Tiny Buddha

Tag: die

  • The Tremendous Pain and Beauty of Letting Things Die

    The Tremendous Pain and Beauty of Letting Things Die

    “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” ~Joseph Campbell

    My husband Jake and I sit in anguish on our beautiful new linen couch, inches away from each other, yet worlds apart. Hours of arguing have left us at another impasse, the stalemate now a decade long.

    I look around in despair at the beautiful life we built together, petrified by the decision I know I have to make. My partner, my friends, the country I live in, the ground beneath my feet—all on the brink of collapse.

    I stare at the ceiling in heartache. What will be left of my life? So begins my descent into the white-hot heartache of letting things die.

    Lost in Translation: Identity and Adaptation

    I’d moved from Australia to the United States ten years earlier to be with my soon-to-be husband.

    This wasn’t a particularly dramatic move for me. I’d spent my whole adult life up until that point traveling and living in foreign countries and, although there was always a natural adaptation period, I managed. In fact, I loved it—I feel born to be foreign.

    So I thought this would be similar; straightforward, even. But I was wrong.

    The nature of being foreign is unfamiliarity. Each day feels like a fragile dance between two worlds that requires a huge amount of personal strength, emotional generosity, and energetic adaptation, because you are perpetually read from a different worldview, which means you likely feel constantly misread and misunderstood, even when you speak the same language.

    Along with that, and the other difficulties inherent in making a life in a foreign culture that I had learned to deal with—having no outlet for huge parts of who I am, constantly navigating an environment that reflected nothing of my values—I now also had to reckon with the need to adapt to my partner’s lifestyle. I needed to be friends with his friends, take the vacations he wanted to take, and fit myself into the predetermined role of “wife” in his life.

    We made large-scale decisions that seemed like compromises at the time, and I was often genuinely happy to make them in the name of the unit. But with each compromise, a piece of my identity slipped away, and I eventually realized how much of what was true to me was being weeded out of “us” and how little importance I was placing on my own desires and happiness.

    I became deeply alienated in my life and my marriage. I stretched myself so far outside my own skin that maladaptations started to occur. I would find myself in conversation with friends saying things that felt like they were coming out of someone else’s mouth.

    In trying to survive, I’d created a life that reflected little to nothing of my truth, a life that was emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually starving me to death.

    But even when I realized this, I couldn’t bring myself to end it. Deconstructing my half-life seemed worse than living it. I knew it would spark a tsunami of such unknown proportions that it was an absurd decision to make. So I didn’t.

    For months, I coped with my unhappiness, convinced it was better than starting all over with nothing.

    Confronting the Inevitable: Embracing Endings and Loss

    A few years ago, I joined a group that met monthly to grow in death awareness and reckon with the grief and heartache of the little and big endings that occur in each moment, month, year, and lifetime, in preparation for our final ending—death.

    Through it, I realized that I was avoiding the death of my relationship, for fear of enduring the pain that inevitably came with that, and in doing so, I had forced it and myself to be alive in unnatural ways.

    For ten years, my ex-husband and I were two planets orbiting each other—day in and day out. I never thought we would have to live without each other. And even in the later years, despite all we’d been through, I was still in love with him and had great love for him.

    Losing this love came with an immense level of pain—even worse that I thought.

    For six months I walked around feeling like my chest had been ripped open. The pain was not just a fleeting sensation; it was a tangible, daily presence in my life, so intense that by the time the afternoon came around, I could do nothing but lie down on my bedroom floor, the weight of the world pressing down on my chest. The pain was so dense and heavy it felt like it was squeezing the air from my lungs.

    When things we love end or die, we experience pain. Pain and grief are the natural response to death, and to endings in general. But we also have a simple, biological tendency to cling to things that make us feel good and to avoid things that make us feel bad.

    This is a paradox—pain is biologically natural, but we try to avert it. In averting it, we miss the point.

    The Alchemy of Pain: Increased Resilience and Sensitivity

    Pain and fear are so profound that they transform your understanding of life.

    If we’re lucky, we don’t get a lot of opportunities for them over the course of our lives, but they are an important part of nature’s design.

    The human organism evolves through many things, and pain is a very potent catalyst for our evolution. It makes our interior worlds wider and deeper in their capacity to understand and hold life, and the more pain we allow ourselves to feel, the bigger our tolerance for it grows.

    What I came to feel, through the death and ending of my relationship, was more deeply in touch with the nature inside and all around me. It was as though the pain had entered into and worked out all the petrified spaces within me and brought renewed sensitivity back into my life.

