Learning from life | Beyond Grief and Loss Therapy

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.

Oct 7

When (Revisit)

Originally posted on March 30, 2020.

“Mommy, are we there yet?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jul 29

The Relationship File (Revisit)

Originally posted on June 22, 2022.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jul 2

1 Comment

Morning Has Come

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

May 27

What’s out There?

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

I’m giving it up.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

May 20

Going In and Coming Out (Revisit)

Originally posted on February 28, 2023.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Gift of Grief

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gail’s Learning Since 2016: a Few Tips

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mar 5

Change, One Fall at a Time

“Raise your leg.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dec 12

Who I’m Becoming

Lately, I’ve been on a spree of noticing the good people in the world. As I’ve put the sledgehammer down, it has opened up a pathway to the understanding that there are so many good souls in the world. This is liberating! I’ve noticed that focusing on the good in the world is creating space within me to reduce stress. That is a huge discovery for me.

The path that I’ve been walking since making the transition from the Eight who was the warrior to the Eight who is learning to see the world from its peaceful and gentler place is illuminating. In the past few months, my life has become calmer and more creative, and I’ve seen the old rainbow in powerful new ways. I’m finding I’m an all-around better soul for the switch. I see more goodness in the world, and in the general population as a whole. I see more goodness in myself. The feedback from others is that they are seeing it in me.

I’m willing to offer up more generosity and new ways of viewing others’ actions. This doesn’t mean I’m an easy sale. I can still question and think things through. There are still ways that I’m a skeptic. I choose to question my assumptions and to pause to act from trust and insight. I’m trying to think before I “fire” at someone. The joke about enneagram type Eights is that we speak or “fire” before we should. While we don’t do this all of the time, we do do it, and I’ve noticed that my stress levels are down. I need to work on getting better at it.

I’m open to the positive of less stress and more peace. While talking with my spiritual director, I mentioned that what I’m feeling is a good “weird,” and that I like it. It is growth that I thought I’d never do. I was invested in my Eight type in so many ways. Growth in every way is good. What makes the growth journey so worth the price we pay for doing the work is that there is always a wonderful surprise hidden inside. I’ll take mine with a creamy chocolate center filled with mint. This reminds me that I need to run to my favorite chocolate shoppe for a taste of what I love to celebrate with. Self-care is important.

I admit that in many ways I’m stumped by all of this, and I don’t know what to think or write.

Enneagram type Eight behaviors stem from feelings of needing to protect others as well as ourselves. We are vigilant warriors who observe those around us. In our not-so-healthy places, we don’t stop to ask ourselves, or others, if they want our protection. We react. We skip the ready and aim, and we jump straight to the fire portion. And then we pay a price.

Recently, I tried to protect someone who didn’t want me to step in to protect them. I realized what I’d done, and in noticing the error of my ways, I am attempting to notice when I feel the urge to do this unwanted firing thing.

I’m learning to offer up space that allows for someone to do what they would do without my interference. Oh my, I’m learning from my mother. She was good at setting this boundary with herself and others. While she had her share of stress with two disabled children, she didn’t have time to cross the boundary with others.

As I think about all of this, I wonder why I didn’t see it sooner. I didn’t see it sooner because I didn’t understand what I was doing, and how it affected me and others. Sometimes, the only way to create change in ourselves is to do the thing in such a way that we can’t help but notice it. The last few weeks I’ve been noticing the not-so-helpful behaviors. I’m not embarrassed; I’m thankful that I at least caught myself in the process and can begin to change it all.

Often, when people catch themselves going to these uncomfortable places, the tendency is to run a negative script that berates the self. I have a family member who would exclaim, “I’m an idiot.” While it was said in humor, it wasn’t, and isn’t, funny. By now my regular readers know what’s coming: cut yourself a bit of slack and practice some grace for yourself.

How do I fix things? The first step is recognizing that there are no bad people, and that mistakes are present for us to learn from them. As we learn, we can do better. It helps to step back and think of someone in our life who showed us they cared about us. We can ask ourselves if they would want us to get into a place of blaming ourselves.

Breaking the negative cycle of self-talk is difficult, and the longer we put it off, the more it builds within us.

Changing requires getting feedback from those you can trust. It doesn’t take a village to offer the feedback: a few good people who you respect and trust will do the job. One observation is that the more we can learn to trust ourselves, the more we can create an attitude of trusting others. I realize trust is an entirely different post. Trust is about creating solid relationships, and relationships take time, and hard work. Relationships are a good place to learn and grow, and they are a place where we should be free to make mistakes. Relationships are laboratories of learning. We become more of ourselves when we engage with others. Who I’m becoming is a better person, and that is good enough.

Oct 24

Slow-Cooked Relationships

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jul 3

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The Hard Things