aren’t salespeople. Salespeople: if I want you, I’ll look you up. I know that it’s worse in the US. If politicians wanted to do something useful, they’d do two things: outlaw robo calls and send anyone who makes such calls to a deep and dark dungeon with no connection to the outside world. This should include MLM types as well. If it isn’t on the shelves of a store or online where I can browse at my leisure, I don’t want it. Don’t call me, I’ll google you.

While I’m at it, some of us prefer to chat to a live human being who speaks to us in our native tongue. I cringe when I get transferred to a call center in a place that is running a script, and they are clueless about what I need. All so the corporate office can make a buck and pay a lower wage. Has anyone mentioned the evils of capitalism lately? I may be a US citizen, but I’d like to have things quiet down.

Does anyone else out there think I’m on to something here?

Oh, and before I forget, there are the sites that think that if they bombard you with ads, you’ll pay for their useless service. www.doodle.com, get over yourself. I don’t want your service, and others who do can have it. Leave me be! Get over yourself, and that goes for the rest of you as well.

Is anybody out there? Does anybody get this? Am I the only one?

My friend just called; their dog is humping their mother. I needed a good laugh. Wrong species, pooch.

Oct 24

Slow-Cooked Relationships

I’m stating this up front: I’m going to write on the state of relationships. Really, I have to bring this up because I’ve started laughing about two statements that have changed with time.

Statement 1: “This relationship is no longer serving me well.”

In the past this would have been put into words such as this: “I don’t think we’re right for each other.”

Here are some other things the statement could be about: We all grow, and hopefully grow together. In saying that, I must also state that a couple’s growth is most likely at varying speeds, and in differing areas. When we merge, it is unifying, and then the growth and exploration cycle begins anew. There is no end to growth, as it is the stuff life is made of.

Growth in a relationship stops when both partners fail to hold space for the other to explore. When we fail to consider the needs of our partner and understand that they are on their own schedule, and so are we, we prevent progress and halt the growth process. When we stop wanting to expand our knowledge base, we might fall out of sync with the one we’re with.

Jon and I shared a value of self-improvement. For us it was important to be in motion in this area. The relationship might not work if you are mismatched in this area.

Can people change? Yes. Can relationships end? Yes. My experience in seeing relationships end is that they got together for the wrong reasons in the first place. This also falls into the “We may not be right for each other” category.

While going through my own faith deconstruction, I witnessed couples who had married for the wrong reason: a church. As beliefs and values were explored, these couples awoke to the sad reality that, while they might be friends, the marriage they were in was all wrong because the reason for its existence was wrong. It wasn’t that they grew apart: they had never been together. They were a mismatched couple, and getting out changed it all.

I think there is a difference between a relationship not serving you well and a relationship that you’ve come to understand is based on differing values. Meeting each other’s needs, and communicating that to each other, is a major part of the relationship process. It is a dance of weaving in and out. It is a dance of joy and celebration, and it is difficult to make it happen correctly. Each dancer must do their part.

We enter relationships as individuals and slowly come to understand the needs of each other because we talk, learn, and ask questions. We come to understand how to meet each other’s needs. Assume nothing until you inquire of the person.

I believe that one of the things that has happened in the past two decades is that people have become complacent. We’ve forgotten that good things take time and there are no shortcuts. We’ve settled for fast or instant everything instead of savoring a slow-cooked soup that has simmered for hours. This fast pace has caused relationships to end rapidly. The “getting to know you process” is like the slow cooker that spreads its scent throughout the entire house. It creates anticipation and desire, as well as curiosity. Slow cooking a relationship is a wonderful thing!

Relationships, no matter what type they may be, should create healthy spaces for all, and when those spaces are not there, the reasons for the lack thereof need to be explored by everyone involved. This is why a healthy understanding of red-flag issues for ourselves, and for others, is an essential part of the relationship formation process.

The notion that opposites attract comes to mind here. Personally, I’ve never seen that to be the case in a deep and long-lasting relationship. Healthy relationships are built on common values and hold space for differing views. We can come to respect a person for challenging us in constructive ways. One of the things that I appreciated about Jon was that he would challenge my thinking, and it was the type of challenge that enabled me to clarify my own thoughts and values. I was confronted with my own need to do some deep exploration into my own thoughts and beliefs about my past faith tradition. We both did this, and it enriched our relationship.

I take all of my relationships seriously. I value them, and have chosen a small group of people that I take delight in rather than many who I can’t know well. I’ll admit that finding that things aren’t a match is usually a sad place to have to go to for me.

Statement 2: “We need to take our relationship to the next level.”

This one really makes me laugh and cry at the same time. What? What does this mean anyway? Are you playing a game? Does it mean that you are going exclusive, or that you want to move in together or marry? Twenty years ago you might have sat down and asked each other about how you felt about the other person.

I have a cousin who was dating five guys at the same time. She liked them all. The guys, on the other hand, wanted to spend more time with her. Back in the late ’70s, that meant “dropping” someone. And so, she got honest with herself, cut it to three guys, then two, and then one. Her ability to face the issue honestly created a lifelong relationship. Her ability to sort out what she wanted and needed in a vetting process enabled her to make a choice she was happy with.

It isn’t a game. Deepening our relationships is, as I’ve stated above, a process. It is two sided.

US relationship culture is different from European relationship culture. For some reason, maybe it was my father’s relative proximity to a German community that held those values for our family, even though we were in the US. My older siblings and I were fairly exclusive in our relationships from the beginning of each. Jon and I were exclusive from the beginning. We set some ground rules. We were also in our mid thirties when we met, and then married four years later.

Like my cousin, US culture tends to promote fun and loose connections at first. Putting yourself out on the “market” is a thing. Is it any wonder that people struggle with finding a match?

This brings me to my confession: I’m doing my work so that I can find someone new. I expect that I’ll go exclusive as I did before. For me, it’s about values. It’s about saying it straight. I do exclusive, one at a time. I’m not playing a game here because relationships are not a game.

Oct 16

Seasons (Revisit)

With Autumn here at last, my thoughts turn to this post, originally published in 2020. Enjoy!!!!

-Gail

The air was crisp and the trees were colorful. I was happy because my favorite season of the year was present. Autumn was present in every form including the warm colors of clothing that I loved so much.

For me autumn is what I like best about the year. The northern California Indian-summer days, and the crisp feel that you get when you are out and about, are wonderful. As a child, going back to school—which I didn’t like because I had to stop reading what I wanted—was only tolerable because it meant AUTUMN was in the air. For me the world was then, and is now, perfect in the autumn.

As you age, the seasons melt into the cycles of time. The playfulness of life and a budding spring and its excitement give way to the learning of summer. Oh, and summer is filled with exploration and the joys and perils of adventure: the challenges and joys of learning on your own, as you discover that the lessons of young childhood and early adulthood must become a basis for your fast-but-seemingly-slowly-approaching full onset of adulthood. There might be some true “yikes” moments during summer. Those “yikes” moments, when you catch yourself about to make a life decision that is better rethought, can be a good thing. “Yikes” means that you are aware of what is going on!!!!

