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Jul 23

Reflections, Part 3

Note: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is also known as the Mormon Church. Therefore, I’ll use the name Mormon in this post. For definitions of terms included in bold type throughout this post, please see the Definitions section at the bottom.

I’m nine years old, and I’m sitting in the middle of the chapel at the Irvington building in Fremont, California. I’m a Mormon girl with low vision and hearing loss. It’s a Wednesday afternoon in 1968, and the chorister is teaching the senior primary children a song about the earth, and how Heavenly Father created it for us, and there is all this nature being described in the song. All I can think of is, I’m not like the rest of the kids in this room. I don’t see and hear like they do. I think a seed got planted that day: my exit. For me, this was not an odd way for what played out in my Mormon membership to begin. It was such a simple and subtle act.

How, at the age of nine, might this have happened? Mormon doctrine on the disabled is, I think, something the church—like with race and the priesthood—would rather forget and bury deep. The problem with this is that once you see it, you can’t unsee it. It hits you in the face like a bold neon sign that reads: “It’s OK to hate these people.” Here is where you can focus your anger and hate, and here is where you are allowed to create the most vicious of theodicies: they got what they deserved for being fence-sitters in the previous life. If race doesn’t get you, being born with a disability will. In many ways I had to come to the second half of life (see Falling Upwards by Richard Rohr) rather early. I understood at age nine that something was terribly wrong: I didn’t have the words for it at the time, and yet I knew. It felt like the unscratchable itch. So it goes with those of us on the margins within the Mormon Church. We are placed in a situation where we must think through some essential life stuff before we should have to be thinking in second-half-of-life terms. It forces us to come to a mature world view earlier than normal. We have to sort out our values and thoughts, and then come to an understanding of how life works.

When I was between ten and eleven years of age, I was told by three girls who claimed to be friends that they were no longer going to be friends. I saw it for what it was: bullying, and wrong in the sight of God. That day, after our primary class, they got told by me that I understood it for what it was: wrong. I left the church building in tears and walked to the car where my mother waited. The damage they inflicted was done even before they began to inflict the large-scale damage that would happen until I was eighteen. BUT, it was OK because I was who I was: disabled, despite my father serving as the stake president at the time.

My adolescence was spent in loneliness, as any time I tried to make a friend, these girls made sure it didn’t happen. They carried their actions into the schools we all attended. Eventually, I reached a compromise with my parents around church: Sunday was mandatory, and nothing else was required.

Yes, the parents of the girls knew. One family condoned it, the second must have ignored it, and the third, well, when the parents of that girl met with my father, they spent too much time apologizing to my father. They said they couldn’t change her thinking. It didn’t matter; I knew how people felt about me. Very few adults took the time to get to know me. The person who did became a friend for life. 

The damage this did to me socially was that during the years I should have been developing peer relationships, they were non-existent. I thought leaving town would help—it didn’t. It made it worse.

At what is now known as BYU Idaho, certain things are required. Church attendance is mandatory. By my second year studying there out of state, I was overlooked for church participation. When I asked our bishop why I hadn’t been given anything to do, or what Mormons term a calling, he replied: “Nobody asked for you.” I moved that next semester and kept quiet with study and a service sorority, sleeping most of the weekend. By the time I graduated with an Associate of Arts in General Education, I was depressed, twenty pounds heavier, and miserable. I needed the sunny place of California once again. While Idaho created environmental depression, getting back to California and home didn’t help much. It would take a huge change to fix the depression.

Church wasn’t working for me even though I tried. I really tried to be a good Mormon. I wasn’t happy in my life. When you’re raised Mormon, that is all you know. It’s a high-demand religion. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, Mormon was thought of as weird. And I didn’t know enough to explain it to the therapist.

The problem with being an adult woman in the Mormon Church is that you’re supposed to get married and start having babies. This is the entrance ticket to being viewed as a real adult woman. And full admission happens when you pop out a child. I know, it is strange. And all this is traditionally done as early as eighteen, and well before twenty-five.

Moving into my twenties and seeing family and others marry, I knew that marriage wasn’t in the cards. Not being wanted for service told me a great deal. Not being considered dating material also could be seen as “not good breeding stock.” This is a view accepted by many in society. However, disabled doesn’t mean defective. I knew it at the age of sixteen and had it confirmed to me as I moved into full adulthood.

I did serve a Mormon mission, returned, and found employment in Provo, Utah. I didn’t last a full year in Provo. I went back to California, and on to grad school for a master’s in clinical psychology. I knew from a young age that I needed to work, as I wouldn’t be baking bread and popping out kids. I’d wanted to pursue a degree in clinical psychology in my teens. I was drawn to the work of doing therapy.