    Death and Endings are Not Tragedies

    Death and endings are natural parts of life. To argue with them is like arguing with our need to eat—we only hurt ourselves. More importantly, we rob ourselves of the biological purpose these endings are here to serve.

    I have learned to notice more closely when I’m stopping a death from occurring. I’ve learned to embrace the pain of endings, to love what they’ve done inside me—reshaping my life to bring me to new, more authentic, more deeply fulfilling places I never thought I’d be able to reach.

    My deconstruction still hurts every day, but I am much less afraid of it now. I feel way more in partnership with my fear, and I can now recognize it as a healthy, normal part of my own psychology.

    As I face life’s uncertainty, I know that when this immense level of pain comes again, I will feel it just as much, but the fear will be more tolerable. And I know now to take solace in the beauty and intention of its design—to grow my heart and soul in breadth and depth.

    After a year, my divorce finally came through last week, and when I look around at my life, I realize I was right—not much remains. The people I surround myself with, where I spend my time, and even my business is different.

    It will be a while before I can say my healing journey is complete, but as I continue to sink deep into my bones, to reclaim the parts of me that were lost these last few years, and re-learn how to dream my dreams alone, one thing above all else is clear: I am back in touch with everything inside me again, feeling all parts of my humanity and all parts of my life, and that’s all that matters.

  • The Circle of Love: How I Paid It Forward After My Mom’s Death

    The Circle of Love: How I Paid It Forward After My Mom’s Death

    “If you feel like you’re losing everything, remember that trees lose their leaves every year and they still stand tall and wait for better days to come.” ~Unknown

    Years ago, I was a young housewife, raising two children, and still practically a child myself. When my mother fell ill, we realized it was chronic and I felt the blow.

    Mom had been my closest friend and supporter throughout my entire life. I was still her baby, even though I had babies of my own. And it was a point of pride with me.

    As Mom gradually diminished into a shell of her former self, I tried to help take care of her. There were months of dialysis, hospitalizations, home health care, and finally, both of her legs were amputated.

    To say this was devastating is an understatement. Mom had always been active, a go-getter, and a great tennis player. And how she did love wearing her pretty shoes!

    My dad, brothers, and I grieved with Mom, along with everyone else who loved her. The core of our family was heavily damaged. We did not know which way to turn.

    As time passed, the wonderful nurses of East 3 showed us how to care for Mom. We brushed her teeth, fixed her hair, tempted her with treats, and whatever else we could do to make her happy.

    Nothing worked. As Mom grew sicker, we finally realized what was coming. The overwhelming sense of loss when she passed was indescribable.

    It was a double loss for me. Not only did I lose my mother, but also my best friend. How would I survive without her?

    Would my babies remember her? Would I forget her? What would happen to our family?

    However, the loss pulled my family together and we planned a funeral, burial, and dealt with the onslaught of family and friends.

    On the day of her funeral, I informed my dad I wanted to go to nursing school. He was not encouraging. In fact, he informed me how much he hated to hear it because he had seen how hard nurses worked and the way they were treated.

    I was adamant. Even though I was not known for my science knowledge or my people skills, I went to school.

    Along the way, I experienced another pregnancy and the birth of a daughter. The following day, I was back in class to take an Anatomy and Physiology test.

    My test score was 86. I discovered I was an extremely determined individual. Nothing was going to stop me from getting that nursing diploma!

    After four years of classes and clinical rotations, I graduated as co-salutatorian of my class. Thank heavens for my husband, who kept the home fires burning while I studied!

    Upon graduating, I went to work on South 10, in Oncology, the treatment of cancer patients. We had a lot of patient overflow from other floors. So the clinical experience during my time there was amazing!

    However, the challenges of being short-staffed, overwhelmed with too many patients and insufficient support, did not help my anxiety level! As a result, I did not feel that I handled my job very well.

    I was nervous around others in the workplace, even though I wanted to help them. It was terrifying to think I could make a mistake and end up harming someone or lose the nursing license for which I worked so hard.

    And I did make some mistakes. Thankfully, none that resulted in significant harm. Of course, this did nothing for my fledgling confidence and anxiety.

    I thought about quitting. I hated feeling trapped. In the mornings before work, I would throw up from nervousness.

    I was outside my comfort zone. But I kept returning to work. After the schooling, hours spent studying, and monetary investment involved, how could I throw it all away?

    Undoubtedly, I was scared. It was horrifying to feel so frightened in such a noble profession. The anxiety almost crippled me. I became fatigued. Irritable. My self-esteem, which had been a struggle my entire life, was at an all-time low.