Summer brings discovery of your real “self” emerging into view. Summer also brings a desire to have it all. You don’t want to see it end. You want to play hard and never see the sun go down. Summer brings a growth that you learn from trial and error. The lessons of spring and the early summer remain with you as you feel the time now fast approaching when autumn is on the way.

If you’ve had those yikes-type moments, and have taken the time to repair what needed fixing, you are in good shape now.

Autumn is the season of wisdom. Autumn is the time when the lessons of a young spring and summer are played out. Autumn is a time of realization, regrets, new focuses in life, and a time of hopes, as well as sorrows. Before autumn ends, and the onslaught of winter comes with its powerful resolution to destroy all that you hold dear, you must navigate through the autumn.

Autumn is, in a sense, “karma collection,” or payback. Realizing that I could have made better choices has only come because I made the not-so-good choices. I took risks in life. The thing about autumn is that you can’t turn back. And, you can’t avoid it, because everything we do in life has a price attached. You must adapt, accept, let the leaves of autumn fall, and move on.

Autumn still offers me time to change, to learn, and to grow. I love autumn! Raking up autumn’s leaves is important, and like it is for a child who jumps in the pile of leaves (you know, the one he or she is told NOT to jump in), it can be exhilarating. I like to inventory the leaves and really see what is there. I learn from this inventory and that is always good. I love the process of change, even though, at times, change is an unwanted aspect of life. Getting through the trials of change still brings me hope. I am better for it.

As I now reflect on my spring, and the innocence in which I lived it, I’m amazed I did as well as I did. I look at my life and realize that it has had its challenges. Challenge is what it’s about. I’m not always thankful for that which has kicked me from behind or punched me in the front. But, I can honestly say that I’ve knocked down the walls that have sprung up in my path. Tearful days and nights have made me stronger and wiser when it comes to life. It is the mistakes that make you think about the new stuff in a self-confrontational manner.

If my spring was innocent, my summer was an adventure in learning. By being able to make both good and bad choices, and dealing with the consequences of those choices, I grew. Summer is a time when the life bank account is in “deposit mode,” and what you put in will, in the future, be withdrawn. You will have to pay for your summer. Some payments will work well, and others will hurt like having a tooth pulled without the Novocain. Life is like that, and you can’t turn from it. Sooner or later, the crisp days of autumn roll around and you enter that time when all accounts begin to go into “withdrawal mode.”

I am amazed when I hear someone say that they really haven’t had any challenging stuff happen in life. I wonder to myself what they haven’t been doing. The fact is, life is a series of challenges. Making mistakes is a good thing because it can mean that you are engaged in the life process. Learning from your mistakes means that you are progressing and committed to doing better as you move through life. Autumn is that time of the year when one can reflect.

I’ve come to the serious conclusion that few are blessed with all the wisdom they need to make life decisions at 20 or even 25 years old, and yet that is what is demanded of the young. I hear of more and more adults in their 40s or 50s who embrace the unknown of what they really want to do. They are happier for it. Autumn is a time to rethink, to take a risk, and to change the course of life. “If only I knew” becomes “Why not?”

Autumn is when you realize that it isn’t “too late” or “hopeless.” Grab the brass ring and do it!!!

Healing from the springs and summers of life makes everything more valuable. Reflection during our autumns causes us to sober up, to appreciate our youth for what it was, and to anticipate the future for what we can create as vibrant adults. Whether we’ve done it well enough in the past, or are choosing to do it well at this point in life, autumn is that time of life.

I’ve learned via observation that those who seem more at peace during their winters are those who have challenged themselves during their autumns. They are actively enjoying the lives they’ve built, and face with dignity the storms that life will still produce. I will always cherish what each autumn brings to me.

As I look out my window and notice the sun’s changing position, and feel the lowering temperature, I know that once again my favorite season is approaching. Autumn, with its crisp days and warmer colors, is just around the corner. I can’t wait.

Jul 10

I Suppose

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.

Jun 12

Chasing the Fly

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.

Apr 4

One Wish, Please

We watch as suffering comes over the world. A mother cries for her lost child. A father mourns the death of his son, who was sent off to fight a war that should have never been. A parent mourns the loss of the son or daughter they believed they had in order to discover the new trans child they will get to love. A child endures bullying at home, while another child becomes the bully at school. Somewhere in a police station, a human being’s rights are violated. Marchers descend on a capitol in hopes of bringing a message of solidarity with those on the margins. A young boy witnesses the death of his friend on the streets of the inner city. We become one of six. There is trauma in all of this.

It seems that the cycle never ends, despite the cries of the injured and the questioning of parents, and others who care about the victims of what can’t be stopped. If only the emotional pain would end. Life doesn’t offer that. We protest the needless suffering, bigotry, senseless acts of violence, and raise the question of where and how it all began. Ultimately it begins in the home.

If I could wish one thing for the world we inhabit, it would be to have functional homes, where each human being is loved, honored, respected, and has a recognized voice. A home where each child is raised to enter the world as a functional adult who is ready to take their place in society and contribute to making the world a better place. What a wish! I’m not wishing for utopia. I’m wishing for something better: a healthy peace for all. It starts in homes. Oh, I want to see this happen!

A home with a loving parent(s) who offers up a platter of love, protection, and acceptance to a child so that they can become who they were born to be. I salute the courageous! I honor those who try to learn and understand what might be different to them. I honor the parent who says “I don’t understand, and I’m committed to learning” when their LGBTQ2s child comes to them with fear of the consequences of coming out: first to themselves, and then to others.

I applaud the enabled person who struggles to meet daily challenges in an abled world. The parent who shepherds the child in the hard times as well as the good times. Homes need to be safe havens for all of us.

I’m not building to a kumbaya moment here—that takes a great deal of work. I’m building to something else: peace. The peace-filled home that spills over into the neighborhood, then the city, and spreads out to all corners of all nations: it begins within our homes.

Saying it is one thing, and implementing it is quite another process. My husband’s psychiatrist once made the point that all voices in a family need to be heard, acknowledged, and respected. Parenting isn’t about giving orders; it’s about guiding, setting boundaries, and being willing to have hard conversations with growing children of all ages. Parents create a micro-community in their homes when they commit to bring tiny humans to dwell with them.

It’s about accepting your child for who they are, and where they are, offering a safe space to explore their identity, speak their point of view, and explore their own values. Eventually, children need to make their way out of the home and into the world. Happy, healthy adults have experienced many of these things.

Mentoring begins from birth. Mentoring is about parents doing things with kids, making it fun, teaching them the value of working for something, and waiting for results. It’s about offering children healthy choices so that as they grow, they develop empathy, social skills, insight, and inner strength.

Boomers were raised by parents who dealt with the Depression and WWII. Their children faced the 60s and 70s and began to question the culture of parents and grandparents who came out of a more authoritarian view. And then, things started moving faster. I believe that with Gen X and beyond, we’ve never quite caught up. Time has sped up, society has changed radically, and with it, the home has been rocked on its foundation. There is a real need to re-examine relationships and to have hard conversations about what works and doesn’t work.

