Room For Change: In Outlook and In Growth

The Book of Isaiah speaks about the Lord settling international disputes  and about how all wars will stop and military training will come to an end.  It speaks of walking in the light of the Lord.

I often turn to the scriptures in times of weariness, to find the respite  I need or  for the acknowledgement of better times to come.  The above reference in Isaiah 2 was very comforting this morning, yet I also  acknowledge that  God  is within me and that what starts within my own soul or being goes outward.  ( It is quite the opposite of what goes on in Vegas stays in Vegas!)

Further reference in this scripture is "beating swords into plowshares" and " beating spears into pruning hooks" as all warring is dissipated.  Those of you that know how I "see" in pictures , this vision came alive in an instant.

How does this have anything to do with grief, loss and change?   Why talk about assault and growth at the same time or even try to change the outlook of the world.? No, I have not gone mad and I am not claiming world peace to come within the next 6 months!

 In loss and grief, our world and emotions feel like the entire world.  Everything that ever challenged our comfort zone amplifies in loss and grief.  The boxing gloves come on and the gnashing of teeth starts!   After my husband and father's death, I wanted to accuse everything and everybody.

Time can heal, but the site of the wound may be there.  The site can also be viewed as what was excised to bring us closer to whole or closer to being the holistic individual of Divine creation.

The swords are turned into plowshares to cut the furrows to plant the seed.
The spears are bend into pruning hooks to remove what is superfluous and trim for bigger and fuller and healthier growth.  What encouraging words in grief and loss and change.

So whether the Bible is a source of your solace and support or not, the image of the " imagined" cruelty in loss still pierces, still stings.  Yet, with time, with repurposing and reflection, the pain and the infliction does  reinvent its initial purpose.  The scar may be there, but the wounding can be lifted.


In grief, let your burden be shared, let the new seeds sprout in small ways and never underestimate taking away what is superfluous for you today.

Those of us, in grief and experiencing loss and its changes in our lives, can be like the bamboo plant with its resilience, humility and uprightness.  It bends, but is seldom breaks.

Redesign and repurpose what you have for your renewed outlook and growth.   You are resilient!

Blessings. Susan

Room For Change: Ode to Opening Your Heart

              

                               OPENING YOUR HEART


Opening your heart
      arms wide stretched-but do
        not take the "beating" this time




Turn the other cheek-but do
        not be bruised by the strike




Forgive your assaulter- but do
         not assault yourself


Opening, turning, forgiving and loving
         now is forever
         forever is now

Room For Change: Good Grief or Good "re-Grief"

I had not readied myself for the upwelling of feelings.  I had commanded the appointments, followed through with scheduling and now was returning for a follow-up medical procedure to the initial follow up medical procedure.

I have attended to many of these similar procedures when my late husband's diagnosis lingered and continued until his analogous stem cell replacement failed.

I had complained about the wait in the waiting rooms.  Mumbled under my breath about "cool" receptionists and old magazines and people waiting for your name to be called like a number in line at the deli.  This time I was alone for my testing, without my late husband, without being the security for myself, like the security I felt I had lent to him.

There was no need to feel scared or concerned.  The procedure was known, the terminology understood and protocol made sense.  Rationally I was doing just fine... good grief, there was not a terminal diagnosis, but "RE-grief"came up big time.   I viewed the sterile surface in the testing room and my hands got weak.  The smell of the alcohol and betadine, made my stomach squizzy.  All I wanted to do was crawl up into a warm blanket until it was all over.

It was not my procedure but my body remembering the pain, the languishing waits and the protocols that my late husband had endured.  It was followed by my father's hospitalization and death the following year.

How could I remove these memories from welling up again, when I did not even know they were dormant barely under my skin?  Make new ones... for myself and for others.

