Soul Peace & Journeys | Beyond Grief and Loss Therapy

Apr 16

Free Yourself

This past week as the session with the therapist unfolded, I found that I’d come to the end of the journey, and a sense of completion entered my soul. I’d done it! I’d faced it all down: the process of not only ten years but beyond that. I’m pretty sure there was a celebration out at sea where my beautiful iceberg resides. These days she floats majestically on the water. I like to envision her that way. I don’t need her anymore, and that is a good and celebratory thing.

So, that day and the next I spent twirling, and allowed for the happy to be present as it should. My only complaint was the lack of good, wholesome American junk food to splurge on.

The weekend allowed me to just be, and to do nothing, which is what I did. I think I finally let the entire energy of the journey I’d been on hit. Now, as I sit at my desk, I realize that I have little to say as the process of debriefing and grieving can now enter the work. I suspect that whatever words I don’t have now will come in time and, as they need to, emerge.

As I’ve gone through the process, I’ve let the therapist be my therapist, and I’ve tried to just be the person seeking the help. It has been a real exercise in letting it all go, and I’m glad I did it this way.

I’m now cleaning things up as I enter this final stage of the process. I think I’m going to find both good and hard in this process as I step back and take a good hard look at what has gone down. You turn around and look behind you, and this time, instead of carnage, you can see the WOW in clear light. Once again, the river has been navigated with skill.

As I sit here, I realize that I’ve really healed, and while it has been hard, it’s been a good process.

What I’ll face next will be a different type of work, and hard in its own way. It is the doing of the hard work that enables us to move forward in peace.

I celebrated another year around the sun this weekend. It was anticlimactic. I was in a place of letting the therapy that had been done do its thing. So, I had not shopped for the day, and I don’t think there will be any treats until I get to my favorite chocolate shoppe, and there I’ll select some joyous treats. I’ll have to wash everything down with loads of water. This is an argument for chocolate first and meals after!

My own holiday has happened. I purchased two new dresses and have enjoyed wearing both. Which is one of the pluses of doing the work I’ve done. I’ve opened the gate to Gail-things back into my life. I must say that this is a happy thing to do—it has been colorful as well!

As my mother once said when asked what to buy me for a gift: “Just give her clothes and she’ll be happy.” True, I gave myself dresses, and I’m happy.

I think the celebration is one of being content in both my age and my psychological state. As the week moves on, I’m finding that this isn’t a giddy happy: it’s the state of a job well done, and a pride of knowing that I listened to what was going on inside, felt it, heard it, and then decided to boldly go where I needed to go: to face the frontier of allowing myself to be healed. This journey has been worth all of it! It’s been worth the painful nights of tears and loneliness when, at times, I had to give all to my higher power. I had to trust that in letting go, the damage that had been done could be jettisoned. It worked as it should have. I had to let the words and the work I was doing stand.

I’m not sure if I can do this justice. I’m going to give it my best shot here. This type of healing takes courage, brutal honesty with one’s self, and the guts to speak the unspeakable to another, and to allow yourself to hear the ugly of it all. It is about throwing down the gauntlet and being wise enough to know that you, and only you, are the one who can cross it. To complicate matters, only you can sense within yourself when it is safe to do the “within” work. Don’t let yourself be deceived by the fact that you need to have everything in place. There is never a time when all the stars in the universe will align enough for you to get the cosmic green light. This type of work is stuff that you push yourself into for whatever the reason is. You realize that if you don’t do it, you will add more to what is present. Do it now or you will be living with it for the rest of your life, and that is not an option.

What pushed me to really do my own work? In one year, I was hospitalized and could have died twice. Both experiences were traumatic in different ways. Both sent me into the “I’ve got to find the right therapist” mode. Both experiences let me know I couldn’t do what I needed to do alone. “Therapist, heal thyself” is not an intelligent thing to engage in. If I had tried to do that, I would have needed to declare myself a fool. You know the saying about how lawyers who defend themselves have fools for clients. There is a point in time when you must gather your courage and walk out to the dock and send a message to the captain: I’m going to give you the relief you deserve. It is my time to take this all on. The captain who resides out there at sea may or may not understand what will happen. The stuff trapped in the iceberg does understand, and that is how you become resistant to the big change that is coming. The stuff in the iceberg may like being in there, all safe and comfy in its own space. The stuff might tell you not to disturb it. The stuff is a liar. Your unconscious likes the status quo despite the fact that even deeper down it is begging and pleading to be freed of the ugly junk. Allow yourself to search for the right person to help you heal.