One of the consequences of this radical shift is that parents say “yes” when they need to say “no.” Yes and no have to do with setting a healthy boundary. It is about helping a developing child understand long-term choices and offering the mentoring to enable them to think it through for themselves. Now more than ever, children need the skill of thinking it out for themselves! The thinking starts when parents offer up limits such as a healthy diet that incorporates varied food choices, or reading to children daily and offering up experiences that teach the young child to choose good and age-appropriate things. It’s a confidence builder. It continues as the child matures and is able to make task-appropriate choices that will enable them to learn and grow. When a child experiences failure, with a parent encouraging them to give it another go around, they will! I also understand that some parents are faced with needing the village to step in while they work three jobs. Who we put in our villages can enable parents to have that needed assistance to raise the child to healthy adulthood. Successful single parents and two-parent families have a village to back them up.

I acknowledge that I’m speaking from a point of privilege. I grew up within a home where there were two parents, and they were able to provide the basics but not the luxuries. Money was tight and there was a village of extended family and community.

With the way things have sped up, it is essential to cultivate relationships that include extended family, friends, community members, schools, and charitable organizations. A parent may not know their village until a crisis happens.

My wish includes people sharing a meal and coming together to learn from one another: people who discover that in diversity, there are both differences and sameness. The sameness begins with recognizing that we are all humans residing on this pale blue dot. The diversity offers up the gift of human understanding, culture, and a differing world view that teaches us to learn, listen, and understand. In table fellowship, we offer up the gift of being heard. It is listening that bridges gaps, strengthens the person, enters the home, and moves forward to influence the neighborhood, the community, and eventually the world.

Feb 21

Semi-Rant

Death can numb us physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. Most people don’t die without it affecting others with some level of trauma. Think about it. Even the person who dies in their sleep can have a partner wake up with a dead body beside them. There is trauma in this.

While birth can be a joy-filled time, death isn’t. Sure, we might be thankful that they are out of pain, no longer suffering in other ways, or “at peace.” Death leaves the living with the reality of feeling and doing what we need to do to get through it and move forward. We can behave poorly after a death. Remember, we’re in no condition to think straight. Whether we realize it or not, we’re in the twilight zone. We’re not ourselves. We’re in the death bubble. Sooner or later, we’ll need to exit that bubble and get back on the conveyor belt of life.

Getting through the process is about reconfiguring our new lives to work without the loved one, or not-so-loved-one, in our lives. We’ll miss the former and think we can get on just fine without the latter—until something doesn’t go quite right. Then we’re facing the whatever it is and making it right.

Anything can happen. Parents don’t think kids are grieving correctly; kids feel or think a parent should get over it; grandkids miss the grandparent who the parent is celebrating the death of, and they are numb to themselves and each other.

All of a sudden, rifts develop; people once invited are uninvited, and people fight over petty things. What was not resolved in life becomes a nightmare for those who remain. There is more numbing, and it seems that we no longer notice the real pain. By now it might be all about anger, loss, and a grief we can’t speak of because those we thought would be there to hear our pain ran out on us to escape into their own pain. It’s a cycle, and it only resolves itself when someone says to themselves or others, “ENOUGH!!!!”

If we’re lucky to have someone with the insight to call out the crazy, we might just get to a new place with it. That person may be you. You may be the only fix that there is. The reality of it all is that we can only fix ourselves. The great personal thaw means that you engage with yourself in the healing process. This can be the greatest challenge of all: to heal when no one else gets the repair work you are doing.

In the seven years I’ve been dealing with my own grief and loss, and the pain of others, I’ve seen and heard some really painful stuff. I’ve asked myself why people move on too quickly and don’t do the work that would lead them to true peace, and then I think about the crazy of it all.

Is it possible to have burnout from grief? Can someone burn out from too much pain? I think they can. I recall a health course I took in the fall semester of my second year of university work. I was sitting next to two guys as we all filled in the stress scale the professor had distributed. In the period of one year, I’d gone through two significant family deaths, made a major life change, and had checked a few other boxes. I looked at them; they looked at me, and all three of us realized that our scores were much too high to be normal. It was the nonverbal, silent signal of knowing. I wasn’t in my right mind. What was I doing there? At the end of that year, I moved home, found a therapist, and began to sort out my head. Looking back on all of it now, I realize that I’d had enough physically, spiritually, emotionally, and mentally. I was so deep into grief that I didn’t know how deep I was into grief. I came out of it, and now understand the crazy.

I believe that one of the things that saves us from yelling at others to get over it is that when we do the work of getting through it, we’re gifted with the understanding of the hard work that must be done. We’re able to hold compassion for the crazy place grief, loss, trauma, and burnout can carry us into.

The work begins with a desire to pop the bubble of denial, and to seek for better ways of facing our pain.

For some people, death is death: it is what happens at the end of life. It is what it is. For another group of people, death opens up a need to make sense of the existential mystery of why it might have happened. For yet a third group of people, they engage the theodicy mind trap. I’m sure there are other possibilities. It is to theodicy that I’ll turn my focus.

Is it any wonder people turn from God when God gets abused? The use of theodicy— a way of explaining why God allows evil to happen—to explain loss, pain, and stuff that happens for unexplainable reasons can drive a soul mad. I understand that there are people who abuse, and even purposely damage, their own children. It is wrong, and I hope that such abusers are discovered and dealt with, and that their children are given a chance to live better lives. Children don’t sign up for mistreatment. Theodicy is a form of mistreatment, and is spiritually disrespectful to all human beings. Higher powers do not create death to teach someone a lesson, take someone because they are needed someplace else, expect us to bypass the grief process and focus on an afterlife, or cause intentional suffering (for instance, the birth of a disabled child).

Tragic things happen, and we must face them honestly. Nature does strange things to bodies, and we must accept nature doing its thing. The human gene is a tricky thing, and we can be brought up short by the screwy things our genes do. Early in life I had to learn that nature behaves in unruly ways. It just is. That being said, I’ll return to the stuff that can be controlled.

I can, and need, to control my own behavior. I can decide to behave kindly towards others in pain. As difficult as it is during the process of grief, loss, painful experiences, and whatever else I experience, I can choose to apologize, show compassion, and make amends as needed. In the end it takes less energy to show kindness to myself and others. It also keeps my brain well balanced. I’ll cry, scream, get angry, look in the mirror, face down the monsters, and make peace with it all. In the long run, that will serve me well.

This has been a nice semi-rant. I hope you learned from it.

Jan 16

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Thanks, but Not This Gift (Revisit)

Lately I’ve been musing about life, the self, and self-acceptance. This post is a good reminder that taking back choices and life situations doesn’t work. Once we’ve done it, we’ve opened up a new pathway. Jon gave me a great gift with this realization.

Gail, January 16, 2023

Late Wednesday I asked Jon: “If you could give me a gift, any gift, what would it be?” I wasn’t ready for the reply.

He told me he’d give me a healthy body. He told me he would want to take away all my discomfort and give me health, and I was stunned silent. Two days later and I’m still stunned.

