Happy Father’s Day, Dad! I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for teaching me one of my most important life lessons- the importance of celebration. You celebrated EVERYTHING! There was always a reason to throw on Neil Diamond or your most recent 45 and have a spontaneous dance party in our living room. Upon winning my school election, I came home to a celebratory sign on our garage door. Every school success or failure was honored in some way- ranging from a choice of dinner to a silly home-made certificate telling me to get ‘em next time. I was traveling when I received my college acceptance letter, and you even wrote a poem just to tell me the news over the phone. At the Father Daughter dance at my sorority, you surprised me with our sorority letters in glitter on your cummerbund!!! I can’t thank you enough for all of your love and for showing me by example the importance of celebration.
As you can tell, it honestly did not matter how big or small the event, our family celebrated everything.
All of these celebrations were a blast, but more than it just being fun, these celebrations made me feel special and important. This positive reinforcement in our home allowed me to take more risks outside of our house because I knew I could home to a celebration, regardless of the outcome. There is no better way to handle life than through celebration.
It is no wonder then that I have found a way to turn the loss of my parents into an Angel Birthday celebration. It is the only way I can truly honor them. They loved a great party! I feel like it’s why I was supposed to have a childhood of crazy celebrations- it needed to be ingrained in me so I could find a way to bring the love and light of celebration into the darkness of grief.
My Dad was amazing and I want to celebrate him and all of the fathers out there today. None of this would be possible without you. I toast you and hope all of you enjoy your special day. Keep your party shoes on and remember that life is always worth celebrating! Happy Father’s Day!
Healing Your Grief through Mercury Retrograde: Crazy Healing Jar
It’s the first of the year and it’s mercury retrograde. Whether or not you follow or believe in astrology, it’s going to be important to pay attention to what happens to your grief over the next few weeks. This mercury retrograde period is January 5th-January 25th. The universal purpose of the retrograde is to bring to the surface what is not healed or what needs to be realigned in our lives. As you know, there is quite a lot that needs to be healed and realigned when we are grieving, which is why I thought it was so...
read moreHealing through the Holidays: The New Year’s +1
It’s New Year’s Eve. A day for reflection, for remembrance and for looking ahead to the exciting new year to come. Unless, you’re grieving the loss of a loved one. For those healing hearts, there is nothing harder than adding the + 1. This + 1 isn’t about the hot party of the night. It’s not about finding a special date. It’s about adding the +1 to the number of years we have spent away from our loved one. No matter how many years ago you’ve lost your loved one, whether it is 1, 5, or 25,...
read moreHealing through the Holidays: A letter to our loved one
Tonight, children everywhere are going to leave special letters out for Santa and we’re going to join them. However, our letters aren’t going to be written out to Santa. Our letters are going to be written out to our loved ones. Whether we are grieving the loss of a loved one, the end of a relationship or friendship, or a major life change, we are going to write a letter to that person, as if we’re having a holiday catch-up by the fire. Write out everything you would cover. Write about what is going on in your...
read moreHealing through the holidays- Christmas tree sharing circle
For some, a week away from Christmas means anticipation building, excitement growing and merriment and joy abound. But when you are grieving and you’re a week away from Christmas, that is when the emotions really kick into high gear. We begin to become nervous and anxious over how we’re going to handle that day. We begin to miss our loved one even more and we find ourselves wishing we could just “skip this year.” It is so incredibly hard. It is the seasonal storm before the calm as we discussed a few months...
read moreHealing through the Holidays
Some say, “Third time’s a charm”, but that is not always the case, especially when we are healing a grieving heart. To be honest, the third holiday season without our loved can often times be the most painful of them all. The first year without our loved ones, we are comforted by our family and friends as we “survive” this milestone. Our second holiday season, our closest friends still provide comfort and support as we bolster ourselves up again to survive another year. But the third holiday season is...
read moreUnwrapping the gift of grief.
Over the past few months, I’ve been compiling all of my most effective tools, tricks and lessons and creating a journal to be used, written in and cried on off our computers and to be held in our hands. I’ve been creating another tool for you to heal those beautiful hearts and to acknowledge that you are exactly where you are supposed to be so that God can do his work in you and through you. It’s coming soon!! I’ll send out an announcement shortly! As I’ve spent most of my day working on this...
read moreGratitude list makeover.
Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you are honoring yourself right where you need to be today. If that means it makes you happy to be around friends and family, I hope you are there. If that means you need to take this year off and spend some time reflecting on your own heart, I encourage you to give your heart exactly what it needs and take that time. It is ok. The holidays bring up so many emotions, especially while we are grieving. We remember our traditions, our loved ones and, especially at Thanksgiving, we remember everything we are...
read moreGrief: Learning to let it go
All too often, we get stuck in our heads. We begin to think about a daunting task, a challenging situation or a conversation we need to have with someone, and we turn it into something bigger than it needs to be. This happens whether we are in the depths of our grief journey or not. It happens to everyone, but what can we do differently to alleviate the stress, emotional upheaval and worry that we bring upon ourselves through this experience? We let it go. And I’m not talking the lighthearted Frozen-type “Let it...
read moreGrief: The small grieve vs. the big grieve.
We all know the big grieve. We get it. We plan for it. We expect it, even. We make space for it in our lives because we’re pretty sure we know the havoc it will wreak on our lives when it hits. We know that when something major happens, our life will never be the same. The big grieve will turn our life up.side.down. But what if there was something else that could take us down? Would you be ready? Would you recognize it if you saw it? Most importantly, would you honor the space you need to heal from it? This week, we’re going to...
read moreGrief: The griever heals the grieving.
Today we’re going to talk about one of the deep, dark secrets that comes along with losing a loved one. It’s probably something every single one of you here has experienced and it is mind-blowing, really, that it happens. I’m not really sure why it happens, but I think together we’ll get to the root of it this week. When we lose a loved one that is close to us, we end up supporting, nurturing and counseling everyone else around us. It’s an interesting thing, isn’t it? The griever ends up supporting the...
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