LITTLE STEPS BRING BIG CHANGE.
Start your healing today…two minutes at a time.
Grief is a long journey but you can heal two minutes at a time. Our weekly videos provide you with simple, doable activities that will help you heal your grieving heart at your own pace. From energy healing to eastern and western religion, these videos pull knowledge from a multitude of sources to provide you with unique healing tools to help you along your grief path.
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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 important to bring this shift to your attention.
What does mercury retrograde look like?
Over these next few weeks, your life might be filled with additional miscommunication, electronics malfunctions or relationship struggles. You may also find yourself grieving just a little harder. For most of us, we have certainly not healed our grief and would probably prefer not to bring it to the surface. But over the next few weeks, we may not have a choice. Events may happen in our life that bring up more grief than usual. Frustrating mishaps may make us question our resilience without the support of our loved one here. Friendships or relationships may feel more intense or we may find that we just feel completely overwhelmed. Sounds like grief every day, right? Well, it is… with the added layer of intensity from this mercury retrograde.
Now I’m not trying to worry you or frustrate you. Like everything on this site, I’m trying to help bring awareness to you so that you can use it to help you heal your own heart and grief. I hope this helps you provide an additional layer of acceptance and kindness to your heart this month.
So with all this craziness going on, what can we do to help ourselves get through it? We are going to embrace the crazy.
We are going to create a Crazy Healing Jar.
Because, let’s face it, sometimes the best kind of healing is the crazy kind. The kind that happens so fast you’re healed before you even know what happened to you. It comes in quick, hard and when you least expect it.
So when we find ourselves frustrated with broken electronics or crying because we are arguing with our dear friend, we are going to write that situation down as quickly as possible and toss it into our Crazy Healing Jar. Write each crazy scenario down on scraps of paper, old bills, whatever. Just write it fast and get it into that jar quickly. Allow it to get out of you as quickly as it came in. And then on the night of January 25th, the end of mercury retrograde, we are going to take our Crazy Healing Jars and gaze up at the stars, inside or outside depending on your weather, and read through our jars of crazy, rapid healing. We are going to share them with our loved ones who are listening among the stars and we are going to set an intention to release. Upon reading, allow yourself to disconnect and give gratitude to God for believing you’re ready to let go and move on from these things that caused such turmoil in your life.
Give thanks for being done with the crazy.
All that botched communication, electronic challenge, or total frustration between now and January 25th might intensify your grief, but it also might be setting you up for some fast, crazy healing to kick 2016 off with some turbo heart repair.
So approach these next few weeks with tenderness, gentleness and an open heart. I found this amazing article on Mercury Retrograde and had to share this super-informative and incredibly helpful article. It was a fantastic write-up on how these three weeks are meant to heal our ego, show us that we aren’t perfect and don’t need to be.
We can’t wait to see pictures of your Crazy Healing Jars down below. We also can’t wait to hear about the crazy things that are filling up your jars. You are not alone in this. Be gentle and kind to your hearts for the next 19 days, my brave healers. We should always be kind but, now, let’s be even more kind to ourselves until the 25th.
Sending you big, crazy love!
Love and Blessings,
Erin
Healing 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, there is something very poignant and sad about adding that extra distance of a +1 timestamp. It’s the turn of the year. It’s that +1 to everything, and New Year’s Eve is that moment right before it’s added.
Like all things grief, we feel all of those feelings and dread that moment more on our way to the actual event itself. Because tomorrow, there will be more hope, there will be more support and there will be more healing, but right now, in this moment, we face midnight.
We’re on the upside of that mountain not sure of what’s on the other side of that journey. What will we face next year? Will I begin to forget?
Will I miss you more? Will I miss you less? The thing about those two questions is that both are equally scary for a grieving heart.
We don’t want things to change…period. But we’re being forced to grow and change for a reason beyond our knowing…and a reason that will ultimately bring us to something better than we ever imagined. But for tonight…tonight requires gentleness, compassion and kindness towards ourselves as we swallow the acceptance of the +1.
For those who just lost their loved one this year, there is nothing more painstaking than leaving that year behind. We hugged our loved one this year. We held their hands. We were comforted by their voice. So this New Year’s requires even more careful and gentle love with your heart. Be good to you… whether you’ve lost someone this year or 20 years ago. It doesn’t matter. It’s about accepting that it’s OK to feel a little more sad today, before the +1.