I’ve had this petite, not-quite-a-gem of a body for 56 years now, and while I don’t appreciate its lack of functionality at times, I still love being petite. It is who I am. I love my blue eyes and my once-curly hair. I don’t like the PXE (Pseudoxanthoma Elasticum) that has made life hard. No, I don’t like that at all.

I’ve made the comment before that if I could see normally, I’d want to play tennis. That would be first on my list of items to do. That is just a thought and a desire, but when I think of things in terms of my entire life changing, I have cause to rethink. Doesn’t everyone want health?

About two weeks ago, my family found out my younger brother might be facing some serious heart surgery. He, like me this past year, had to come to terms with his own mortality. It changes you and causes you to rethink who you are and what you do with your life. Things that didn’t seem needful take on a new view. In this past year, the things that really matter to me have changed.

As much as I would like health, I’m going to decline the gift. It isn’t that I’m not moved by the thought; it is that it would change some things. It makes me think of one of the most powerful “Generation” episodes of Star Trek, and the lesson that it teaches.

In the episode, Jean-Luc has yet another encounter with Q. He comes to understand that the lives we live are due to the choices we make. We walk the paths we walk because of what we either do, or fail to do. I may not like the hassles that my lack of a healthy, functioning body brings to my life, but without it I lack the knowledge and power that its lessons have taught me.

Instead of pontificating on all the lessons I’ve learned (and I could do just that ), I’d like to ask you each some questions: Would you change your life? Would you alter it so radically that the lessons you have learned now would change? Who would you be if you weren’t this current “you?” How does thinking about this alternative “you” change who you are going forward? Why would you make the changes? What would your reasoning be?

The offer of Jon’s gift has made me look at myself and accept that I’m OK with the mess of my disability. I’m more accepting of it than I thought I was. I like me. I may not always be happy with life, but I like my life lessons and am glad I’ve had them to shape who I am.

I will return to the gift of health. It is a good thing to ponder and revisit because it has made me think about my life in new and better ways.

In asking myself the question, I found another gift. This gift is that I like being Gail. I like some things about being who I am with my own disabilities that I didn’t think I was happy with. Thanks, Jon.

Jan 2

If it’s January, it Must Be Resolution Time

It is January first, and I’m getting a jump on my Monday. I’m doing it because my January third is going to be slightly cluttered with an eye appointment. Here it goes!

I was logged into Facebook to check on pages I manage and spotted people I know posting their New Year’s resolutions. It got me thinking about change, and why this stuff seldom works the way people envision resolutions working.

The first thing is, why wait for the new year? If it really needs to be done, do it now—don’t put the thing off.

My next observation—or question—would be, Why do diets begin on Mondays? Shouldn’t they start in the mind, on the next shopping trip, or in an online order?

My third musing would be that people make resolutions but seldom lay the groundwork to establish successful life change. How do we each lay that groundwork? What does it take to do the work that will establish change in our lives?

It begins in stages: the first stage is to come to an understanding of what the real issue is. I’ll use a diet for the example, though most any example could work. I’ll use my own diet journey.

Often a person wakes up to their personal reality, sees themselves in the mirror, and shudders at the sight that is reflected back to them. The realization of the pounds that are now present isn’t a happy one. You might have a range of clothing sizes, and some of those sizes might never be worn again. You hold on to all of the sizes in hope that “someday” you will fit into those jeans you wore fifteen years ago. I didn’t have that issue because moving to Europe is all about weight, and getting it on the boat. I had to give clothes I was wearing, and not wearing, to someone who could use them right then. I’m glad that the choice was made for me.

In 2006 I realized that I felt awful, and I didn’t like my reflection in the mirror. I felt ugly, frumpy, and unattractive. We purchased a treadmill so that I could walk inside, and I hoped that walking would help me take the weight off. Four years later my “goal” had not been achieved, and I was miserable. In 2011, after years of back pain that began in adolescence, I made the decision to have a breast reduction. That was a good choice on my part. Talking to my husband about the decision I was making was a process. He had the concern of things not turning out right. They did. The reduction enabled me to walk easily, and to feel better while doing chores. The “bench,” as I thought of it, was gone. Wow, was that a game changer! I also began to win at taking the weight off. Having a couple of kilos gone in one day gave me hope! Maybe I could do this thing.

All the tears I cried, the times when Jon had to hear me grapple with the issue that it was taking so long to drop the weight, now seem like an eternity of days gone by. That was one kind of looking and digging to get to the root cause of my food issues.

There is something to be said for feeling good, and feeling like you are winning at something you want. After a decade, I was wearing smaller sizes; I was winning the battle, or so I thought. I was doing the outer work. What about the inner work?

My health insurance covered a dietitian, and she was helpful. It took a conversation about doctors being vigilant about the Body Mass Index (BMI) to turn the entire weight loss process around for me. Wowzah, had I fallen into a nasty trap!

I thought I’d done all the inner work as I began to understand that in my genetic heritage of deities, a love of sweets from two grandfathers and my mother had caused me to deal with sugar like alcoholics deal with a drink: one is never enough. This sent me spiraling into a new level of self-discovery. It was unbearably painful. I engaged in a dance, and while the weight was coming off, my eating and I were doing a wild rumba. All the years that I’d focused on BMI had held me back from focusing on feeling good. I had to contemplate how I might have bought into the diet myth, and the body image of fitting back into a size 6–8. Intellectually, I understood that there were things I needed to do. In 2021 I crossed into a new zone: the I’m-happy-with-who-I-am-and-what-I-see-in-the-mirror zone. It was a massively delightful discovery. It also lifted a huge burden of non-reality off of me. Now it was about management.

I recall the day clearly. I was sitting on a stool, getting dressed and taking a look at myself. No, my stomach wasn’t model flat. I would never have that EVER again. My arms were OK, not perfect but good enough, and my calves, they were still wonderful. Throughout my life my calves were the one body part that always looked great. I took time to reflect on this wonderful factoid. My thighs really were OK, and my face had thinned out. I realized in that moment I would never see a size 6 or 8 again.

Then I began to think about how I really felt inside. I felt good, and as I realized this fact, I began to look deeper. Why was I stuck in the weight loss mode? I came to understand that I didn’t need to go there. A size 10–12 was perfectly fine. At my age it also felt like I could maintain that size.

Healthy isn’t about the perfect body. Ultimately it is about feeling good at where we are. It becomes a process of cutting ourselves some slack, offering ourselves the same grace and generosity we tell others to treat themselves with. In all the inner work I spent time doing over the years, I realized that I, too, had cut myself some slack and offered up a huge healthy serving of grace and generosity to myself. In 2022 I sat on the stool, looked at myself, and smiled. Yeah, I’m good with her!

Resolutions are fulfilled when we lay a foundation of inner work, dig deep, and discover the generous helping of self-love we are serving ourselves. We make peace with the demon within. We grant ourselves the insight that the real work takes time and is about honoring ourselves over what we think we want. The question we must ask at the beginning of any goal or resolution journey is, What do I really need, and why?