    Then came a very busy day when I was nearing the end of my shift. I was mentally and physically exhausted and looking forward to going home soon.

    When the charge nurse informed me that I was getting an end of shift transfer, I wanted to cry. In this particular case, I needed to perform end-of-life care. And would also have to complete a ton of paperwork.

    The patient was an elderly man coming from MICU (Medical Intensive Care Unit). His end was near, and he was coming to me to die.

    Obviously, I was not thrilled to be dealing with such a patient at the end of the day. Notably, my attitude was not good.

    Yet I had made an oath to care for others and I was committed to that oath.

    So I did not show my bad attitude to anyone and instead hid it inside my heart.

    Shortly afterward, the patient was transported to his new room on South 10. He had a nasogastric tube going into his nose, down his esophagus, and into his stomach. It was to suck out the toxins and poisons building up in his system.

    Also present was a catheter, which drained the urine from his bladder.

    As the man’s family wanted to continue feeding him, IV nutrition was still in place. This meant blood sugar checks were to be performed four time a day. These checks measured the sugar content in his bloodstream to see if it was a healthy level.

    In other words, my new patient required a lot of care.

    The man’s wife and daughter were with him and not quite ready to let him go. But the patient had been made a DNR. (Do Not Resuscitate). This meant no life saving measures were to be used.

    It was simply his time to go.

    The patient was unresponsive, and the daughter convinced her weary mother to leave for a while and get some rest.

    Meanwhile, I monitored the patient, kept him comfortable, and answered his daughter’s many questions carefully and thoughtfully.

    Unbidden, this was a reminder of a painful situation years earlier when it was my mother in that bed. At that time, it was me depending upon the nurse to take care of my dying mother.

    Those nurses had offered comfort. They had helped me cope with Mom’s pain and end of life. Now, it was my turn to do the same thing for someone else.

    I was with another patient when my new patient’s emergency alarm went off. I walked out into the hallway where the charge nurse met me and instructed me to go into his room. Sure enough, my new patient was gone.

    His daughter was beside him when he left his tired body behind. She looked so forlorn and alone. My instinct was to reach out and give her a hug.

    She hugged me back and kept holding onto me as if I were her lifeline. I suppose I was in that moment.

    So for a long time, I sat and listened to her while she talked. She told me about her dad and how much she loved him

    When I eventually rose to leave the room, the daughter said to me, “God brought my dad to this floor to die because he was bringing us to you.” Then she added, “Thank you.”

    Her words filled me with pride. Sometimes, you just instinctively know the right words to say in a situation and when to listen. I learned that I have this skill in the very darkest moments of life.

    And it is a skill of which I am very proud.

    With my self-confidence restored, I, once again, was proud of myself and of my profession. I had eased one of the most painful times in a daughter’s life and brought her comfort.

    I had come full circle.

  • Don’t Wait to Open Your Heart: There Is Only Time For Love

    Don’t Wait to Open Your Heart: There Is Only Time For Love

    “Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let the pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness.” ~Iain Thomas

    Looking back, my most cherished childhood memories can be traced back to my rosy mother.

    Intricate forts in the backyard with Spice Girls playing in the background. Sleepovers using Limited Too’s finest sparkly lotion, eyeshadow, and lip gloss. Rainy afternoons filled with friendship bracelets and Lisa Frank activity sheets. Children and teachers showing off their wild side at my mothers’ signature talent shows at the local theatre. Arts and crafts in a room surrounded by floral couches and mauve wallpaper. Flea market field trips to select the perfect charm bracelet. And, loads of buttery birthday cakes with the words Be With Your Dreams written all over them.

    Sadly, we grew apart during middle school when she abruptly uprooted our sunlit lives in exchange for a nomadic lifestyle. After traveling with her to two states, I grew tired of the “new kid” title and moved in with my father.

    With each of her subsequent moves, my resentment morphed into a towering boulder that blocked her love to seep through. Our tug-of-war relationship continued for six years into early adulthood.

    I still remember the day that everything changed.

    I was at a work conference when I received an unexpected call from her. I grudgingly called her back in a crowded hallway.

    “What?!” I said in a pompous tone.

    She whispered, “I’m so sorry to hound you but I need to tell you something. I have cancer. ”

    “What do you mean?” I said as my throat sealed.

    “I’ve been diagnosed with ovarian cancer—I am so sorry.”

    A few days later, I visited her home in Key West, Florida. I can still picture her galloping towards me as I exited the puddle-jumper. She had a mop of loose curls, a wide smile, torn army green cargo pants, and a swollen belly that resembled pregnancy.

    For the first time in years, we bonded without the heaviness of the future.