I could say more. I won’t. I’m going to let this stand and come back to it all at some other time. Give yourself a gift: free the iceberg, and free yourself.

Feb 19

Exiting the Box (Revisit)

This post was originally published on March 18, 2024.

I was raised in a high-demand religion that placed me in a box. When you’re young, you only sense that something is off, and it was my nature to knock down barriers. Boxes are barriers, and so it began at a young age, the push–pull of trying to walk the line, yet break free of the box. The breaking out was needful, and the process almost broke me.

Breaking free is a process that takes time, knowledge, exploration, and courage. How many of us realize that we each live in a box? Our boxes are made up of different restrictions, in or out of high-demand religions and other groups. It takes strength to knock walls down. It takes strength to call it out when others remain silent. I discovered that it was lonely being the only one in the room who understood that I was trapped. It was lonely not being able to put the pieces together at a young age. It took so much time to fully connect the dots.

I’ve been knocking walls down since my adolescence. I must admit that I wouldn’t know how to live a life without breaking personal barriers, and if it helps others I’ll bring them along. I’ve spoken about this in the sledgehammer piece I wrote. I think over what I’ve done, and I want to share more. How did I find the courage to move to a new place in life?

When I look back at all of this, I’m caught up in the WOW of it all, and I think back to how I navigated the choppy parts of the river. Who was in my boat? People who were living outside of the box I’d been in. At first I didn’t understand this. The further I moved away from what had been, the more I understood out-of-the-box thinking in real time. Being in the box won’t free you to do the thinking you must do outside of the box. First you must get out!

The people outside the box enabled me to leave the bench I was sitting on and move forward. I’ll admit that this process has been both velvet in its feel and scary as I’ve crossed into the underworld and new territory.

Leaving the box causes others in the box to not understand why you would choose to leave the secure space. In my boxed situation, I was told not to “leave the boat,” and I was asked where I would go if I left the boat. I jumped into the water and into the waiting dinghy that was there for me. As I rowed into new, warmer waters, I discovered that there was new growth and so many new places to explore! What an expansive universe I lived in!

I found myself discovering so many new things! The current was swift, and as I stretched myself to learn and to ask new questions, I grew in ways that I never thought I could. Over fifty years spent in a box, and while I mourned, I also moved on. I must also admit that Jon’s suicide was a catalyst for personal growth. How could it not be a process of moving me forward? I wasn’t willing to roll over and play dead.

I discovered that it was time to put the sledgehammer away, and to discover more peaceful means of breaking down walls and moving forward. I was truly sad about stowing the sledge, as it had been a lifelong companion. I was comfortable with it, and I understood the sledge’s use, and there were better ways of creating change.

My soul work moved me forward. I now find myself in a place of peace and contentment, and it’s weird because I never imagined myself in this place. In the box, this was not possible. Outside of the box, it is doable. I think the difference is that I’ve discovered more of who* I am, what the world is all about, and that I’m finding lots of wonderful new ways of looking at everything I encounter.

While my exit from the box was velvet in its nature, it did cause me great pain. There are people who have turned their backs on me, and they’ve walked away. There are others who won’t talk about the hard things. You know—the things that really need to be said. In the box, people can’t go to these places. How I long for people I have known to go to the harder places! The price we pay for breaking ourselves out of the box is the loss of people we thought were friends. So, we must grieve again.

I’ve found that the the grief process here is no different from other grief, and that the “please do” that must be a part of our process in the exit is a major must. This is a lonely process, and it is often one that is done alone because our new village might not understand what we need in our lives.

The box I was in taught me some good things. It taught me to give to others, and to do it when it might not always be convenient. It taught me to listen to myself, and that enabled me to “jump ship” and get out of there. Who I was, and who I am, was not to be found in the tiny box.