After graduating, I met Jon, and we married five years later. In January of 1999, he made the official move to Germany, and I followed in February of that same year. We settled into church and life in Europe. The Germans in Bavaria are surrounded by lovely mountains, and we lived in them. Jon set up a little website that we called An alp of our own, and we maintained the site while we lived there. I loved the stars and the night sky. It was, as one church member said, “Heidi country.”

We moved to The Netherlands in April of 2000 and settled in the eastern part of the country. Good-bye, stars—and hello, flat land. It was six years later that things began to change for us churchwise.

All this time, little seeds were dropping in my life. It was time to realize that things were changing.

Jon began reading and learning about what we’d been taught our entire lives, discovering that what we were told was wrong. He struggled with what had been withheld. I put off listening at first, until I heard another woman say that to support the marriage, she needed to stand by her husband and understand what he was saying. That comment made me think about how not learning could hurt our relationship. There is no harm in learning what one’s partner is learning. In 2008, I knew I needed to listen to what Jon was learning, and so, my own journey began while talking with him and doing laundry up on the top floor of our home. I remember looking out the window and hearing him talk. I realized the truth of the words made me more sad then angry. Down the dark rabbit hole on the slippery slide I went.

Next week, I will explore what I found inside that rabbit hole.

Definitions:

Primary: The Mormon organization for children, split into junior (ages three to seven) and senior (ages eight to eleven).

Mormon doctrine: Mormons believe that we came from a previous life known as the pre-existence, where we had to choose to follow Jesus or Satan. Whites were valiant and born white; blacks were fence-sitters and did not take a side readily but were allowed to come to earth and get a cursed body. This doctrine changed in 1978. The disabled were lower than the blacks and begged for a body—even a disabled one—so that they could get to earth. The exception to this is Down’s syndrome children: they were the spirits that kicked Satan out of heaven, and so to protect them, God made them Down’s children.

Fence-sitters: See the above note on Mormon doctrine.

Stake president: Comparable to a diocese, a stake consists of eight or more congregations called wards. The stake president presides over all the wards in his stake.

Calling: An assignment of service that is given to adult members. You can serve anywhere in a ward or stake to help the organization run smoothly.

Environmental depression: This was discovered in 2010. It wasn’t dealt with as such before then.

Apr 29

Purge

I got mad, and I yelled at someone. I don’t like myself when I get that angry, and this weekend it happened, and I’m feeling it.

As I began to focus on the “why” of my anger, and where it came from, I realized that what I’d done to someone I care about was deeply hurtful. Could the healing between us take place? 

I’m still in contemplation and prayer mode around this, and in sitting with what happened, the answer is yes, and you must care for each other to heal the pain, the wound, and the heart.

Learning about Relationships

My mother was big on keeping peace in the home. So, like with most parents, “say I’m sorry” was often used. The problem with that term is that most kids just say it and move forward. Children aren’t really taught about what it really means. I was told that if you say that you are sorry for something, you should work to not do it again. In theory, that is a nice thought. With most humans, we have to learn it by doing it wrong a few times, and then getting it right eventually. My mother also told me to think about it. That was actually helpful, and I could pocket it in my head and let it percolate on low and quiet until it made sense to me.

What does sorry mean? It means that you’ve thought about it, and you won’t do it again. Working towards what will become an apology means that you go deep into the soul and do the work that will enable you to purge your behavior of the wrongdoing. Jon was really good at this. Before I met him, I had the ability to go deep within and do the thinking, and to sit with my thoughts. What Jon taught me was the ability to root it out of myself. He taught me about purging oneself of one’s flaws. When he said that he wouldn’t do it again, he meant it. He’d purge himself of the behavior.

My mother might have wanted me to say the words and make nice. She wanted me to think about things. I needed to purge myself of the behavior and mean it to the core.

Some Rules

Forgiveness is a process of recognition and acceptance: recognition of what we did, and the acceptance of why we did it, and how we’ll work to repair it. It should be done between those affected. When we put it out for public consumption, it creates more damage. Keep if off threads and other forms of social media. There are some hurts and pain that need to be dealt with quietly and in private. Think about what you are posting, and why. To forgive each other is a process, and it takes time and deep thought. I don’t post things that are super personal. It tends to backfire!

Take your time to think, and to act. You most likely got into the mess you’re in because you didn’t think, or because you acted rapidly. Fast action creates further issues. Fast action is often impulsive. Sleep on it, get some distance, and then when calmer thoughts prevail, thoughtfully respond.