It took me from 2006, a lot of treadmill and conversation time working with a professional, and a real hard look in the mirror to come to understand that what I wanted (getting back to a 6–8 size) was not what I needed. What I needed to do was to like—and love—the reflection of the 10–12 sized woman who sat on the stool. It doesn’t matter the size or the kilos/pounds that I carried. I started this journey thinking size and BMI. What matters most is that I got healthy. What matters most is that I’m enjoying where I am and can manage life where I’m at without my body doing the yo-yo cycle.

2023 is starting off with some real peace of mind. I’m good with this.

Dec 5

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Sneakiness is Happiness (Revisit)

During the holiday season, our minds turn to fun and wonderful giving. This gift came to me on a warm day, not during Thanksgiving or Christmas—just because he could pull it off. Go out and be sneaky.

Originally posted on December 20, 2019.

Today has been very hot. I like the heat because it means that the sun is out and the sky is blue. The only bad thing about the heat is that sticky, humid feeling. Today I had to be out in the heat and it was wonderful!!!!

Why? Well, it was because of all the nice things that happened while I was out and about and doing the many things that I had to get done. I was out alone with Myrtle Mae. Myrtle Mae is a good sidekick. “She” keeps me safe from others. I’ve also noticed that people are really nice to me when I’m buzzing around with my stick. (Myrtle Mae is featured in stick magic.)

There are so many things that are different about being a person with low vision. Some things are just more complicated and time consuming than they are for a fully sighted soul. People being nice to me made me feel OK about walking around in the heat. So to balance my happiness, I find myself listening to one of the most pessimistic guys of rock: Don Henley. I like Don.

There were things to do, like the veggie run and the bank. I like getting this stuff done—but there was also laundry to do before I could do the veggie run.

I tell you all of this because the man did something wonderful for me. He can be sneaky in phases because my sight just isn’t good enough to see what is going on in my tiny room that I use as an office. I didn’t see the first phase at all.

My office is filled with very “Gail”-type things, two of which are parasols that are mounted into the corners of the ceiling. Once they were up I thought, Wouldn’t it be cool to backlight them? I haven’t thought about it for some time. He has.

While I was out and about, he got to work and gave me a very beautiful surprise to come home to. Yup, he backlit my parasols!!! So, even though it is hot out there and in here, I’ve got the tiny lights on. I couldn’t resist as it is so pretty to have the soft light around me.

Being nice pays off not because it has to—it just does. There is something about generosity that is contagious. So, when I’m out and about, I smile, and others say hello to me. Why?

I think that is because we, as humans, crave positivity in ways that will never be fully understood. I, for one, have no desire to study this, as it takes some of the magic out of the process. I will studiously avoid the research on the topic. Some things are better enjoyed and left alone.

I think I’ll go find someplace cool to enjoy the evening. I also must switch to something other than Don Henley. Before I do—remember to smile and see what you get in return.

Nov 2

Good Enough

This past week, I spent a great deal of time in preparation for a Sunday church service. The topic was the poverty trap. I’ve seen it, talked to people trapped in the cycle, and I’ve lived in a third-world nation and seen and smelled poverty in a way that has left a lasting imprint on my mind. I was using a video that talks about the poverty trap. I spent time viewing it multiple times to make sure I understood what was being said. Each time, my takeaway was added on from the previous view. When we gathered, I felt like I’d not done a very good job of things. Not enough, and things had gone off the rails. Had they gone off the rails or was it my thinking?

I’m using this as an example of how we, as humans, tend to pass judgement on ourselves and others. We all do it to some extent, and to say that we’re immune to it isn’t truthful. The fact is that most of us can name a long list of the negatives, and it isn’t balanced with the positives about ourselves. Good grief, why do we do this?

The answer is complex, and I’ll try to expand on one or two of the areas.

Social media and the ads we are confronted with affect us daily. We view advertisements that attempt to sell us, tell us, and convince us that without the latest gadget, or the vacation, or the right clothes, we can’t, or won’t, be enough. I’ll give you an example using someone’s weight experience.

I’ll call her Amanda. Amanda has done the yo-yo diet thing; she’s listened to the docs who tell her that she needs to be within the proper weight for the Body Mass Index (BMI) to be healthy. She also did the research and took a close look at her body. She has dense bone structure, is petite, and no matter how much she wants to be slender, she’ll never look like women of Western-European descent. She’ll look the way she is meant to look: healthy and beautiful as she is. She isn’t an overeater; her body processes things as it should. Has it been hard on her? Yes. Making peace with who we are physically is about having a chat with the person in the mirror, asking ourselves how we feel inside, and understanding what good health is about. It is understanding our bodies and knowing when to check out of the advertisement myth. How honest are we being with ourselves? Ultimately, it is about personal responsibility and doing the hard work on the inner self: the shadow work. It is this hard work that creates space for each of us to be good enough. It is saying goodbye to the myth of perfection. Amanda has done this essential work on her body.

I mentioned doing the inner work, or shadow work, on ourselves. I used to read this and not quite get the depth of what was being said. In my youth, I didn’t understand what inner work or shadow work is were about. If it’s about doing therapy, then yes, I’ve done that. It isn’t just therapy! I didn’t know that then. True, we can explore our issues and do some changing. The deeper work is stuff that causes us to look at ourselves mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

When I was younger, therapy was enough. I needed to address the issues of youth. I found therapists who were good at that; it worked. As we mature, things change on all levels. Eventually, we’re face-to-face with the ghosts we failed to confront in our younger days. The shadows we see in the mirror cause us to rethink and ask ourselves different questions. Our life experiences are showing us that it is time to move forward. We look in the mirror and begin to think: “Is this it?” or something like that. Now we’re looking for a different type of therapist, or a spiritual director. We want the person who will call us out on our stuff in ways that matter. We might discover the Enneagram, or another spiritual growth tool. The drive to change within becomes new, and we begin to put away keeping up with the Jones’s. We find that keeping up with the Jones’s is costly in time and energy, and not worth the effort. We find that the need to confront ourselves is real, and that the other things are not as real.

Marriages dissolve, faith changes, careers change; we get sober for ourselves. What once was happy and joy filled is sour. We want honesty from the person in the mirror. This is when the deep changes happen: we’ve hit rock bottom in our lives. This isn’t a rock bottom in the addiction way. It is a life rock bottom, and it demands to be addressed so that we can move forward.

We go to battle with ourselves, and in doing this new kind of work, we find books on spirituality, meaning, and we ask questions that we’d never have asked ourselves five years before now.

We begin to overturn the rocks of our soul, and we become disenchanted with anything less than answers that lead to real discovery and honesty. We begin to learn to sit with the uncertainly of life. We cry the ugly tears that teach us our inner truth. We speak the words of our real truth and mourn the loss of what isn’t, in exchange for a face without makeup. We stand stronger for all of it. Then we get down to the real business of life.

In this process, we learn to overturn some boulders on our own, or with help. The shadows that were once enemies to our souls become our friends; we look back, and realize that in our youth, we knew something, and now we know more. We do better. In our understanding, we burn the myth of perfection to the ground and embrace being good enough, and in this we move towards wholeness.