I move on, forward, into the unknown, which is exciting, wonderful, and scary. It never ends, this discovery business. I wonder what I’ll learn around the next bend?

Feb 5

Becoming a Peaceful Soul

Dear Reader,

Last week, while sitting here in my office space working, I heard a noise from above. This noise is distinct: a dull sound resonating in the air that gets louder and stronger. It is the sound of planes flying overhead. One group, and then another followed. It’s a scary noise. Where are they headed? Most likely into harm’s way. May those pilots be kept safe. I don’t know how most of the pilots are kept safe. Sooner or later, that could easily end.

A congregant who lives in Ukraine and attends church online told us she was safe. She sounds calm, but you can’t really be fully calm in that situation. I can’t imagine her daily life as she pursues medical studies. Planes fly there too. The darkness and cold she must live with are of concern to all of us who know her. All we can do is hold out hope that she’ll survive it all. Outside my office I hear a plane passing over. Is it a peaceful flight? I hope so.

I turn on the news to see things in the US. It isn’t safe or good at all.

How do I help others to cope with the terror they are facing when they are a person of color? I check in with my clients weekly.

The real horror is that I understand that history is repeating itself. This time in a country that has never fully understood what they have had by way of safety and peace. It is now fading. All I can say is brown shirts. I think it, and I shudder. All I can think about is that piece I read about the person who was left alone when they came for him, and not one person was left to stand for him. No, not one. Are we willing to show up for those who need us?

I hold out hope that the protesters will be heard, and that they will be successful. At the same time, I pray for their safety. Protesting is dangerous work. Peaceful protesting is a skill that many are learning rapidly. I know those who are showing up, and I know that they show courage in showing up.

When things went wrong in Paris a few years ago, someone in the neighborhood lit up a peace sign. I thought that it was a nice gesture of solidarity. Would it do much? No, just that gesture of support. Now I look back on that, and I think that it was a bright beacon of support for Paris. Maybe someone saw it and took time to think about what happened in the city of lights.

What will our international gesture of understanding be for those who are having their peace stolen from them? What will the legacy of those who have been killed be? I don’t know, and so I’ll put this up, tag it, and continue to raise my voice in the only way I can. I’ll do what I can as a therapist and spiritual director. I’ll continue to ask myself and others: “Is it well with your soul?” and to nurture that safety from within. Maybe that is my role in this. I know I must sing—if only in my own home. We must overcome. I think of the verse that is in “We Shall Overcome” and understand that only truth will make us free. Joan Baez and others have rung out in quiet protest. The words sung are truth.

As I look back over my own personal work during the past three years, I think about how I was led and was able to find the right people to become a part of my life: friends and others who were willing to risk involvement as I discharged trauma. While what I did was gutsy, what the world has to do now is even more gutsy. Do we as world citizens have the courage to make peace with ourselves inside our own souls and move it out to our families, the neighborhoods, and then beyond?

During the past few months, I’ve become a more peaceful soul, and I believe it has to do with the healing that I’ve done. It is deep soul work. I could not have foreseen this in my life. I’ll take it, and so much more.

I’ll leave this thought with you:

Breathe out the tension of hate and violence.

Breathe in the fullness that you are enough.

Breathe out what you cannot control.

Breathe in the courage to claim what you can do yourself.

Remember that it is in community that our strength is strongest.

If you need to find a professional, don’t hesitate to do so. This type of stress can be managed.

In peace and hope,

Gail

Jan 29

Is it Well with Your Soul?

My younger brother called over the weekend. We always reminisce about what was once normal. So, today I’m in a reflective place.

I grew up in a very formal German family. That was the culture of my father’s family. I called my grandparents Grandma and Grandpa, and my aunts and uncles were “Aunt or Uncle so-and-so.” It was a matter of respect for our elders. We deferred to their seniority and never used their first name. That was a no-no! So, my brother and I wondered what has happened!

I’m wondering why the boundaries are slipping away in families, and why there is a lack of respect?

This got me thinking about how, despite the fact that more people know about boundary issues, the boundaries in family life have become more disturbed or relaxed. I’m taken back to the fact that many people no longer understand how to form healthy relationships.