Reflecting

The sun is out today, and I am inside thinking and doing the work of Monday. I’ll take a walk, and I’ll focus on what I did that is causing me to feel awful: I got angry at a friend when I should have shut my mouth and listened. It wasn’t a good thing. Getting yelled at isn’t a good thing; doing the yelling isn’t a good thing. Being able to contemplate and forgive is a wonderful thing. Saying, and writing an apology is a needful ability in our lives. Accepting the apology will keep peace and purge the soul of the negative feelings. It’s all about the deep, inner purge.

Nov 11

1 Comment

Please Do! Suicide and Trauma (Revisit)

blue sky and ocean

Originally posted September 30, 2019.

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

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

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

This Grief Is on Steroids 

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

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

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

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

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

What Can You Do?  

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

The First 24 Hours

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

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

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

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

The Death Bubble 

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

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

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

Please Do! 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Please Do!

Mar 12

Relics

polaroid picture on a box

This last week was interesting. My church decided to sell 200 million dollars worth of relics to the Mormon Church. The Mormons like relics. Relics are about the past, and not about the future. I’m a forward thinker, and in the end, while there are some disturbing components, the sale is not a negative. Both churches won.

Relics and the past led me to think about my sister, who died when I was eighteen and heading off to go to college. She died one month before I had to be there to register and orient myself. It wasn’t good timing; it never is. Life and death do their own thing and do it on their own time. Births, for the most part, are not planned, and deaths tend to be inconvenient all the way around. It is all part of the nature of existence.

My mother woke up one morning and announced that Joyce’s room would not become a shrine. We got to work and decided that one of her friends would get the bedspread and matching curtains. I inventoried her clothes, taking the one dress I could wear. Joyce was big and bold in her style, and I took the one calmer red dress because I could pull that one off.

By the time I left for Idaho, the room was neutral. Eventually, the room served as a place for all of us when we returned home on breaks. We all could lay claim to that space. This has made me think about moving forward from loss and how we grieve. In the beginning, the tears are out of our control, and we want them to go away. It feels awful to cry when it doesn’t make sense to cry. It feels awful to get triggered all the time, and days turn into weeks, and then months. Grief sucks.

Eventually, the crazy tears go away. What the crazy is replaced with is tears that are calmer, and tears that we can identify for what they are. When Jon died, I decided to send his things to new homes. I kept tiny things of his that I liked. It was hard and needful to part with his things, and yet I knew that I needed to say goodbye to the things in our closet. I still had his side of the bed to smell and enjoy. That changed when I bought a new bed for myself. I was ready for the goodbye to the bed and the old room, and I was ready for the changes I would be making, from a milk chocolate brown to an ice blue! A very blue bed came in, and new colors flooded into the room. It was now a Gail space! Goodbye to the old and hello to the new. Still, there were tears.

Those tears! Will they ever not be present? I suspect that they will always return in unexpected ways. Now it is different, and I can identify the “why” around them. We move past the old in search of something new. We can’t get to the new without looking at the past. And so, we keep stuff that reminds us of the good in hopes of moving on. Sometimes we deceive ourselves into thinking that if we don’t look, we won’t cry. It never works that way.

Grief, and the work that we must do to resolve it, all has a nasty way of biting at us when we least expect it. It says, “Hello, remember me? I’m here to remind you to look at your past.” Then, if we are wise, we do. If we’re holding on to relics and making shrines, the chances of taking a truthful look are slim. We don’t cross the river Styx. I’ve mentioned before that it took me into my third year to really look at my relationship with Jon, and to deconstruct it. It needed to be done, and I came out stronger for having faced the ugly truths and the deep truths of love that lay beyond the surface of it all. He tried to make it a good thing despite the bipolar depression that plagued his life on a daily basis.

Relics lead us to truths that we need, and they trap us in the past that may not be useful. I choose paths that keep me in the present and guide me to a future that is not known. I’ve found this to be the best way to do the work of grief and loss. What I learned from unpacking the relationship was that the relationship was neither all good nor all bad, and that the various shades of colors were there for good reason. One of the trial notes for his decision of suicide was long. He said that he’d wanted to give me so much more but couldn’t. Reading that pierced my heart: a guy who woke to depression most every morning, feeling trapped because he couldn’t do what he really wanted to do, his truth laid out for me to see and hold. I had to look, and I had to be sad for the past.

Oh, my Jonnythan. I love you for your vulnerability, your strength, your brain that took us both to places on the outside of thought. As I write this in 2024, it seems like a different world. It was a world of sadness, a world that might have been, and a world that was what it was. It was sad, happy, joyful, and humorous. It was a world in which we were both helpful and supportive of each other, and at times not so much. It all stands for what is was. I can live with all of this. The looking back into the dark places no longer brings tears. I’ve moved on, and in this situation that is good. It feels good to breathe the air of progress. This new shore is a great place to get off the boat I’ve been on, and to go into the interior environs and poke around. 