Because that +1 means we fear that we might not remember them as clearly or feel as close to them, and that is really hard to handle. So what can we do today to help our hearts not feel so scared, or nervous about forgetting our loved one?
Some time today, take time and write a tribute to your loved one. While it can be a lengthy cathartic process, 5 five minutes will work too. Don’t put this off because you feel like you “don’t have time today.”
Write out your “Because I never want to forget” list. Once you write these things down, you can lay down your worry and fear tonight that you might forget. Not sure where to start? Answer a few of these starters below:
-My favorite outfit you wore
-My favorite scent on you
-My favorite phrase you would say to me
-My favorite memory
-The time you made me laugh out loud
-What I admired about you most
These are just few starters to help you begin. Let yourself write whatever you feel needs to come out so that you can let go of the worry of forgetting. The truth is, the +1 never feels good. But we can heal a bit of that worry and fear of forgetting by documenting our favorite things today.
Share your memories with us in our community here so we can help you remember too. Share them with your family and friends either by Facebook, phone or sending a copy of your list by mail. Chances are, those who were closest to your loved one might just love and miss those very same things.
We look forward to reading your memories here today and healing with you here in 2016.
Sending you big love!
Love and Blessings,
Erin
Healing 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 life, how much they mean to you , how much you miss them. Allow that cathartic process to happen in your heart. Write out everything you are feeling and any details you want to share with them. Treat it like the best conversation you’ve ever had with them. Let yourself feel connected and heard.
As if that wasn’t enough… here’s where the second part of the gift comes in.
Once you are finished with that letter, pull out another sheet of paper and write a letter from your loved one back to you. You see, there is emotion, sentiment and love living in your heart from your loved one that still needs to be shared. Give all of that goodness a way to unleash itself. Put pen to paper and allow it to flow and just witness what happens. Words, thoughts and love will come out of you that you never realized would come out of you, and it will be exactly what you needed to hear, read and feel. I have done this several times and every single time, I’ve written out exactly what I needed to read to heal my heart. It is truly the most beautiful gift you could give to both of you this holiday season.
We can’t wait to hear about your holiday letter writing. I hope this is an amazing holiday gift for you and helps you heal this holiday season. Please share your experiences with all of us so you can inspire others to write their letters too.
I am so thankful for all of you here and am soo grateful for all the support you lend to each other. It is so beautiful and the best gift I could ever ask for this holiday.
Sending big love to you!
Love and Blessings,
Erin
Healing 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 ago, that everyone grieving experiences together. But what if there was a way to still grieve AND celebrate the holiday together? This week, we’re going to learn how to do just that.
We’re going to build a Christmas tree sharing circle.
Now, I’m a “Call the elephant out in the room” kinda girl. I’m sure that is no surprise given this site, but we’re going to do this in a major way this week. But I only know it works because I’ve done it myself. My family’s first Christmas without my Dad was only 5 months after his passing. We wanted to celebrate Christmas, of course, but no one really felt like celebrating. We really couldn’t quite figure out how we were going to sit around the Christmas tree and enjoy unwrapping gifts without our master of ceremony there to lead us through the morning. The truth is, we didn’t really want to celebrate. So as a prelude to my work now, I think, I brought a jar out with several different questions written on pieces of paper. As we went around the room opening presents, we each answered the question about my Dad. It was beautiful. It was authentic. It was real. We weren’t pretending that we didn’t miss him. We weren’t acting like we didn’t notice he wasn’t there. We incorporated our very best memories of him and this day into a wonderful ceremony that helped us make it through this transitional year. So I want to give you a list of those very questions. Use them, read them, ask them, make some up of your own and tell us about them. Here they are:
-What was your favorite Christmas memory of your loved one?
-What was your favorite gift your loved one ever gave you?
– What’s the funniest thing your loved one ever said to you?
– What’s the one thing your loved one always said that you will always remember?
-What’s your favorite facial characteristic of your loved one?
-What did you love to do with your loved one the most?
-What do you always want to remember about your loved one?
This was an amazing and very healing experience for me and my family. We were able to be truthful about our feelings of missing my Dad AND celebrate Christmas. We could bring his memory to life in the very backdrop of so many great stories about him.