By now the things of youth are gone: the magazines, the desires, the noise, and the clutter of an earlier life. We’ve traded all of this in for retreats, quiet nights, smaller gatherings, a group of close friends, holidays with meaning, and an understanding that whatever happens, happens. We are no longer slender; we’ve filled out and have dense bones built on strength.

In our budding new self, we may come across our old self in the faces of younger souls. They look at us and may see wisdom built on experience. When they struggle, displaying the behaviors of the perfection myth, we can embrace them and allow for them to be themselves: good enough.

Jun 29

Hearing it, Seeing it

Last night I learned a valuable lesson about hearing someone, doing the listening that needed to happen, and being awakened to what I was seeing with my ears. Confused? I understand that this would sound quite confusing. I also know that how we hear, see, and understand complex situations is not simple. Life isn’t simple.

Most of the time in conversations, people listen while planning what they’ll say next. That is not listening or hearing: it is pretending to listen and to hear. The idea that a great conversation should click along, be fast paced, or flow smoothly is only accurate if you want a bad conversation where you are not heard. So, nix on that sort of conversation.

Learning to listen is an art, unless you are Guinan, the listener, on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Then it is supposed to be genetic. Listening is an art, and sitting with someone, and their story, is a gift. The gift is being fully heard, and the art is in shutting up and offering the gift. Those conversations take longer and have a great many bumps in them.

What happened last night? I had gone into a conversation with a friend, who was doing something that I didn’t agree with. I was fully prepared to say that, and more. I began to do just that and then, hearing with my eyes, looking with my ears, I noticed my friend’s pain emerge. I’d never seen it that way before. It emerged in the words, the anger, the deep hurt, and the loss of what should have been in the past—but wasn’t—and what was being created in the present. I understood my friend’s actions in a new way. I had to chastise myself for my previous thoughts. I went to bed last night understanding that I was the one with the issue. Wow, how could I have been so dense?

The answer to the above question is that most of us operate on dense! We only switch to healthy operational listening when we really blow it or get called out on our failure to hear what is being said.

How many times have you gone to visit a friend who is grieving, only to see the dirty house, judged that, and not heard or seen the pain that isn’t being uttered? What is being spoken when we see the house, the hair that needs a cut, the meals that aren’t eaten? Are we hearing with our eyes? Are we seeing with our ears?

What if it is other family members in pain, or friends who are suffering from the same loss? Are we hearing and seeing right past each other? Are we thinking that because it is the same loss we’ll handle it in the same manner and at the same pace? During tense situations we tend to shut off, close down, and generally tune out the excess noise levels that we cannot tolerate. It is difficult to process everything when we’re hurting. What can we do to bring sanity to ourselves and to those we engage with?

Here are some suggestions that, at different times and with different people, have been effective in providing solutions to tricky communication situations. This isn’t a complete list, but it should help you to think of original ideas that will work for you.

Hold conversations in neutral spaces where you’re both on equal ground.
Own your feeling words. Feelings are never wrong: how you feel is how you feel.
We’re going to have different feelings about the same situation because we’re different.
Meet each other with respect. This means seeing the conversation through to its completion.
If you need to pause the conversation, when will it resume?
In a larger group, use a talking stick to indicate who the speaker is. It can be passed around the group. While the talking stick is in use, all members listen, and there is no crosstalk.
Parroting what someone said is not conveying what they said. Respond to the visual and auditory cues as well. The response you give might have a question attached to it. For instance: You really like the new room, and I’m sensing there is still not something right with the space. Can you tell me more?
If you know that the conversation is going to be difficult, bring that up first and give the person two or three options around when and how it can be done. Keep it realistic. In other words, hell freezing over, or the equivalent, is not a realistic option.
Feeling volatile around a subject? Work off some of the energy around it before you engage. Being clearheaded in conversations will improve their outcome.
Breathe deeply three times before you respond. In those three breaths, question the response you are preparing for respectfulness and consider the long-term damage a remark could make. Explore how you’d feel to be on the receiving end of the statement.

May 23

Sanctuary

There is a musical trio known as The Kingston Trio, and during their recording career they recorded a little ditty called “The Merry Little Minuet.” While it might have been humorous, it was also a serious commentary on the times. That little minuet has been playing in my head lately. The world seems to be falling apart. Wars, discord, unhappiness, and a pandemic all seem to be conspiring to bring us individually to a point of asking: How do I create a safe place of sanctuary for myself?

Those of us who have walked in the grief zone may be one up on this—but not necessarily. It depends on where we are in the process and how we’ve managed our self-care.

Sanctuary can be defined in many ways. The religious may see it as a place of worship. The spiritual person might see it as a state of being or a place in the heart. Still others may choose to view sanctuary as a specific location: their happy place. For this post, I’m going to use a bench found along a walking trail sheltered by trees that let the sun in so we feel its warmth.

How do we find this safe place? My experience is that it only comes to us as we shed the tears of pain, longing, desire, and uncertainty. It comes with the casting off of old certainties and beliefs and diving headfirst into the blackness of the unknown. It comes to us as we search for what we need and hope will spring forth from the ravages of trauma and personal havoc. In our recovery and rebuilding process, the hard work of deconstructing what was tires us out.

During our deconstruction process, we wonder about the ending. At first we stumble into momentary places of relief, but they are fleeting. Our work propels us forward to other new places of discovery. Slowly we encounter a place that offers us more than a brief rest and begins to take shape as a place of reflection and pause for our weary souls. Soon this place of the heart begins to heal us and to hold us in a place that we come to think of as sanctuary. It might hold us in a sacred place where only we’re allowed. It shelters and welcomes us. We can go there as needed.

With time, our reconstruction requires that we view our journey with both its pain and new hopes. We re-examine the old and discover the gift of the new. While what we’ve been through may have been hell, the place where we’ve arrived is a gift we’ve given ourselves.

Whether your personal grief was the loss of a loved one, the loss of health, mental illness that has left you debilitated, loss of faith or a faith transition, a failed relationship, or whatever hard thing life served you on your platter, you know this journey and place.

What does the above have to do with all of the crazy that is occurring in our world today? Those of us who have been to these dark places hold wisdom that will be useful to us in making peace with the world as it is.

We can and often do serve as witnesses that there is hope and support for you. We understand that pain can go away. We’ve asked the “When will this ever end?” question and discovered that we must hold space for searching our hearts. We’ve faced our personal realities and given them permission to blossom into something new and powerful.

We’ve come to learn that meditation, yoga, or a new spiritual self leads us to a park bench that we had no clue existed. We now sit on that bench and offer the questioner a place beside us. We can serve as life witnesses and companions for the weary because we did our own work.

As I reflect on the good, bad, and unpleasant of the past decades of life, I’ve come to realize that a topsy-turvy world can calm itself best if we center ourselves and take the time to quiet our souls. I look back and see how I didn’t have the skills to make it to a park bench. While I could manage a life-crisis situation and come out on top, I did not understand how to walk to the bench. The loss of my husband taught me to find the park bench and to be able to sit quietly on it. There is no drama here—only peace for my soul.