Jun 26

3 Comments

Psychotherapy Soup

Good therapy isn’t a “fixing” of the person. It is about thinking in new ways, learning to ask better questions of ourselves, and requiring better answers of ourselves. It is movement towards something better. Finding what we really need is important. Finding a good starting point can pave the way to new places. How do we go about all of this? 

This makes me think about drug advertising. What? How is that relevant here? There are two countries in the world where pharmaceutical companies can plug their drugs: the US and New Zealand. In these two countries you can turn on the TV and be told that company X has a drug that will fix your anxiety, depression, obesity, and high blood pressure. And they make it sound so easy! Go talk to your doctor and tell them you want _____. The drug rep from company X may or may not have been successful in placing freebies of the drug in the office. It can be a crap shoot. 

I get that pharmaceutical companies spend billions on drug development. I also know that some of this drug research is done for a population of very few who have rare orphan diseases and need something that will enable them to live better lives. I also know that this is one big reason companies negotiate with countries for some tax breaks. Drug trials take years! The cash spent behind the lines is large, and the unseen person power is layers deep. 

I mention the above to say that psychotherapy referral sites “pitch” different methods of therapy to the consumer. The prospective client/patient might not know what tools the therapist might have that would be most useful in the situation. What you think you need and how you can get that need met becomes a real question. 

A helpful way of beginning this process is to figure out the “what” you are trying to change or get deeper insight into. If you want to stop biting your nails, short-term, behavior-focused therapies would fit your needs well. If, on the other hand, you realize that the nail biting stems from deeper issues within yourself, you might want to explore insight therapy or a combination of both forms of therapy. 

People get pitched to all the time. You hear something on a talk show, read a book that touts CBT or EMDR or process therapies, or a narrative model, and soon you’re swimming in the soup! Referral sites are great for sorting things out. READ the person’s profile!  

I’ll now talk about how I work, and begin, with a new person. 

When you call or mail a therapist, and you know they are accepting clients, please read what they have to say about their work. A therapist might set up boundaries around when they can or can’t take on certain types of clients or patients. My work is done on Zoom, and that means that for my clientele that I take precautions to keep those I work with safe. Respect a therapist’s boundaries. 

To find a therapist who is a good fit, consider some of the following: 

  • If a therapist offers a free consultation, a no-charge first session or something like it, this is your chance to test the waters.
  • Ask questions and see if it feels like the therapist is a person you could grow a relationship with.
  • Is the therapist having you fill out forms before the first session? Are these forms having you consent to treatment before you’ve met the therapist?
  • If you meet the therapist and decide to establish a working relationship, it would be normal to then consent to treatment that you have talked about. What most therapy consumers don’t understand is that until you’ve signed consent forms and have an agreement, you don’t have a therapist. 

When you meet with your new prospective therapist, talk about their working style, ask questions, and let them ask you questions. This is important if you feel like the therapist is someone you will be working with long term. 

In all therapy, there must be trust on both sides. For instance, the person getting the help needs to trust that the therapist will be open and honest and answer questions. On the therapist side, the therapist needs to have the insight to understand when answering a question might rob someone of valuable insight that would be better gained by asking the person to explore the possible questions for themself. 

For example, if you were seeing me and had come to me because of three failed relationships, I might begin to form my own picture of why things went bust three times. If I gave you my answer, I could be off or spot on. In answering, I would rob you of searching deeper. My strategy would be to question with you. We might explore all types of options. In this situation you learn about yourself, you might learn something about me, and we both learn about each other. We dig down into the soup of why stuff is the way it is. 

A reason I’d answer a question is that by doing so it would serve as a confirmation on work you’ve done. You’ve been in the soup; you’ve slurped, tasted, and gotten a sense for how things are. 

When I walked into my first therapist office, there were no forms to be signed. What was said there stayed there. A therapist may or may not have kept notes, and a client/patient portal didn’t exist. The predominant treatment was psychodynamic and process oriented. Now there has been expansion!

What is the same? We have an understanding that talking, insight, doing, and discovering new pathways into ourselves can calm storms of the soul.