I hope these questions are helpful for you in getting through next week’s celebration. Please share more questions if you come up with them. I am sending you so much love this holiday season. Continue to heal through your holidays and know we are all here to support you.
Sending you big love!
Love and Blessings,
Erin
Healing 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 unique.
The rallying behind us has often dissipated; the dinners are no longer being made and dropped off to us; and it’s in that silent night where we become acutely aware that this is our life now. This is what the holidays look like without our loved one here. We start to begin to awaken to the idea that we might need to create new traditions, yet we are still so tied to our old ones that included our loved one. We feel like we “should” be moving on, but we still just want it to be the way it was when our loved one was here. We want to be joyous and merry, and yet we find ourselves so conflicted by our grief. Nothing feels the same or nostalgic. It just feels new and hard and heartbreaking.
In our first few years in survival mode, we wrap the presents, cook food, and celebrate like a robot because it feels as if a tundra has taken up permanent residence inside us, but we want to continue to be a part of the merriment. But this pivotal 3rd year is rough. It’s a year of awakening, of realization and of transition and it is really hard which means we have to be very, very gentle with ourselves. As you know, I am always encouraging you to be gentle, kind and accepting of yourself wherever you are on your grief journey.
And the truth is…we can swap the number 3 with any year. It could be any number of the years that you experience these feelings. We are all on our own grief journey and this experience happens at whatever year it is meant to happen. But I’m here to make sure you have some tools for when it hits because it is so hard when it does.
So what can we do to help ourselves through this holiday heartbreak?
This week, I’m encouraging you to do two things. When you are having that moment by the Christmas tree or while sitting by the fire, allow yourself to pause and to feel the emotions that need to be felt. Envision yourself allowing those feelings to come up and out, actually picturing them erupting through the top of your head. Much like we place an angel or a star on top of our tree, we can visualize our angel, or perhaps the star they are sitting on, above our head as we hand them our feelings, grief and sadness wrapped in a box for them to heal. That is the gift they would like to give you this holiday season and the one they want from you too. Your loved one would love to take this pain off your heart. All we have to do is give it to them this holiday season. It’s a powerful gift for the both of you.
And secondly if this is your 1st, 3rd, 10th or 20th holiday without your loved one and this is how you are feeling in this moment, forward this post onto your loved ones. Let them know this is how you are feeling this season so they can comfort you through this hard time of transition, renewal, memories and sentiment. Invite a friend over and sit by the fire and reflect on your favorite holiday memories of your loved one and perhaps toss a wink over to your angel in the corner who is working hard to heal your gift of grief you lovingly handed over to them.
What year are you in this year? How are you feeling? Are you transitioning to new traditions this holiday? What are they? Are you spending this holiday savoring your memories? Share with us so we can support you and help support others healing this holiday season.
Sending you big love!
Love and Blessings,
Erin
Unwrapping 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 today, I pulled out a quote from a past blog that I really wanted to focus on today. With the holidays upon us, it is hard to accept that we are “supposed” to be in this place right now. What once felt like such a treasured, sentimental season becomes depressing and heart wrenching, at best. How can we get through the holidays and find a place in our hearts to cherish this time when our hearts are breaking? From a past blog, I said,
“Let it go and hand it over and feel it release in your gut. That higher power that put you in this position has the same power to get you out. It’s waiting for you to surrender to it. Let go of the ownership of your grief. Hand it over, even just for a minute. In that one minute reprieve, relax and trust that your grief is being rearranged, organized and put back together as something that will make you shine. And isn’t that what your loved one would want for you anyway? Let your God turn your turmoil into treasure. Find a way to let it go and shine knowing that you are exactly where you are supposed to be.”
Rearranged, reorganized and rewrapped…like a present. That’s what’s happening in our hearts right now. While possibly you, and many of the people around you, are preparing for the celebration of Jesus’ birth, you can take comfort in knowing that you are being reborn again right now too. Because that is what happens after we lose loved one, isn’t it? Our old life doesn’t work anymore without our loved one in it. That is part of the struggle and the strain of the growth process of grief. Whether we want to or not, we start a new life. We find a new path. We find a new way to survive at first. Then that survival mode ultimately morphs into a new way to live. We are reborn…stronger, more appreciative, more grateful, and more aware of just how very precious this life is that we’ve been given. We take more chances. We give more. We know we must do things now. We forgive, forget and love hard because we have learned how short life can be. That’s the gift that only grief unwraps for us.
