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!
Grief: Healing Our Overwhelm
Overwhelm. We all know it. We all feel it, especially when we’re grieving. EVERYTHING can feel overwhelming when we’re grieving. Just when we’re keeping it all together, we spill our coffee and BOOM we’re a crumbling mess in the kitchen, crying over spilled coffee. (Which by the way is TOTALLY worth crying about!) The fact of the matter is that overwhelm can be manageable when it happens for one day, but when we are grieving, we often find ourselves running an overwhelm marathon. Those 26.2 miles of overwhelm can...
read moreThe Pinch Hit Mom – Healing your grief 2 minutes at a time #64
All month, we have explored ways to mother ourselves and to take care of ourselves. This week, we are going to take a moment to realize and accept the idea that sometimes, we just need another set of hands to help us. All of us have moments of needing a Pinch Hit Mom. The great news is that the Pinch Hit Mom can come into our lives in a variety of ways. It can be a friend, a hired professional, a man, a relative or a stranger. The beauty of the Pinch Hit Mom is that we recognize and receive the intentional motherly love that comes...
read moreHave you ever wondered how your thoughts can heal your heart?
As we’ve dedicated this entire month to the mother relationship, it got me thinking. What did our moms provide us that helped us the most? Sure, they cooked, cleaned, drove us around, fought our battles or let us fight our own, but what was is it, really, that they had the greatest influence over in our lives? It really came down to two things: Food and thoughts. Last week, we covered how we could begin to mother ourselves with nourishing loving food, so this week we are going to learn how to mother our thoughts. Our...
read moreGRIEF: Mothering Ourselves-Our First Step- Healing your grief 2 minutes at a time #62
We all have defining moments in our lives where we find that we must begin to mother ourselves. For some, it may be the first time they are sick away at college. For others, that moment may define itself when their mother leaves this earth, or their life, and she is no longer available to mother them the way their inner child needs to be nourished. But here’s the thing… No matter what age we reach, our inner child will always need nourishment and will always need mothering. So what are we left to do if we no...
read moreGRIEF: Mom did her job: Healing your grief 2 minutes at a time #61
This weekend is Mother’s Day which means that for many of us, these days right now, the days leading up to Mother’s Day, are filled with a myriad of emotions. Whether we have lost our mother to physical death, illness, Alzheimer’s, an argument, a deep rooted hurt, a grudge or a simple misunderstanding, there is simply healing that needs to occur in all of our hearts. Our mothers don’t have to physically die for us to grieve them. We grieve the ideal relationship. We grieve what we thought was supposed to be...
read moreGRIEF: Your Healing Heart List: We simply cannot heal until we define what is hurting us
Hello Beautiful Person! After losing my mom, I couldn’t do any type of heart healing work for two full years. My friend continued to encourage me to go see an amazing reiki healer and I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I didn’t have enough strength. When I finally did go I realized, as always, it was at the perfect time. I couldn’t have gone a moment sooner. That was five years ago. I wish I could go back in time seven years and tell my broken heart that it’s OK. I would tell myself not to beat...
read moreGrief Decluttering: Turning our emotional land minds into intentional honoring
Hello Beautiful Person! It’s spring! It’s the time to declutter and simplify your life. A few weeks ago, I shared our first decluttering tip on decluttering our hearts first. Until we clear away our emotional clutter, we are just simply unable to part with the physical objects around us. Once that heart clutter is cleared, it’s time to move onto our physical objects. Once we finally do start decluttering, what do you think will derail our progress the fastest? It’s what I love to call: The Emotional...
read moreGRIEF: Our loved ones make up the details of our life- Healing Your Grief 2 Minutes at a Time #58
Ok, I have to admit something. I didn’t even follow my own great advice this week. My mom’s Angel Birthday was on Monday and I filled my day. I didn’t just fill my day, I PACKED it full. I had a full day of reiki clients to see and I went to yoga class at night. I did not leave one moment for reflection, healing or celebrating as a family. At the end of the day, I had realized what I had done. I had fallen into the busy trap (which is not hard to do given our hectic schedule). But I do believe it is imperative that...
read moreGRIEF: The Storm Before The Calm: Healing Your Grief 2 Minutes at a Time #57
My mom’s Angel Birthday is coming up this Monday, and one thing never ceases to amaze me. For every single Angel Birthday I’ve experienced, for the many different loved ones I have lost, over the course of many different years, I always forget about the one thing that throws me every single time. I always forget about… The Storm Before the Calm. Wait! Isn’t it calm before the storm? No, not in this case. As with everything grief, this too is turned upside down. “The Storm” is the clump of days leading up to our...
read moreGRIEF: TOP 3 TIPS FOR LISTENING TO A GRIEVING FRIEND
We all want to help when our loved ones are grieving but we think we don’t know how, or we won’t be good enough or we’ll say the wrong thing. Well, this week, we’re going to learn that… Sometimes not saying anything is the best thing you can do to show your love! Not say anything? What does that even mean? We need to sit down and listen to them. I mean, REALLY authentically, actively listen. But how do we do that? Especially in these times, there is a difference when someone REALLY listens. Anyone who has...
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