May 8

Editor’s Pick: The Relationship File

As Gail’s editor, I’ve had the pleasure of reading and editing all the posts here on The Gift of Being Heard. This week, to conclude a series of “author’s picks” of posts from the last several years, I am pleased to have my own pick. While there are many pieces that stand out for a variety of reasons, I decided to revisit this one, as it poignantly touches on several issues that resonate with me, such as how we can avoid antagonism in the midst of sweeping changes in one’s life, and how relationships really do continue after death, regardless of whether one believes in an afterlife. Most memorable for me, however, is the insight Gail shares about veterans returning from the First and Second World Wars, and what this meant for their processing of trauma and grief. For better or for worse, we live in a different world now. We have gained so much. But what have we lost? I hope you enjoy this post, especially if you missed it the first time around.

-Claudia

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

May 1

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Author’s Pick: Velvet Deconstructions

This is the last in a series of “author’s picks” of posts from the last few years. This one was originally posted on August 10, 2022.

In 2006 my husband fell down the rabbit hole of a faith deconstruction process that would last until his death in 2016. In 2006 I listened and supported, but didn’t follow down into the rabbit hole of Mormonism. I didn’t feel I needed to know what was and wasn’t down there. It wasn’t my time. It has to be the right time to fall down that hole.

At the beginning of this tale, I should state that I was raised in a home where reason and logic were present. This would come in rather useful in the years to come.

It took me six years to go there. I’m sure that seemed like a long time of waiting for Jon, waiting for me to dive rapidly into that same hole. When I did, it was scary, sad, depressing, and full of questions, culminating in a process of mourning what could no longer be. In 2012 I entered what I now look back on as my “velvet deconstruction.”

I’ve never written about this because, to be honest, I haven’t seen—or felt—the need to do so. That has changed. What changed?

This year I’ve read a series of books that began with delight and quickly turned to needing to rethink, reframe, and reconstruct the Western Jesus. I realized my journey had challenged me in ways I hadn’t seen coming and left me feeling as if I was splayed on a spiritual floor. This time around it wasn’t velvet: it was brutal. As of the time of this writing, I’m healing, looking back, and wondering why I missed this until I was so deep within the process that the mess was ginormous.

Having a crisis of faith should be normal for everyone who is on a healthy self-development path. James W. Fowler researched and wrote about personality and faith development in Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning. Stages is a classic and outlines our cognitive development throughout life. This is an academic work of research. What I really love about Fowler is that he illustrates that we never fully arrive. We cycle through all the stages over time, arriving at a higher level, only to begin the process over again. As with all things in life, learning never ends, and we’ll be doing it until our last breath.

So, I should have seen a second deconstruction coming, and I didn’t. I’d settled into a sweet spot, and when it ripped me apart it really tore at my soul!

How did this all happen? The simple answer is that I moved from one stage to another. The more complex answer is that I began to explore my values, my beliefs, and my life in new and deeper ways.

While I began to explore faith, I was enrolled in a rehab program for people with vision issues. It began as a five-day residential process, and during this time of my life I was confronted in a bold manner, asked to face my visual realities, and supported on multiple levels. And, in the end, I was able to confront myself. Looking at my religious life became an extension of that. For fifteen months I reconstructed my visual self; I wrote about it in Living With Disability. It was a life-changing experience.

Because of the work I was doing in this part of my life, it followed that I would look at the rest of my life. I began to allow myself to feel the sadness and pain of understanding that things are seldom what they seem. And so, it happened on a Sunday morning as we drove to church that I uttered the words that altered everything: “Can I make this church a place to stay and do good things?” That was in 2013, and I was trying to figure it out while realizing my husband’s need to stay away from it all. By 2014 I was still in place to try and a find a path to change. That all ended in November of 2015 when Salt Lake City announced what became known as “The Policy.”

This policy was set to discriminate against children who had an LGBTQIA+ parent in a relationship that was not heterosexual. That evening at dinner I lost it. How could a church deny baptism or anything else to a child?!!! Up until that moment I had thought I could make it work. Now I realized that I could not support such thinking. (The policy was reversed in April 2019 and the damage that was done couldn’t be undone or unseen.)

Suicide alters everything in the way you think, and in 2016, when Jon decided that the pain and suffering, he’d been enduring for the majority of his life needed to end, I was changed. I began to realize that I couldn’t go back to that church, and slowly during 2017 I drifted into nowhere land. I wasn’t making any major life decisions. I was moving to something, and someplace, new. I didn’t understand what it was—I just knew I was changing.

I was traumatized from a suicide, trying to re-establish a life. In the fall of 2017, I was discovering that another faith home was calling to me. I had to check it out. Certainly, I could look and still stay LDS. October of 2017 rolled around, and I found myself in a Starbucks at the Utrecht train station, having a conversation with someone whom I would come to love and respect. He wanted to know what I thought, not what I felt! It was in that realization that I knew I had a problem. Everything in me had been raised to be LDS. I was dealing with multiple generations of Mormons in my family. How could I even think of leaving? It wasn’t doctrine so much as other things that were tugging at me, calling me out to something that felt so different, so new, and where I needed to be. I told myself that I could attend this church service on Sunday evenings and it didn’t mean I was going to do more than that. Why would I ever leave? I didn’t need to do that.