We may not get to unwrap the gift of this season of our lives on December 24th, or December 25th, even. There may be moments of feeling like our wrapping paper is being ripped off faster than we like or it may feel like we can hardly pull the tape off our gift. But mostly, our gift of this time will be unveiled slowly and at the perfect time designed specifically for you.
Here’s how we’re going to incorporate this healing and this process into our holiday season this year.
While you are hustling and trying to keep up with gift giving and merriment and finding yourself without the energy or spirit to take part in this season, take a moment to visualize placing your heart and your growth inside that box you are about to unwrap. Expect to be surprised by it. Expect a gift through all of this struggle and pain. Expect to find courage, and strength, and a more resilient version of you on the inside of that package. You are the gift that you are giving yourself. A gift that will grow and change and become who you are meant to be.
A gift is always given in love. So that gift you are unwrapping at this moment can only be unwrapped if handled with care and love. So be sure to nurture yourself like the gift you are unwrapping. While this season may be tough, remember there is a gift being delivered to you. You and your heart are being reorganized, rearranged and rewrapped so that you can be ready and prepared for what comes next.
Have you been able to visualize any gifts that might come to you through this season? Have you been able to place your heart, courage and strength in a gift box to give yourself? Please share, especially now. I know this month is tough for many of us here. Let us support you and help support others here who may be struggling through the season.
Sending you huge love!
Love and Blessings,
Erin
Gratitude 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 grateful for in our lives. We spend the day writing lists filled with gratitude.
But what if there was something even more powerful available to us than our traditional gratitude list?
I think our gratitude lists need a make-over. I think there is something more real, more poignant and more authentic we could do for our hearts today.
Now do not get me wrong. I do believe that we bring in more of what we focus on into our lives. But just a simple gratitude chart, while very lovely, feels a bit inauthentic to me. Whether we are grieving or not, there is stuff that happens in our life that makes us unhappy. Yes, those moments are our very best teachable moments. They become our strength building blocks, even. So I just don’t find it right to pretend they don’t exist.
I think we need to find a way to be grateful AND truthful with our hearts.
It’s imperative that we purge and release that which is heavy on our hearts and is no longer serving us to truly feel our genuine authentic gratitude. So, we’re going to give our gratitude lists a makeover this week.
T is not for turkey today!
We’re going to create a T-chart gratitude list. On the left hand side, write down everything you’re grateful for in your life. If you’re struggling today, find gratitude in the simplest of the things- the color of the sky, the air you breathe, the smile from a stranger. On the right hand of the chart, write out your struggles, disagreements, challenges, and anything heavy on your heart. When you are done, label that column on the right “Blessings.” As in, I bless this out of my life. I bless and release and let it go. I will bless my own life by letting this go. Thank these blessings for making you stronger and more resilient and bless them as they leave your heart.
Then, sit and bask in your balanced heart. Appreciate the good and bad and give thanks that they aren’t being forced to share the same side of the column. Most importantly, appreciate yourself for being truthful with your heart and maintaining an honest relationship with your gratitude and your blessings. And it’s in that moment, the moment when you reach truthful equilibrium, that you will find your heart filled with pure Thanksgiving gratitude.
I can’t wait to hear how this activity worked for you this week.
What did you bless out of your life? Did you find yourself feeling more balanced, clear and grateful?
I’m so grateful for all of you and the community we have built here. I’m grateful for all the sharing you do and the support you give each other. AND, I bless away the pain that sits on your heart from your losses and strength building moments. I bless them and invite them to release their heavy burden from your hearts.
Thank you for being you and for filling our community with love.
Love and blessings,
Erin
Grief: 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 Go.” I’m talking full heart, full mind, full soul letting go and trusting that when we hand the situation over to God, all of our challenges work out without stress, without challenge and with absolute ease. Now, notice I did not mention effort in that list. Some things do require effort, but it is the difference between daily effort and daily struggle. When we hold on too tightly and worry about something, it creates struggle. When we let go and trust the situation will resolve as planned, it tends to work out faster and come out better than we ever could have possibly imagined.