We now have options. We can distance ourselves from family members, and we can claim that we’re too busy to connect. We can block those we can’t bother to connect with or completely remove them out of our lives. We no longer need to work out issues.

Now, pulling away from family isn’t new: the way, and the reasons we do it, may be far more creative now. In my family history, my own great-uncle on my father’s side pulled away. I never got to know him. We lost out.

The question becomes one of making the right call, and when ties should be severed.

Now I mention my mother. My mother’s upbringing honored her English and Welsh heritage. She wanted peace in the home.

I grew up in a family where my brother and my brother-in-law butted heads, and their arguments became very unpleasant for the rest of us. One was ultra-conservative and didn’t read both sides of the issue. The other got angry too fast. To be honest, our move to Europe solved the issue for us as a couple. Other family members withdrew from family activities.

In sorting all of this out, I’m realizing that my upbringing failed to teach me how to deal with volatile family situations. My mother was a peacemaker. She wasn’t dysfunctional about it. She and my father were more on the neutral end of things. The problem is that when I look back, I’m not sure that our home was as peaceful as it looked from the outside. I’ve learned a few things about peace in the past few years. I attribute this learning to my own grief process, and the outcome of doing deep soul work.

The most important thing I’ve learned is that peace starts within each of us. Once we have made peace inside, we can slowly move into our homes, neighborhoods, and the wider community to build structures of peace. From that point it can radiate out further like a ripple on the water.

What does it take to first go inside, and then move outside of ourselves? I believe that if we can’t be completely honest with ourselves, we can’t be honest in other areas of our lives. We must first commit to the inner war of the soul. Some people call this shadow work. For others it is holy work. Whatever your own term for this is, it is brutal work that must be met with brutal honesty. It takes more than asking for peace, wanting peace, or hoping for peace. Peace within asks us to confront ourselves on multiple levels. How are we doing on respecting others, understanding racism, and understanding what it means to be a world citizen? How do we see poverty or domestic violence? How do we view the world we live in? A friend of mine has asked me: “Is it well with your soul?” As I reflect on this question, I believe the answer has to be that my soul is a journey in progress.

There are areas where I catch myself in thought and make notes to work on it. It starts inside.

I’m learning that peace is a complex issue. I’m understanding that my mother might have made more peace inside, but she wasn’t able to fully create this peace outside of herself. And so, undesired conversations happened in our home. The results from these conversations were understood to be destructive, and my mother could not quell the word wars at family gatherings because shutting down feelings and emotions is a form of disrespect to others. Could she have laid down the law? Yes. Would that have served peaceful purposes? Maybe. But not for my brother and brother-in-law. I don’t remember the conversations anymore. I do remember the tense, ugly feelings and emotions that played out in the room. Maybe that’s what makes world peace so hard.

Dec 25

The Gift of the Season (Revisit)

This post was originally published on December 19, 2023.

2023, and I’m thinking about the lyrics to “Proud Mary,” and how times have changed. What I’m thinking about is the holidays, of giving, receiving, and how those who have little often give of what they have, and that the giving comes from the heart. It is a different way of giving than that of those of us who have shelter, food, and safety.

I have a cousin who lived in an abusive home. Her daughter left as a teen and lived on the streets. For her, it was a choice to leave and not have a father sexually assaulting her. I heard about this during my grad-school years and wondered why she would risk living on the streets rather than trying to become an emancipated minor. People on the streets were forming “families” of sorts and attempting to help each other survive. It seemed harsh to me. It still seems harsh as I think of it now. The realities of an economy that doesn’t work for everyone, the state of the world, and the attitudes of many people are all subjects for another post.

This week, as the Christian day of Christmas comes closer, I am focused in thought about what many Christians believe, and what many world religions do. They give. I must admit that I do have a healthy dose of holy envy at times. My client base is diverse, and I’m in a position to learn from so many good people who find their way to me.

This is about each of us doing it well, and going into our hearts and souls. It is about finding the inner spark that drives us to find out how, and why, we’re motivated to share and to give to others.

Lately, I’ve become aware of how many people fail to give because they believe that the only giving that matters is related to monetary giving. True giving comes from what we have within ourselves.

