Displaying items by tag: healing

Friday, 02 February 2024 14:03

Transitions

I started this website to focus on loss and the complicated relationship it has with grief, depression, and loneliness. The rollercoaster of emotions that naturally comes along with losing a loved one or something in your life that you cared deeply about sends you to parts of yourself that you would rather forget existed. The grief inevitably brings out feelings that once lay dormant and then hijacks every part of your body, brain, and heart.

I have also written about how I have learned to use new-found tools and support from others to overcome the challenges and paralyzing effects grief creates. From podcasts I have listened to, to books I have read, to supportive friends, family, colleagues and healing retreats, I spent the better part of two years trying to figure out how to heal.

Published in Personal Development
Friday, 22 September 2023 10:48

Our Overthinking Minds

“Do not dwell in the past. Do not dream of the future. Concentrate the mind on the present moment.” ~Buddha

Published in Personal Development
Friday, 18 August 2023 10:42

How Our Thoughts Can Hinder or Heal

I was probably 12 or 13 years old when it started. I was sitting at the kitchen table in my childhood home, feeling left out, depressed, and envious. Nanny was in the living room with my younger sister and brother, and they were joking and giggling about something. I don’t recall what they were laughing about, and I don’t think it was at my expense, but at that moment I told myself no one loved me and I didn’t belong. 

Published in Relationships

“Life begins on the other side of despair.” ~ Jean-Paul Sartre 

When what appeared to be my forever life crumbled before my eyes a few years ago, I couldn’t see a way out of my despair and pain. All the memories, conversations, trips, and Netflix binges vanished along with my husband’s love, my house, and my happiness. I couldn't imagine a life without my husband. I had formed habits and routines around the life that he and I had created. I had been in a comfort bubble with no desire to leave. 

Published in Personal Development
Friday, 09 June 2023 13:09

The Healing Power of Writing

The pain and grief we feel when we lose a loved one to death or divorce is one of the most intense feelings we will ever have. The emotion literally feels like physical pain. Like a hammer came down on your foot or a brick just fell on your chest. If you’re human, you have experienced these things and have developed ways to cope that work the best for you personally. 

Published in Personal Development

You must give up the life you planed in order to have the life that is waiting for you.” Joseph Campbell

When I got married, I thought my life was going to be predictable. My husband and I had our own hobbies, habits, routines, and traditions that we introduced to each other and we were starting our own together. I enjoyed cooking and baking new healthy food from the YouTube channels I watched, I did Yoga, and I worked out probably way too much. My husband played Magic the Gathering online and in person, went fishing, played other video games, and was part of the Men’s rugby league in our city. We were both teachers and had the same days and summers off. Every few years we would go to the Florida Keys to fish, snorkel, and kayak. We visited our family in the summer and at Christmas. His parents would come to spend Thanksgiving with us. I couldn’t imagine, nor did I want to imagine, anything other than that. It was familiar, comfortable, and safe.

Published in Personal Development
Saturday, 19 November 2022 21:43

Healing Retreat

“I think everyone should attend a grief retreat at least once in their lives,” I told my friend asking me how the experience of attending a loss and transformation retreat was. “It should be required for navigating tough times.”

As humans, grief is an inevitable part of life. When we open ourselves up to love, we risk losing it. In October of 2022, I went on a life-changing trip to Bolinas, CA to a house of hope and healing called Commonweal. There, I delved deeper into the grief over my mother’s death and my marriage’s failure. During the course of six days, I met wonderful women from all over the country, from all walks of life, and who were experiencing their own personal loss and seeking the same things as me: to feel loved, to be heard, to squelch the loneliness, and to heal.

Published in Personal Development
Sunday, 30 October 2022 21:32

Quitter

When I was five years old, my mother enrolled me in a local majorette’s group for kids my age. I whined to her that I didn’t like it and wanted to quit, but she “forced” me to go so I could learn how to twirl and toss and spin a long metal bar with two knobs on either end like her. She was the “best in the school,” said my grandparents. But I was not like my mother. I was uncoordinated, dropped the baton, and had a hard time paying attention. During the parade my group marched in, I carried the banner with our group name on it because I wasn’t good enough to walk and twirl with the others. I quit after the parade.

Published in Personal Development
Sunday, 28 August 2022 15:50

Finding Our Gold

There is a story in the Buddhist tradition about a clay statue of the Buddha in a monastery in Thailand. Over the years, it was protected in the monastery from outside invaders. One day while it was being relocated, one of the monks spotted a crack in the clay. When the monk looked closer, he noticed that underneath the clay there was solid gold. The clay statue had been made of gold the whole time!

Published in Personal Development
Wednesday, 20 July 2022 22:42

Meaning Revisited

I’ve written on the topic of finding meaning in things that seem hopeless before, but I wanted to revisit with some more of my own thoughts, insights, and realizations that I have discovered over the last few months.

Hamlet asked the question, “To be or not to be,” but these days, our question can be summed up in one small but powerful word: “Why?” We can’t stop asking it.

Why do people die before we think they should?

Why couldn’t my marriage survive?

Why did I get cancer?

We ask why when we encounter any of the things that interfere with our plan, our health, and our dreams for our future.

That’s where faith, hope, and sometimes religion comes in. We need hope for better things to get through the rough times, the sad times, the confusing times, and the painful times. I believe that without hope, people can lose their will to live. But hope is just one part of the “Why” equation.

Published in Relationships
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Heart of Healing
Jacksonville, Florida

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