I began to read, to learn, and to discover new ways of thinking. Growth is about freeing the soul and giving it permission to walk into new paths. By the spring of 2018 I was no longer feeling I could stay LDS and realized my value structure had shifted or rewired itself. I let go and relaxed into the process.

Looking back on all of it, I can see that this entire process was velvet. While there were tears, trauma, and fear involved, the process was gentle. Considering everything I went through from 2006 through 2018, it really was velvet. How could this be? As I look back, I think I view it as gentle because I wasn’t trying to force tings. I allowed the questions to surface, didn’t panic, and the few difficult situations didn’t last that long. The most difficult week was a conversation with my mother, and it ended with her apologizing to me. My mother and I could talk about most anything and giggle over life. We had a mutual respect, and she was open to many things that many LDS would have flipped out over.

I’ve come to the conclusion that faith transitions or journeys are more about a rethinking of a value system. Many people who choose to develop and leave the safety of certainty can remain in the same faith and approach things differently. For others, the choice to stay in one’s faith of origin is not an option. There are times when what we need changes because our ladders are sitting against a new wall. Sometimes the search can take years. The search for a new faith home can lead us out and to something completely different.

As I complete the last few months of my spiritual direction certification, I’m amazed by the paths that people are finding that bring them peace. I look back with my new understanding, and the new tools that got put in my toolbox, and offer up gratitude for both the velvet, and the not-so-velvet of the past few years. My new home is just what I needed.

Apr 24

Author’s Pick: Radical Compassion

For the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing some “author’s picks” of posts from the last few years. This first one was originally posted on December 31, 2019.

In 1958 there was a pandemic, and my mother happened to be pregnant with me. It was only a slight case; she didn’t even know she’d had rubella until after the fact. It was during an era when medical abortions were done if the parents and the doctors were willing to do so. My mother told me that they didn’t ask, so the docs didn’t offer. Nature took over and produced a child who had been conceived to be healthy, but who became injured while still in the womb. That is what nature does.

In talking with my mother about this issue, she once told me that she could understand both sides of the argument and why a woman would choose one or the other. From her I learned that the issue around the health of an unborn child, or the termination of that pregnancy, is not an easy, cut-and-dried process. The choice to raise a disabled child came with a great deal of pain and learning, as well as tears and sorrows on all sides. Society blames and doesn’t help. My mother learned radical acceptance and radical compassion. I watched, I listened, and I learned from her.

In the past month, I have sat and watched as so many have blamed gun owners, children, the shooter, the NRA lobby, and Congress for the travesty of yet more dead kids. I hurt for the families and friends who have lost children. I am angry that people are using an act of violence to force a political solution, as well as a mental health solution, to this situation. There is enough greed and corruption to go around! There is more than enough blame that is being spread to the innocent. I want to scream “NO! STOP IT!”

I do support change. I’d like to see assault rifles, code red drills, bullying, blaming, and greed to be taken off the streets. I’d like to see respect and support become common. I’d like to see corporations become responsible for what they are putting on the streets. I‘d like to see violence in video games and films done away with. I’d like to see everyone have access to good mental health care and not just a set number of visits per year. I’d like to see education and understanding for all.

I’d like to see scientists search for effective medication that could reach into the abyss of a shooter’s mind and allow that person to be healed with both medication and talk therapy. It is dark in that mind. It is lonely in that mind. To be able to befriend such a person would be rare. Why? Because what such a person thinks is so black, so far from the norm, so chaotic that most professionals can’t—or won’t—even go there. I’ll venture to speculate that the person owning the thoughts is just as terrified of going there. What I’m talking about is a radical compassion for others.

Few have been able to show such compassion because few are the Buddha, Mother Teresa, Jesus Christ, or others. To be part of that universalizing place takes a lifetime of journeying. However, each of us is capable of listening with love and compassion. You do it as a child when you show sorrow for your friend’s pet that passed on. You do it when you spend time listening to a friend sharing grief. You do it in a darkened theater when you let out the buried pain that you can’t show for yourself or someone else, but can show for the character in a film. You do it when your best friend tells you that they are coming out, and your love for them takes you to new places of joy and acceptance for who they are. You do it when you ask “Why?” and come away with only more questions, but a determination to find one solution and you join a cause. In joining, you move to radical compassion, when you sit down in a room and listen to the others who believe differently than you do. You do it when you realize that “they” care just as much as you do. You do it when you take a hand and find a way to work together for peaceful solutions.