The catch for some people is that they feel empty inside. If I am nothing to myself, how can I give something to others? Some who have little give abundantly in love, nurturing of others, and sharing of their meager meals. When all you have is a cardboard roof over your head, and you live in a third-world nation, you may find motivation in different ways. Personally, I think consumerism is killing the human soul of those who live in Western nations.

At this time of year, in the cold of day and the longer nights, what is needed is the spirit of hope. How do we give hope when these days hope seems to be at a minimum?

I’m not a “Pollyanna” in any way. What I’m seeing in others, and within myself, is a realism that is needed to focus on the things that can enable the soul to free itself, and to learn to have more love: love for ourselves, love for each other, and love for our burdened planet.

My work with the Enneagram has taught me so much about becoming a better self. This past year has taken me to some deep soul work, and in doing the work, I’ve experienced highs and lows. The insight therapy that I do with my clients and the spiritual direction that my directees choose to engage in move the soul to places of compassion for the self, and into areas where giving to others becomes more of a natural choice. When we fill our souls with healthier ways of thinking, living it brings peace and an inner joy to ourselves.

I know what some of you are thinking. Before you shut this down or go off on a rant about how this author is clueless and is spouting crap, please, hear me out!

I’ve been there, I’ve done the angry-at-the-author thing, and I’ve learned that there are realistic avenues to making peace with the self.

I’m not promoting religion or even God. What I’m promoting here is deep inner work that moves each of us to challenge, and to question, who we each are, and why we feel the way we do about ourselves deep down where the soup is made. This is when we go into the places that force us to rethink, restructure, and renew. These are the thin or liminal places. These are the places where people with depression, anxiety disorders, ADHD, and so many other mental issues dwell. These are the deep places of dark questions. If we find a good therapist, spiritual director, or other support, we can work through all of it and come out on a new shore. It is as I described in Styx. Pollyanna types don’t venture into these dark places. Maybe that is why I’m turned off by the book and film. I wanted to slap her silly. Excessive positivity is damaging to the psyche.

Soul work, and exploring our shadow side, is a gamble that pays off in large dividends. I suppose I will continue to go deeper as I do the self-work that contributes to moving forward.

When I think about creating peace within the self, and peace in the world which enables us to give to each other, I realize that it is a complex issue. I understand that what matters most is that we take the first step, uncap our heads, and do a deep inner dive to discover the good, the bad, and the ugly truth about ourselves so that we can present a better self to ourselves and to those around us.

The gift of the season is deep inner work.

Apr 1

Legacies

The past few weeks have been centered on what I want to both leave behind and create as the leader of a small church group. My thoughts have taken me to the legacies we each receive and leave as we journey in life.

Over the years I had not given it much thought because I have no biological children, and aren’t legacies what you leave for them? I will leave this world as I came into it: unconnected. Maybe that is not an accurate way of looking at it. We can build deep connections during our lives. We may or may not exit with deep connections. It’s up to us to build connections, and to pass them on: legacies.

I suppose this is why we focus on leaving something behind, so that we can mark our connection to the world we’ve lived in. My thinking about all of this changed about seven years ago. Now I am preparing for a new life journey that is opening up, and once again asking myself what I’ll be leaving behind. It is causing me to explore new possibilities, and to think along new lines.

As I look back on others who have left their mark on this planet, I think of my parents. They touched many lives, and they never gloated about it. It was always done in a manner of simple quietness and generosity. I will never know how far their lives reached into others’ lives. That is a good thing, and it has served as an example to me: do it quietly and leave no trace.

I think of others who have touched my life, and it seems to always play out in the same manner. It is a quiet sense of doing something behind closed doors and out of the public eye. I owe these men and women so much.

Legacies can serve as gifts or not-so-pleasant packages of regret. I hope that what I leave will be the gift package wrapped up in a pretty, fluffy bow.

How does one leave a legacy? I think by doing the best they can. And in many situations, it turns out to be a neutral desire to do good in the world. Parents raise children who step out into the world and contribute in unforeseen ways. I’d venture a guess that most Nobel Peace Prize winners didn’t set the goal to win that prize: their work won it for them. At some point in a person’s life, the work that they are doing becomes bigger than they are. Mother Teresa is such a person. A lesser-known Nobel laureate is John Nash. His life was portrayed in the film A Beautiful Mind, and his greatest work was in mental health. That was not his area of expertise.