1.  Be kind and extra kind to the receptionists.. Think of anxious people that await them each day ..

2.  Thank staff about "service" that reassured you or other ways they tried to be clear and less clinical.

3. Bring in a few new magazines and leave them for others to view.

4. Smile at others and acknowledge their presence.

5. Take yourself out for lunch, an ice cream or to a bookstore after your appointment.  Reward yourself in small ways.


Re grief is simply Re Thinking.  Remember how you care for your loved ones and be kind to yourself on your solo protocol days.

Someone told me to go get a drink after my test, but I went and got a huge chocolate cupcake with tons of frosting.  Think that will do for today:)

Room For Change: Changing Walls within Loss

Walls are dividers.  Walls are providers.  Walls are low. Walls are high.  Walls are protectors. Walls are prisons. Walls with cracks fall down and can be rebuilt or one can analyze what they should be replaced with.

My moving through many changes in loss, the major being the death of my spouse, I have moved my walls. In fact I have moved three times within the last 6 years.  I have constructed walls from blue prints; I have adorned and painted them as how it suited that time and me.  I have purchased a new home only to sell it 2 years later and rent after 3o years of owning my own home. The walls of my rental remain the color they were upon my moving in.  I am not investing time and money and effort this time around to make them “mine” in the same way I have in the past. 

My not “owning” these walls has caused a sense of uneasiness and yet it frees me from frantic activity to get things done and in order.  Renting places the repairs, the attendance to grounds and property taxes to someone else these days.  I still feel a bit of a nomad within these walls.

Part of my release of tending to walls also goes to the personal level. I have dated some fine and “not so” fine men since becoming widowed.  The walls that defined me have been cracked.  Walls that I used to protect me, no longer protect and the walls of opening to others come tumbling down and then get constructed back up again.   

I could lament as I sometimes do and ask, “ When will I feel that protection I once had or when will I see the bright sun through the windows again?”  Telling my story to others, especially men, gets tiresome and yet it is a part of me.  Each time another relationship begins or ends, I am building the foundation for what supports me now.  My gut is getting stronger in trusting my instincts even though my heart still jumps at being a partner again with a framework of walls.  So even with cracked walls the light shines though and even with shifting walls, the foundation can be firm.

Today I will look at my walls as a resting place for growth, ideas and healing.  I don’t have to adorn them, shore them up or paint them. (Well, knowing me I might have to hang a tapestry or a piece of favorite artwork.)

Whatever walls appear to be in your loss, they can be temporary.  Placing the items, ideas and purpose within them is important.  Remembering you are the carpenter these days. Measure twice, cut once and all will be aligned.  Trust your gut, trust your level headed judgment and your walls be straight, tall, elegant and adorned like you. 

Blessings, Susan   

April 15^th 2011

Room For Change:Try, Try Again or TRI TRi Again.

As time "slips" by in my healing from loss of spouse and I find my way to enter again into life, there seems to be more and more sliding from slide to side.  Trying to find my footing on a path unexplored.

It was easy being a mother, wife and co creator of a family life.  Two daughters, two cats, one dog and two parents under one roof.  Consensus was not always the order of the day but we worked as a team, dreamed as a team and lived together for 23 years.   When my husband died, the girls and I felt unstable and ill suited to carry on, but the four sided box of stability, the four of us was now down to 3.

Stepping outside the collapsed box did not appear to be any advantage at all. I knew the corners and lengths of the sides even though sometimes the lid blew off of it.

From a 4 sided structure to a 3 sided structure.  3 Women.   All in grief.  All in different ways.  All apart from each other , no longer under the same roof.    We were each expecting more of the other one, but in our own grief, finding support for the other was a mysterious path.

The triangle is a strong base of support .  Think about the three legged stool or even the Holy Trinity.  Three is never four, but three can support itself and more in grief.

I was so attracted to the number three. One the first Easter without him,I went away without family, but with old friends to the ski country.  They skied, I read and had my own Easter vigil.   I did purchase three porcelain eggs with tiny black metal feet coming out of them.  Each of the feet going a different direction.  Each egg aligned in a different way.   The eggs were "birthing" themselves and there was pleasure in their playfulness.