I saw it in my mother as she was faced with how society treated her two disabled daughters. I saw it in her heart when she wept and yet didn’t lash out at others for the treatment that came to her children because other parents didn’t teach the same values of love and acceptance.

I want to see more kids step up and take responsibility for the things they can do. I want to see those of us who are older applaud the courage that we are witnessing and show love and compassion for the process they are initiating. I’d like to see each of us stop and think about the words we speak and the actions we take in our daily lives, and how they might affect others. I want to be on the path of radical compassion with my fellow human beings. Right now it feels sparsely traveled. I think back to my mother, and if I can do what she was able to do, I’ll be doing well. Join me on the journey. It isn’t an easy journey, but my mom thought it was worth doing, and so do I.

Apr 17

Author’s Pick: Sanctuary

For the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing some “author’s picks” of posts from the last few years. This first one was originally posted on May 23, 2022.

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.

Apr 10

Author’s Pick: Music Bridging the Gap

For the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing some “author’s picks” of posts from the last few years. This first one was originally posted on March 2, 2020.

“Love in any language,

Straight from the heart,

Pulls us all together,

Never apart.”

And once we learn to speak it,

“All the world will hear

Love in any language

Fluently spoken here.”

Sandi Patty sang this song and it was authored by John Mays and Jon Mohr.

Throughout my life, it has been music that has saved me from the insanity of life’s happenings. Music has been a vital part of my day. It has calmed me, allowed me to express emotions that I could otherwise not readily connect with, and it has allowed me to create wonderful things. There is one other wonderful thing about music: it is an equalizer.

My earliest memory of music is of my father playing the piano. I grew up hearing Grieg, Rachmaninoff, Mendelssohn, and countless others. Music was sometimes what I would drift off to sleep with. Music was also a chance for me to sing. I couldn’t do many things as a toddler, but I could carry a tune. I was singing before I could talk or walk. Because of my father’s music background, I was tested for absolute pitch, or perfect pitch, as it is more popularly known. I don’t quite have that, but I’m not far off from it. Considering the fact that I also have hearing loss, this isn’t too shabby. I’m proud of what I can do with music, and that I’m good enough to sing with a string quartet. It would be great to sing with an orchestra. What a blast that would be!!!!

I’ve sung in Italian, German, Spanish, and Latin. Music is a way of universal communication. Music, when done well, can shine as an example in any language with the beauty that it contains. I am discovering that there are beautiful recordings in the Dutch language. When I listen to them, the guttural Dutch sound becomes a thing of wonder. When the singer sculpts the words, well, there is an understanding that bridges the gap. Just like the “I love you” that is spoken in any language, the meaning cannot be misconstrued. So, “love in any language” becomes “music in any language.”

Music is the one thing that anyone can do!!! Think about it for a minute: You can teach someone to carry a tune and match the note. But, you don’t have to teach a child to open their mouth and sing. Singing comes naturally. Intelligence and physical ability are not factors here. Music is everyone’s gift of being heard.

Bridges to the Heart

Throughout my life there have been many bridges. One of the most powerful of those bridges has been volunteerism. During my life, I have been both a volunteer and the person on the receiving end. Both sides of the process are filled with positive feelings.

There are many ways of giving. Some commit to careers of service to others. Many people choose to give to an organization that represents something meaningful to them.

As I stop to think about the process that my future guide dog will have gone through, the first phase of that is the volunteer family who will take “my Eyelette” into their home and love and play with him, or her. What a gift!!!! Taking the time and the love to raise up a playful puppy in a healthy manner so that it can become a healthy guide dog for someone else!!!!

There is someone here at the Loo Erf who came in as a volunteer and he has affected me greatly. He loves what he does and it shows. The tricks and tips and encouragement that he has given me are gifts. It is a treat to have a braille lesson or a Dutch session with him. Personally, I think he has given this place a piece of his heart over the last ten years.

When I was in my twenties, I spent time doing an internship that involved those with mental illness. I gave several hours per week to those who were in need and in return I received a new view of life. They taught me to laugh in a new way. They taught me understanding. I learned so much from each of them. I still think of them and wonder where they are now.

We used to watch one of the animal rescue shows. Many of the animals were depressed and beaten down, but with the love and help of volunteers, they became “cute animals.” So we renamed the show “cute animals.” Volunteers are great!!!! Volunteers change lives.

My Pitch

Think about giving some of your time. The rewards are phenomenal. The sacrifice is well worth what the recipient will return to you in love and appreciation. Get out there on the web and Google up your loves, because somewhere out there, someone needs you to give to them.