One legacy I cherish is the legacy of music my parents created in their family. My parents had decided before marriage that music would be a primary happening in our home. My father was a pianist, and my mother sang. We all sang. We each did other musical things as well. Of all the legacies left to me, music is the one that has affected me the most. Singing and the sounds of music have shaped my life. Even my wedding reception ended with music, and I found myself singing without a care on a cozy December evening in 1998. Music was just what my family did.

I’ve written about the different paths we travel in our life journeys. Each journey unfolds to teach us new thoughts about ourselves and our greater lives. I don’t know where I’m headed on this new path—I do know it will be a good place, and I’ll do my best to make it count. I understand that I needed to heal, and to leave the battlement to get to where I’m headed. The courage to heal came from my listening to my body, my heart, and my head. I followed that path of knowledge and now stand with a new path facing me. Where will I go?

Mar 25

The Hard Things (Revisit)

Originally posted on July 3, 2023.

This past week has been a roller coaster of sadness, fear, contemplation, and soul-searching. I’ve had to step back and look at the last seven years of my life and reconnect with feelings that I thought were buried.

On August 29, 2016, I sat at my dining room table and wondered how I would get through life as a disabled person in a country where I didn’t have family or many friends. The fact is that I was traumatized, in shock, and trying to make sense of everything with no way to make sense of anything. And so, a journey began.

I began to read and learn and discard the useless junk books. People spout Elizabeth Kübler Ross’s stages, workbooks on working through it. They said that if you do this, that, or the other thing, you’ll work through your grief, and all will be well.

I call BS. Grief can’t be fixed or cured. I stumbled on one book that I will recommend. The author went through traumatic loss and did what she needed to do to come through things. It’s OK That You’re Not OK by Megan Devine is an excellent book that portrays the awful, the trauma, and the struggle to stand up again when grief and loss enter our lives. Death, unlike other life events, presents unique challenges for each of us. Someone’s death by suicide adds to our saying goodbye in unique ways.

Devine’s experience was different from mine, and yet she touched on similarities: the inability to feed myself, to sleep, to drag myself into a new day or to know what to do. I’d had to shut work off and allow for healing time. I was compromised.

The only thing I fully understood on August 29, 2016, was that for the next year I would not be making any major life decisions that could be put off. My father had taught me this, and it served me well during a time of tears, fear, trauma, and uncertainty.

I was able to visit the US in the summer of 2017. It felt like I was in a foreign country. It wasn’t home. Europe was home. Going to the States was a chance to explore and connect with family, and to realize that I needed to find my own path. It was time to begin to do the deeper work of change.

I needed to let go, and to trust that the process of healing would occur as it needed to happen in my life. I let go and engaged in trusting the universe and myself. I had to trust that I would walk a path that needed to be walked. At the end of two years, the type of tears I was crying had begun to change. My life was changing, and I had begun to trust my process. I was headed into new territories. It was a velvet road that I walked. Yes, the road was bumpy, and there was much to learn. The transition was done on velvet and I only realized after the fact that I’d been moving to a new place.

Newbies to this process often ask when the tears will stop, when the pain will stop, when the missing will stop. Things change; things don’t stop. You don’t get over people you love; you work through it all. Learning to walk through things is the real work of grief, loss, and an acceptance of the life we move into. And so, I began my education in standing stronger and finding how to heal from the awful, and unthinkable, of surviving my husband’s suicide.

This last spring, I completed continuing education units (CEU’s) for my license renewal. The presenter on surviving a death by suicide had me until he played a snippet of a video on forgiveness. I thought about it and I asked why you would need to forgive someone for doing what they felt they needed to do in life. I realized at the end of those hours with him that he didn’t get it in the same way I got it. My husband’s death has never required my forgiveness. It never will. I digress.

In 2023 I’ve begun a new soul journey that calls me to an acceptance that my vision is changing. Once again, I must face the fact that it is harder to read, to see what I once saw, and to figure out what the new path forward will be. Once again, I’m grieving the loss of what was, and sitting with the fear of how bad it will get. Once again, I’m wondering if I can do this hard thing.