I think back on “The Merry Little Minuet” and reflect on my concerns for our present world state. Yes, I’m concerned that the U.S. is falling apart. I’m concerned that there is a war going on about a two-hour plane ride from here. I’m concerned that we’ll never feel as safe as we once did about viruses getting loose and infecting the world. I search my head and heart and in them I find peace because I’ve created a sanctuary for the soul. It is mine, and no one can take it from me.

Come, sit by me.

May 11

Truths in Death

My sister’s death and graveside service and the memorial that followed have given me time to think about perception. It is often thought that you shouldn’t speak “ill” of the dead. This is not healthy from a psychological perspective.

If there is truth to be told, there are reasons to consider telling it. Truths left untold can wound the soul. Truths that are silenced in a burial can be quite damaging. Speaking an honest reality promotes long-term healing.

The image we have in life of a person may not be the image we think we need to idealize in death. Before we tuck that squeaky-polished image into the mind, we need to ask questions: How will this hinder me going forward? In burying a truth, who is hurt? While we might want to polish the entire thing up, remember that the elements tarnish what we bury. Bodies decompose, stuff falls apart, time fades things in a negative way, and sooner or later the pieces fall apart.

With the decomposition of that which has been buried, we must also ask ourselves what it is we’re burying. We aren’t burying objects; we’re burying history. When we step back for a moment, it conjures up the thought of burying a family health history. And why would we bury vital facts that could save lives? How would that benefit us or those that follow after us? It’s the same with other history that has transpired.

If we can avoid creating generational trauma and the wounding of the soul, doing so will serve us well in the long run.

We all have a soul, though at times, some might doubt that they have a soul. You have it, and your spirituality, in whatever form it takes, stems from your soul. Your focus might be nature, walking, traveling to undiscovered places, making connections with others, or sitting in silence. The possibilities are endless!

Serving up an offering of love and generosity enables us to not wound ourselves.

I’m not good at burying things that need to be spoken. I’ve found that speaking the truth is far easier and less wounding, and that it serves us better in the healing process. Secrets can kill us. This is very true of family secrets.

I recently finished Healing the Soul Wound by Eduardo Duran. Eduardo is writing from the Native American perspective, is a psychologist, and offers up some wonderful insights on why we each need to address ~~out~~ individual pain.

A ceremony of my making for my personal memories that I want to work with is fine for addressing my perceptions and reality. I choose to do it privately.

I posted the question of what is taken from a memorial or funeral address and how it affects us, in hopes I’d get some great insights. I think I posted in the wrong place. The responses that came in were about the celebrations that were had: a party for the soul of the dead and the lives of the living.

As I sit here thinking about it, having a true celebration of life with no speeches doesn’t seem so bad. We still reflect on their lives. We still remember the good, bad, and ugly stuff. The truth of life is that none of us are saints, and the saints get elevated after death when they can’t protest the atrocity. This is a good thing for me, as I’m a huge Mother Teresa fan.

Maybe the best thing for me to do with all of what was said is to let it stand. Allow for all perceptions to linger and move on.

Love you, sis. We set you free and take our memories with us, allowing them to be what they are in our minds and hearts. I’ll create my own ceremony for you. That’s the way I’ll honor you.

May 4

Piece of Cake

A guy loses his wife after a thirty-year marriage and two weeks later he’s dating a new woman. Six months later he’s remarried.

Does this sound like a scene out of a crime show where the dude killed off the wife to pursue a love interest? Brace yourself: it happened!

Wifey poo died of cancer and this guy has barely buried the body and he’s finding a new woman. By the way, his kids are angry at him.

This story isn’t the first of its type that I’ve heard. But it is the first that was so quick where the partner didn’t commit a crime to start dating the new, soon-to-be partner. I’ll admit that Jon and I watched a great many whodunnit shows. This guy took the cake!

For some reason, this time, hearing this made me think about grief and finding a new partner. My view on this has changed over time. I think I’m still sorting this one out.

This is my six-year mark as a widow. My first two years were all about survival and learning how to get through the mess. The next two years were about the beginnings of peacemaking with myself and the good and bad of our relationship. Year five made me realize that maybe, with the right soul, I could do a new relationship. I’m still sitting with this one. The pandemic didn’t help, and it doesn’t help that I’m kind of shy and don’t put myself out there easily. I’ll admit that having a partner would be nice. I’ll also admit that I like calling the shots.

This brings up the question: When does one know how to move forward? My husband showed up at my back door! That isn’t happening a second time around. So how does one figure it out?

The question of figuring it out is one of the top questions asked during the grief and recovery process, right after “Am I doing this right?” This latter question is easily answered. If you’re staring grief in the face, and it is harder than hell, and you keep turning over the rocks to answer the new questions that come up for you, you’re doing it right. If, on the other hand, you jump off the grief bus because you’re feeling empty without a partner—whoa. Get yourself back on the grief bus, find a therapist who speaks good grief language, and start digging into the question of why you need to find someone.

When a marriage is successful and you want to create a new one just like what you had before, scrap the idea. It will blow up in the face of both of you. Your chemistry won’t be the same, you won’t be the same, what you want won’t be the same.

This also goes for divorce situations. This is especially true when you divorce without doing all the grief and loss work around a failed marriage. When you do the work around the failed marriage—and do all the work you can—and then find someone new, your chances of not having a repeat divorce situation are statistically higher. This is data from a page that comes from the legal profession. I’d have to say that the stat for a second marriage holds for my widowed female-identifying friends: 60% fail rate. So why?

Relationship attitudes have changed. I’m not one to say that my grandparents’ generation did marriage really well. They didn’t. Many of them did understand the give-and-take of marriage and learned to make it work. Some of them stayed in an abusive marriage because, at the time, women didn’t have the options that are out there now. A minority were able to walk away and, with support, build strong lives as single parents, or did the work to find a second partner that did work out. It wasn’t such a disposable world then, and people worked hard at making it work.

The calm 1950s turned out to be an unseen pressure cooker for the explosion of the 1960s. Take your pick of the “I don’t need to stay in a bad situation anymore” scenarios! The Civil Rights Movement, women’s rights, and being a member of the “Tang” generation. Our classmates’ parents were breaking up, moving on, and generally not willing to settle for a sub-par situation when the perceived options and advantages for one’s mental health were available.

The bailout of the 1960s through the 1980s taught the kids that maybe relationships weren’t forever. In 1994 the term “starter relationship” was coined. I’ll admit to not having read the books cited in the article. So why am I sidetracking you? Because I believe we’ve lost touch with just how difficult the first five years of marriage can be. We’ve lost touch with the fact that there are options to scope things out before you move in together or pay an obscene amount of cash for an affair that may blow up before the debt is paid off. Because, if there are two things I’m certain of, they are that premarital counseling is a must, and that engagements are not about planning a marriage celebration—they are for breaking things off.

If there is anything we need to remember when we believe we want to find partner number two, it is that relationship number two could fail. Here are some good questions to ask yourself as you entertain the possibility of finding someone new:

Why am I looking for a new partner?
What do I think the new relationship will be like?
Is this person going to have a specific job/role in the new relationship?
What do I want in a new relationship?
Have I done the hard sorting of the old relationship issues—both the good and the bad?
If I can’t see any negative in the past relationship, why is this?
Am I willing to invest in some therapy to make sure I’m looking at this correctly?
What would it be like to not pursue a new relationship?
What would my life look like in both situations?
(If children are involved): Am I willing to put a relationship on hold until the kids are feeling secure with me and the new situation?