Here’s my example of this for the week. For the past 3 years, I’ve been filing for my Angel Birthdays trademark. I’m in the final stage of completing all of the pieces I need to officially own the Angel Birthdays trademark. One of my dreams has been to have Angel Birthdays greeting cards because I know how healing it felt to receive the many cards that I did from people after my losses. It seemed only natural to bring Angel Birthdays’ healing presence there too. However, in order to file for the trademark, I had to actually produce the card. While this might be simple for some people, I can tell you my talents lie elsewhere. I am not an artist. I am often crying and struggling when on the computer, and I think my children’s arts & crafts skills far surpass my own. For weeks, I’ve held onto this challenge. I’ve tried talking to graphic designer friends. I’ve tried painting my own card. I’ve watched countless videos and infomercials on how to create a greeting card. Let me tell you, I held on TIGHT to this one!!! This struggle has been constant for several months now until this past Monday. After my cloud painting fail, I let it go. I finally truly let go with my heart and my soul and with everything thing I had, I surrendered. I said, “OK God, you know what I have to do. How do you want me to do this? I have no idea how this is supposed to come about.” Then, I saw an image in my head of the angel picture I circulated a few weeks ago and realized I own that photograph and could use it for my card. I added some wording and was able to put it up on Etsy all within a day.
There was no struggle or stress. There was effort, but there was no more intensity around it. There was no more hold-my-breath worry over how it would come to pass. I relaxed and let go and it turned out more beautiful than anything I could have ever imagined. But sometimes it’s really hard to fully let go.
So, we are going to do an exercise this week to help us release our stuggle. Think about what you want to let go of right tnow. Imagine holding onto it tightly in your hands and then wrap your arms around your body and tighten your body as tight as your can. Curl yourself into a ball if that works for you too. Hold on as tightly as you can to this idea, circumstance or project. Take a deep breath and hold your breath around it too and when you feel ready, exhale with the greatest amount of power you can and let your whole body release it. Feel yourself truly let go from your head to your heart to your toes and then pay attention to those sacred moments that follow. Do you see any pictures in your head? Do you have any thoughts in your head that might be the very solution to the problem you are looking to solve? That’s the goodness right there. The few moments right after you surrender, that’s when you look for the answer, the direction, the love and support. It’s always around us, but sometimes we have to do an exercise like this to force us to pause and really listen. The answers were there all along. We were just too busy solving the problem to hear the true answer.
That’s the thing about letting go, no matter what it is. Whatever we are trying to accomplish or heal, once we let go, it will always turn out better than we ever would have dreamed with less struggle or pain. I hear people say all the time “get out of your own way and you’ll find the answer.” But what I really figured that out this week was that the only way to get out of your own way is to trust and know that when you move, something far greater and wiser will gladly step in and solve the problem.
Here’s my proof that letting go can lead to beautiful and wonderful things. Here’s my Angel Birthdays Sympathy Card.
What did you let go of this week?
What have you been struggling to let go of? Share with us down below. There may be someone struggling with the very same thing.
Sending big love to you!
Love and Blessings, Erin
Grief: 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 talk about the small grieve and what it can do to our life if we don’t handle this tiny little land mind the right way. A few weeks ago, we covered the ten ways grief shows up in our life. These ten examples are just the tip of the iceberg of the ways grief shows up in our life: Relationships, friendships, illness, etc.
What if there was something more that could create life-changing grief in our lives? What if it didn’t have to be a monumental loss? What if the small minor losses of the day could end up creating a collective grief experience? It’s hard to take a moment to recognize this grief and even harder to honor the space we might NEED in order to heal that small little grieve. After all, it’s not that big of deal, right?
The problem is that if we allow all of these little grieves to add up without healing them or releasing them, they can create depression and cumulative grief in our hearts and body. What kind of small grieve am I talking about here?
Anything that pulls at your heart strings.
The day by day change of our younger version of our bodies, the change in friendships (not the end of a friendship but just the way a friendship has changed), the change in our energy or the change in our effectiveness at work or in our enjoyment of our work. This week is not about the big things. It’s about the subtle change, the small grieve that we need to recognize and give our hearts the space and time it needs to honor and heal this hurt.