May 19

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Seasons of Loss

If you search this blog, you will stumble onto “Seasons,” in which I talk about my favorite time of the year: autumn. With its rich colors, deep scents, and vivid changes, I love it. The fire and warmth move me to cozy places of the mind. The autumn of the heart takes me someplace else. 

Grief in its beginning stages, before the work of sadness is done, is cold and brittle. It drives wedges into our hearts and minds, and as if we’re stuck outside in the freezing cold, it immobilizes us in our pain and threatens in its beginning months to shut us down. The winter of grief stands mocking us and challenging us to bury ourselves and succumb to the cold. And then, as only the freezing cold can do when a person is close to death, it tells us that we’re really warm and tired, and that sleep is to be desired. What we need to do here is feel the shivers and stand up and move. As we breathe out and notice our breath, we see the cold in ways we can’t feel it. We must move forward and survive this desolate place.

In the work of the tears, we feel. For the first time, we understand our own pain at the loss of what was. Loss brings with it the death of innocence. Whether it is our first loss, or several losses out, each time a piece of innocence leaves us. It seems as if the winter of grief will never leave us alone.

In our longing, the winter does pass and merges into a spring of the soul. The texture of our tears changes, and new little shoots of hope and life spring up, as if by magic. We had no clue they were present! Where the hope of spring comes from is the tears that watered our winters, the fires that ignited our rage and anger, and the soft gentle moments that called us as we trembled in pain. All of it planted seedlings that are now poised to offer up growth.

In many ways, it seems as if we’re privileged to have our own miracle. We may shake our heads in wonderment and then accept that, somehow, the thing we thought would never end is changing us inside; and if we’re wise, we let it do its work within our hearts. We allow the spring rains to nurture new thoughts and questions. The spring rains are softer and gentler, and as we cry them, we continue to water and grow. At this point, we don’t fully understand our pathway forward, but by now the gentle sunlight of the spring calls us into new life. And, like the seedlings that have now showed themselves, we move upwards, forcing the earth to give way to new bloom. Spring, with its gentle power, is pushing us into the summer of exploration and strength.

The summer of strength, with the trees that give us needed shade, allow us to rest from the difficult work of the winter and spring, feeding us new and wonderful meals. We explore new places, gain new confidence, and realize that we’re doing the things we thought we couldn’t—or wouldn’t—do because of the losses in our life. We can reconcile old and create new relationships. In the heat of the season, we discover new ways of being. Maybe we even climb a tree or two. We swim, play, and discover that life can be good. We notice the days are cooling, the urgency of summer’s end sets in, and we wonder in our new strength what we’ve learned.

The days and seasons have carried us into the autumn of loss, and we allow ourselves to turn around and to look at the landscape. We see the fire of wisdom begging us to sit under the trees that are now turning to their rich colors. Soon they will drop their leaves of glory and will return them to Mother Earth. Now we sit in the place provided. We pause and begin to view the lessons of the seasons: the wisdom waiting happily to be examined. It is time to discover the treasures we didn’t know would come from our pain.

Loss, in all of its diversity, teaches us so many lessons: the life choices that we made that led us into dark places; our inability to say yes to something that was good because we were afraid to risk something new; the “I should have not done that,” as we realize the pain it brought into a loved one’s life; our first ventures from home and how we had to learn that maybe we weren’t so grown up after all; the failed relationship and realizing only too late that there are two sides to everything; the realization that, while the marriage was good, we might have done things to make it better.

The sitting in our autumns asks us to look, and as we look, we see the stuff we held strong in. We notice our weaknesses that became new strengths because we were willing to get through the winter and walk into our spring. We see our stumbles, our risings, and our victories over things we thought during our winters and early springs we’d never be able to conquer. We see ourselves in “Navigation” during our springs and summers, and we must pause to say “wow” once again.

As we sit in our autumn, we find ourselves shedding tears for ourselves—weird tears of amazement and understanding at the brutality of what we endured and the inner strength it took to get to the place we’re now seated on. In wisdom, we come to understand that the brutal winter had to happen so that the spring and summer could come. We come to an understanding within ourselves that, while we would not do it again, we’re glad we walked through the seasons of our loss.

As the leaves begin to fall, we bend down, retrieve a bright red one, and hold it in our hand. Giving thanks for the autumn, we return it to where it was so that Mother Earth can reclaim what is rightfully hers. We shed one last tear, realizing that once again, the process has worked within us. And we know we’ll shed other tears that will come from places of wisdom, courage, and gratitude. Inasmuch as things can be, all is well.

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.