One spring day, the dog's tail wacked one egg to the floor.  It shattered.  Feet still intact.   I was upset and frustrated.   Okay, what can I do.?  Throw it away or reassemble it.   Life after loss is like that.  It is time to reassemble, taking with you what works and throwing away what does not serve you anymore.   I did not want to be angry so I glued what I could and put "Her" back with the two other chicks on the ledge.

What was the lesson?   Guess the best I could come up for myself was this..... You have no cracks nor scars if you have chosen to go no where, chosen to love no one or chosen to be loved inside and out.

So in your loss, in your grief... whatever shape your life has been, there is a shape that will support you.  The wonderful thing about shapes is that we can morph with them.   May each step your take, each fall you make and each thought you think bring you closer and closer to what is perfect for you today.

Blessings.  Susan

Room For Change: Exploring Your Own Legacy

Daunting change, confusing change with deep underlying love,  Lori Hedderman's new book, Preparing Your Children For Goodbye: A Guidebook for Dying Parents, is released.

At first one would wonder," Why a guide book for my acknowledged and pending death? It is total loss of my family structure, semblance of order and just let memories be what they may! " The attitude of  "let's not talk about it" may prevail or simply "I do not know what to talk about."

What Hedderman's book does however is not forced, not prescribed but rather showcases opening ways to leave meaning and messages behind for your children.  Ways to guide and support them in your absence and creative ideas to supply them with your personal history and thoughts.

The format is open, fresh and non threatening.  This journey is not a solo one and the book engages others in this process as well. Not only are activities suggested but great resources from other organizations are referenced to gain further information on legal, ethical and emotional resources on end of life issues.

Lori's ideas resonate for any parent, whether terminally ill or not.  What do you wish your children knew about you?  What are your dreams for them and how does that compare with dreams for yourself at their age? What have you done with no regrets?  What have you not completed in your bucket list?

My mother, in her mid seventies, picked the book up and though not terminally ill( and with a children in their 50's) found questions she wanted to answer and share with us and her grandchildren.  Life review, your legacy, is never too late or too early to contemplate.  It can open greater avenues for discussion, communication and exchange, in times when words may carry a heaviness.

This book is an inspiring resource for counselors, parents and caretakers of children and adolescence.  You will gain insight into children and their response to coping with death and may even open your eyes to your own perceptions.    Preparing Your Children For Goodbye is available on Amazon. This book advances the ability to address your own amazing legacy and help others to the same.

http://www.amazon.com/Preparing-Your-Children-Goodbye-Guidebook/dp/1460933486?&camp=212361&linkCode=wey&tag=growthhouseinc&creative=391825a

Room For Change: Your Footing Back Home

Like the prodigal son, grief sends us to unknown places. We may splurge on time alone or be insistent to be with others continuously.  We may splurge on items we never owned before or be insistent on keeping every item from the past.  We may splurge on thoughts of the past and be insistent on keeping things the way they were to hold onto the footing and balance we again insist , was perfect.

I am returning home.  After almost 7 years of widowhood, moving 3 times and challenging myself to meet new opportunities and others, I have moved again to Atlanta.  No, Atlanta is not a place I ever laid my head, but it is one that resonates for me at this point in time.  In this move, I am not anxious to find all the stores and facilities right away.  I am not anxious to be in traffic finding my way around the new town and fresh opportunities. 
This time, I am listening to the birds in the morning, watching the sunset at night and slipping into bed early.  I have returned “home” to a sweet rhythm and received love unconditionally again.   It is that I have accepted myself as I am: a single, maturing woman with flaws and gifts.  

Death, loss and change of environment can send us spinning. Like the child game” Pin the Tail on the Donkey”, there are guides to call us back home during grief. Though your eyes may be covered your footing back home is on the horizon. Accepting what is today can broaden your path to your “new” redesigned home with its door wide open.

Giving thanks for what was and now giving thanks for what is, is a solid footing for growth through grief. I think will sprinkle some recycled glass along my new sidewalk and light a candle for you on your journey.

Blessings.  Susan