I want to be very clear here though. It’s not about being depressed about our life. It’s not about focusing on all the bad stuff. It’s about awareness. It’s about understanding that what you might be feeling from these small changes or events in our life is grief and what would happen if we give ourselves the time and space we actually need to honor them. We can heal.
It’s a perspective change. It’s honoring our hearts. It’s giving ourselves the space we actually need to heal. It’s self-love.
Small grieves can also surmount while we are in the process of healing our big grieves. Everything feels more sensitive while we are grieving. If your big grieve feels just too daunting to begin to heal right now, begin with your small grieves. Use our morning ritual below to begin to heal those small grieves, and it will get the healing ball rolling throughout your body.
Our morning healing ritual
Heal those grieves every single day.
While you’re in your shower, think about those small, little grieves. Where do you feel them on your body? Do you feel them in your heart? Do you feel it in your back? Is it heavy on your shoulders? Then, envision the shower water cleansing you of these grieves as you literally, and metaphorically, wash them down the drain with your shower water. Bless them as they go as they are no longer serving you. Thank them for the strength they helped you develop and say goodbye. You will take this simple little morning ritual, your daily shower, to new heights by adding your grief cleanse to it. You will walk out feeling refreshed physically and emotionally every morning. Kinda makes you want to hop in the shower right now, huh?
Don’t let your little grieves add up to become big grieve damage to your heart. Heal them and let them go on a daily basis.
I can’t wait to hear how this ritual goes for you this week. What small grieves are you healing this week? Share with us and let us help you heal them. Perhaps someone else is struggling with the same thing.
Sending you big love!
Love and Blessings,
Erin
Grief: 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 grieving.
I think this happens for many reasons. You are now the connection to that loved one lost and everyone who is mourning their life turns to you, naturally, because you are so connected to that person. They want to heal their hearts too. They want to remember. They want to feel connected. They want to share their love.
But being at the epicenter of this experience can feel very overwhelming.
We find that we end up spending more energy supporting, placating, and healing everyone else than we do taking care of ourselves. This can lead down a very dangerous path. It has been proven that we feel better when we help others. When we take the focus off ourselves and help someone else, it creates endorphins which helps us to feel better physically and emotionally. But we also must know when to draw the line.
As I am always saying each week, we must take time for ourselves too. We need to make an effort to set healthy boundaries for ourselves so that we can heal. We must pause and recognize just how much love our hearts need in order to heal. Let’s do this week’s exercise together to create a great visual for ourselves on just how much love our hearts truly need:
Envision holding both of your hands out in front of you, or even better, actually hold your hands out in front of you. In the one hand, picture holding the hearts of many — the great number of people who loved your dear one too. In your other hand, hold just one heart. That one heart is deserving of the whole, entire hand ALL TO ITSELF. That one heart is yours. We must love ourselves, honor ourselves, be kind to ourselves and take care of ourselves with the strength of our whole entire hand in order to heal. Otherwise, we won’t have enough energy to take care of anyone else’s hand you are holding.
Because this scenario of the griever supporting the grieving is not going to go away. Nor should it.
It’s a beautiful thing to hear the stories of our loved ones and to learn about all the ways they touched other people’s lives. It is part of the healing process and one of the best ways to honor our loved ones….by listening to their honoring stories told by others. It shows us that we’re not alone in missing them. That we aren’t the only ones hurting and that our loved ones were special to many other people. It’s comforting and incredibly healing.
And when you look to your other hand and find your own heart. Listen. What is it saying? What would help strengthen you to help balance out your other hand? Self-care, alone time, friend time, maybe closing for repairs and taking inventory of your life? Do what feeds you and nourishes you.
So continue to hold their hands, listen to their stories, wipe their tears and cherish what they have to say, but hold them with only one hand. Your other hand is completely reserved for your heart because without giving your heart a whole hand’s worth of love, you won’t have enough energy, love or strength to take care of all those people you’re holding in the other hand anyway. Sending big hugs to you and your beautiful giving hands this week!
Have you had this experience where you needed to support everyone else around you? Did you end up feeling more healed by it or more exhausted by it? Have you taken time to keep your giving hands balanced by giving back to you? What did you do for you? Please share and help inspire someone else in our community.
Love and Blessings,
Erin