I often tell people to give it one month per every year you were in the relationship. But I’ve come to the conclusion that one month per year isn’t long enough. Sometimes the healing takes years, is painful, and doing single is the best way to have your relationship cake and eat it too.

Dec 9

person carrying backpack walking on a path

On My Way to Somewhere Else

Losses in our lives happen in many ways, and my greatest loss happened while I was trying to get to somewhere else that wasn’t on my agenda, or at least not in print. It happened in a way I won’t forget: a walk downstairs to find an altered life. A note on the dinner table telling me where his body was. That was the part of the promise he did keep.

We write scripts for our lives, and when they are interrupted the jolt can be confusing and difficult to understand. While we’re making our way along the road, the demons interrupt our peaceful walk and give us the boot off our carefully manicured path into something more like sludge, mess, and unexpected confusion.

At first, we panic, and then we try to extricate ourselves from this place, only to find ourselves pulled further into the mess of the sludge. When we realize that we can best exit the sludge by remaining calm, relaxing, and working with it, we’re free to embrace it. We can then deal with the mess in this new place. We figure out that the best method for getting free from where we are now trapped is exploring it for alternative exit options. That is how most grief and loss journeys begin: a surrender to the unknown.

I got out of the immediate sludge state and realized that there was a mountain in front of me, and that I needed to go through it to reach the place I needed to get to. That was both a relief and rather terrorizing.

With the unwanted interruption to our lives, we forget where we were headed, focusing on the path before us that has become cluttered with boulders, fallen trees, and strange critters that inhabit the once pristine path we thought we were on, and realizing that we’ve been transported to a much different place altogether. Where are we? What is this about, and will it be a help or hindrance?

No, we’re not in Oz or anyplace like it, though a part of us may wish for ruby slippers that we can click to take us magically back to before we wound up wherever this is now. We don’t get the slippers. Instead, we receive a walking stick that will come in handy in turning over the rocks, giving us leverage to lift the heavy trees that block our route, and in testing the strange new critters to see if they are friend or foe.

It’s taken several minutes to construct this, and yet the descent into this place happens instantly. We’re just not aware that within seconds of hearing they’re dead, “I’m leaving you,” “I’m moving out to pursue…,” or whatever the loss is, we’re sent by our mind into this place. As we grapple with it in those first few moments, we realize that our control is gone. Will we ever be the same? Will our world ever feel the same?

The Answer Everyone Wants

In this place we ask: When will it end? And when will things return to normal? The honest answer that we eventually discover is that we’ll develop a new normal, discover a new life path, and renegotiate what our personal universe looks like and what it is filled with. We forget about the old somewhere that had held us captive and begin searching for a new somewhere else. The catch to this search is that things no longer work the way they once did. The topsy-turvy has flung us into the unknown. All we can do is thrash around until we find something to grab onto that feels stable.

We start to learn that the tears, the missing, and the uncertainty will fade over time, and in their place the texture and quality of what is present in our lives changes. Slowly, we stop asking when and start focusing on the how to of this new place. This leads us to finding a support system, a new village of people that is populated with those who will become our new friends. They understand where we are! They’ve been in the sludge, gotten out, and faced their own mountain. They’ve dismissed some old village residents due to the fact that they left the village or are not able to attend to the needs in the village at this time. We find a therapist who speaks our language and we seek out spiritual direction, or stumble into another path altogether. As we gain strength and our concentration returns, we begin reading books and are able to question and act on those questions.

This new place of discovery is exciting, scary, and wide open. Oh, the options that we can explore! Slowly, the places we were headed fade away, and we’re left only with new things to discover.

You know how people say that we’ve changed? We have! If we do the work of grief, loss, and pain well enough, we reinvent ourselves. There are old things, new things, and a bunch of creation waiting to spring forth. It can all be good. In the meantime, the question we wanted answered disappears as we become involved in the process of creating new life within ourselves. New life and meaning are unique to each of us.

The tears and the missing are still present. They’ve taken on a new form and texture. For me, it was somewhere in my year three that I noticed the real change. How did this happen? It wasn’t about time; it was processing and a world view change. It is something we experience and understand due to the work we do around our grief, loss, and pain, effecting change deep within.

Noticing the Gift

For some people, the loss and the grief that are encountered become a gift. What? How can this be? I’ll admit that on August 29, 2016, if you had told me I’d be typing these words in 2021, I’d have had said something to the effect of “You’re nuts!” I’m typing this and I know I’m not nuts. Telling someone at the beginning of the process that change will happen is counterproductive to the process. There are some “please do’s” and “please don’ts” that are essential to observe.

Relationships can trap us, cause us to shortchange ourselves, or make us second-guess what we want in our lives—to name just a few of the things that can happen. The fact that she cheated on you and didn’t want to work it out is sad. After the heartache passes, a new discovery of freedom comes.

He or she is now gone; the love you once had will always remain, and now you are asking new questions. You want something different from before, and finding it is a good thing. You haven’t changed; you’ve grown! You are beginning to trust your own knowing, and this is an essential component of finding the new place of existence.

The gift of the tragedy is not pleasant. We are called to understanding through the unveiling of new options that we truly have choices if look and access them in the present. It is what we find buried in the rubble that was once sitting out in the open, waiting for us to discover it for the first time.

We couldn’t see it where we were because our understanding of our lives was focused on the life we had then. We weren’t stumbling along the path, attempting to find the new points of entrance into the new place that we need to get to.

I know some who have needed to step into employment for the first time in their lives and now report feeling fulfillment in a way they never have before. I know others who took the chance of a new career. Somehow, the lack of security allowed them to risk big! For others, it is doing the same thing with fresh new insight into the things they value most. For me, it resulted in several things. My favorite is that I returned to school for a certificate in spiritual direction. I love the program! Would I have discovered this had I not been widowed? NO! It took me moving to a new place and finding a new path to walk to do what I’m doing now.

Along the way, we employ new navigation strategies, discover our “rose rooms,” and come to an understanding that the interruption that occurred on the way to somewhere else, while tragic, has become a touchstone in our lives.

Holistic and Realistic Approaches to Grief, Loss, and Transitions

Posts from the ‘Musings and Insights’ Category

Revisiting Our Hardwiring

The Secrets We Keep

Change, One Fall at a Time

Dancing in the Sunlight

Changes

Saying “WOW!”

Calling Each Other Out to Growth

Switch-a-Roo

The Because Place

Wrong Species, Pooch.

Slow-Cooked Relationships

Seasons (Revisit)

I Suppose

Chasing the Fly

One Wish, Please

Semi-Rant

Thanks, but Not This Gift (Revisit)

If it’s January, it Must Be Resolution Time

Sneakiness is Happiness (Revisit)

Good Enough

Hearing it, Seeing it

Sanctuary

Truths in Death

Piece of Cake

On My Way to Somewhere Else

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