How does anyone get on doing the hard things? I got thinking about this yesterday when I realized that I had a friend who hasn’t quite walked the life path I’ve walked and doesn’t understand the messiness of facing the hard in the same way I do. I hold out space for this person because they’ve had different challenges.

I think some of us who have faced a constant stream of hard things tend to shortchange those whom we view as not having hard and challenging lives. I’ve had to call myself out on this. What looks like an easy, privileged life is seen from the outside. One of the things the past seven years has pounded into my head is that judging this type of thing is a trap. It’s a trap because we might look at ourselves as knowing more when it comes to doing life. I don’t think we know any more than others. We only know a different thing.

I get that my clients and directees come to me for various reasons. I expect them to need to deal with hard things. I’ve had to learn that I need to cut a great many people a great deal of slack. We each face our hard things differently.

I tell you all of this because I’m learning to graciously accept others’ sincere comments about my doing hard things. While it’s second nature to me, it isn’t to them. I realize that I want to respect their desire to support me just as I would support them. My journey is calling me out on being a judgmental person. Oh, this is a hard thing! This is deep soul work.

I think back to when I was in my twenties and I wondered how people older than I was got to where they understood all of this. It’s about not being afraid to call the old self out to the new self. That is what grief and loss are all about.

Jan 21

1 Comment

Author’s Pick: Dancing in the Sunlight

My greatest joy as a therapist is to witness as those I work with make discoveries that alter and transform their lives. This piece, originally posted January 27, 2024, was such a celebration of a client’s discovery. Come, celebrate in the sun with me!

-Gail

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!

Dec 4

Reworking Narratives

Our lives unfold in ways we’d hoped, and not hoped for. The paths we walk may be scripted or unscripted, and there are times when we find out about our paths only when we go exploring to figure out the why of it all.

And so, the story of our lives unravels with the truths and the lies we tell ourselves about who we are. We act and we react, or we choose to ignore it all and do nothing, hoping that it will all go away. When it doesn’t go away, I see the person in my online office. And the narrative of their life is laid out for both of us to see.

I once asked my husband to tell me what one gift he’d give me if he could. The problem with his well-meaning gift was that it would have erased a huge part of who I am. Knowing that I am a person with disabilities is something I accept. What I wish I didn’t have to accept is the junk society saddles me with as a disabled person. And so, this is how it is with my life narrative: I accept it. I wouldn’t swallow a pill or anything else that would change it.

The paths we walk shape who and what we are. Accepting both the good and bad choices, and their outcomes in our lives, is hard. Dealing with it in therapy is hard, and the result can be powerful and liberating.

Powerful outcomes result in posts like the ones in “Discharging Trauma” or “Soul Journeys.” It’s the lightbulb happenings in “Dancing in the Sunlight” that enable people to grasp that things are worth it.

Therapy is about reworking our narratives and coming to terms with them as they are and not how we wish they were. What we can’t change is linked to our past and present. What we can change is created by the choices we make for our future lives. It is like good soup.

I don’t offer a quick fix, and I don’t want it for myself. I want to build relationships with people. I’ve found that when we dig into our lives, it gets messy, and the process of digging out of our messiness is often not pleasant. What people need in therapy are tools, listening, and understanding, and to be called out on their stuff. Therapy is not for wimps.

While turning over the blockages in our lives is hard work, the results are worth it! I’ve learned that mental health planning is a good skill to have. If I can think ahead to how I can plan for some possibilities, I may be in a better place to manage the unwanted outcomes. I accept what I can’t control. I wholeheartedly embrace what I can control.

I want to take the path of openness, and I want to be able to turn over the rocks in front of me that stand as barriers, and not the old ones that got placed in my past. I’ve looked at the rocks of the past. Forward is a much better way of doing things.

As I write this, I realize that I want to chase the fly; I take delight in the adventures that I can have. Our life paths are narratives that we can watch and create in real time. Don’t just sit by the lake: chase the fly!

Aug 26

Reaching towards the Sun

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

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

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

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

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

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

Deep Shadow Work

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

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

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

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

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

Jun 25

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Not for Wimps

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

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

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

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

Free Stuff

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

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

The list below is meant to trigger ideas:

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

Why Do We Need to Care for Ourselves?

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

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

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

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

Mar 28

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I Will Walk Out of Here

I never thought I’d be spending six weeks in a wheelchair. I also never thought I’d get so good at wheeling myself around. This ability has surprised me, and I’m proud of the fact that I’ve been able to get better at it the past six weeks. I’ve learned a few things as well.

I’ve become more patient with myself. Walking is something most people do without thinking about it. Once we’ve learned to put one foot in front of the other foot, we do it automatically. If we suffer a stroke or other brain injury, then the task of learning how to walk is something that must happen again.

Learning how to not walk is another challenge; we must wheel ourselves around just to shower, to dress, and to do all things that go along with preparing for the day. I can’t walk to what I need; right now I roll to what I need, and I must think it out. So I roll to underwear, socks, and then what I want to wear. Then, once I have that secured, I can roll to shower myself, and this will take assistance.

I’ve had to learn to safely transfer from a bed to a wheelchair. Soon it will be devices such as a walker or a rolling walker that will give me more mobility, and then independent walking, putting one foot in front of the other.

Before I leave the chair, there are lessons that I’ll take with me.

I can do more than I thought I could do in this chair. I’m fairly self sufficient, and for a person with only 12% of her sight, that is pretty darn good. I can roll this thing anywhere I need to go. I’m still building arm strength. The arm that was damaged in the minor stroke that I had is coming into new strength. I’m asking why this wasn’t done at the time of the original rehab. It is happening now, and I’ll look for ways to keep the arm building up strength. Rolling is good physical therapy.

If I need something from nursing staff, I buzz, and then go into a queue. I’m becoming patient, and realizing that others here may not be as able as I am, and so I’m learning to wait. Waiting has also been motivation for me. Can I do the transfer alone? Can I do what I thought I needed someone to help me with on my own? Each success has built on a foundation of a new understanding and wiped out the fear that happened with the fall I took. I can do this! I’m doing this! With low vision I’m pulling this off. WOW-lesson learned: when you are put into situations that limit you, the human spirit chooses to crash, to rise, or to slowly trust that there is a way to rise to new highs. Fear only has a hold on us when we believe there is no way out of where we are. Hope offers ways to get to new places.

This week they’ll x-ray my leg, and I’ll be told if it’s safe to walk on the leg again. I’ll enter a new cycle of fear, learning to trust that I can put pressure on the leg in real time, and trusting the physiotherapists to not allow me to go faster then is prudent.

Physiotherapy by its nature is going to cause me pain. My mind by nature is questioning what happened, and if it will happen again. Now I know it can happen, and I’m doing the prep work to “Gail-proof” that house with some security measures. When stuff happens, we get cautious as we have thoughts about it happening again. It is why a grandparent warns children to not get too close to the edge: it isn’t that they want to deny fun to the children, but rather because they’ve lived long enough to know that unexpected things happen to all of us. We trust our bodies to be predictable when in reality they can be faulty, and when the faulty stuff happens we wind up in the ER asking why and hoping for good news. Listen to older people because they’ve seen more than you have by nature of living longer.

It is true that what I’m talking about is not wisdom. I’m talking about life experiences and general knowing.

Ultimately, we’re led to do the journeying our souls and hearts need to do. The unexpected has a way of bringing us surprises that can benefit us. My fall was a seven-week life detour, and while I haven’t enjoyed it, I’ve learned from doing it.

Last week they moved me. The room I’d been in since my arrival had a view of the tree and the window in the house across the street. The image that I saw daily looked like the perfect cover for an old Nancy Drew mystery. They’ve move me to a place further away from the tree, and now I’m looking at the employee parking lot. The movement came with other changes as well. The biggest change is that I can see how far I’ve come in six weeks. I think the huge change is the fact that I’m expressing far more gratitude for what I can do and for those who have engaged with me to bring about the change. The charge nurse on my first day here looked me in the eyes and said “YOU CAN DO THIS,” and I was annoyed by that statement. Now I’ve done much, and in the next ten days I must launch myself to new heights. I will walk again. I will walk out of here.

Mar 18

Exiting the Box