    We became giggly movie critics. We strolled the shoreline in search of magical conch shells. We frequented our favorite Cuban restaurant and oohed and aahed over zesty soup. We bought vintage aqua blue tea sets for future tea parties. We swapped stories that were once forgotten.

    Instead of cowering in embarrassment, I encouraged her roaring laugh in public. I embraced her hippy lifestyle as we basked in the sun, with Key Lime Pie sticks in hand. I co-directed one of her renowned talent shows featuring local YMCA kids. Her trailer became a treasure trove filled with wispy white pillows, the aroma of velvety hazelnut coffee, and new beginnings.

    With each day that passed, the towering boulder of resentment I once had dissipated into raw love.

    She didn’t have standard health insurance, but she saved black pilot whales in her free time. She didn’t have a steady job, but she made others smile as she sold handmade bottlecap jewelry at Mallory Square. You see—if you’re fixated on expectations of who someone should be according to your standards, you can’t love them for who they really are.

    My mother once wrote me:

    “Those stressful days are gone, and I don’t think I’ll ever see them again. I don’t have the meetings and high-powered days like I used to. I drift to work somehow gazing at the blazing sun, aqua blue ocean, hibiscus blossoms, and the marshmallow clouds. I wear island dresses in the endless cool breezes with my hair in a wet bun. Most of the time, I hide my bathing suit underneath it all so I can hit the beach right after.  I’m dreaming of my toes in the sand, laughing, giggling, and snoozing while listening to music and chirping birds. Remember, life is beautiful. You need to find your happy – promise?!

    My mother appreciated every moment, even if the highlight of her day was glancing through a window in a sterile hallway. She described the hospital’s cuisine as divine. Although she could barely walk, she somehow dragged her flimsy wheelchair through sand, just to inhale a whiff of the salty ocean air. And at every opportunity, she looked up at the clouds in awe of being alive.

    As her soft body turned into brittle bones, I learned the importance of her famous motto, Be With Your Dreams. She taught me how to live an idyllic life filled with nature, wonderment, and positivity. She proved that having a raw, openhearted approach to life was superior than any cookie-cutter mold I once envisioned for her.

    In my mother’s last days, she shared tenderly, “Britt, I think of how I left you behind sometimes. I know I wasn’t a perfect mother, but I’ve always loved you so much, baby girl.”

    I waited for that moment for fifteen years. And in that moment, I felt nothing. Zilch. Nada.

    Time was the only thing I longed for. As tears streamed down my face, I wondered how many more memories we would’ve had, had I learned to appreciate her for who she was years ago.

    Most of us wait to resolve our conflicts “later.” The unfortunate part is that minutes and days turn into months and years. There’s a good chance we’re missing out on a relationship right now that could change our entire lives. So…

    Open the door to your heart and choose love. Be kind instead of right. Remember the good times. Let go of pain disguised as indifference. Take responsibility for your part. Stop the judgment. Be the bigger person. Forgive the small things.

    For goodness sakes, say or do something! Pick up the phone. Write an apology letter. Drive to their house. Plan a trip. Text a nostalgic memory.

    Don’t you see… there’s only time for love. And, who knows—if you’re lucky enough, they might just show you how to Be With Your Dreams.

  • Dealing with a Big Disappointment: How to Soften the Blow and Move On

    Dealing with a Big Disappointment: How to Soften the Blow and Move On

    “New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.” ~Lao Tzu

    In the middle of a storm, it is difficult to see any way out. But on the other side, we usually can recognize a silver lining—something we gained from the experience that enhanced our lives in some way.

    When my husband unexpectedly died and left me a single mother to three young children, I could not conceptualize anything good coming out of it.

    Yet, years later, I am here to tell you that the gutting, heart-wrenching experience taught me invaluable lessons that have helped me to not just survive but actually thrive, finding more happiness when I never thought I would again. Although I wish that experience never happened, I also would never trade the person I am today. Life is funny in that way.

    There have been many setbacks and impending feelings of disappointment. Losing loved ones, the end of relationships, professional rejections and mishaps, parenting flops, general life blunders. All of it.

    Each time I survive a setback, I learn something new and I get better. I become wiser when I seek to understand the lesson and reflect on the experience. I realize that these moments of disappointment have a lot to offer me in personal growth.

    However, in order to get to this place, you must take care of your disappointment. It helps to study human nature and the common responses during these emotions, so you can recognize the pitfalls and be proactive about responding to your disappointment in a nurturing, positive way.

    Most recently, when a relationship ended, I knew immediately that I had to make sure my disappointment didn’t turn into something bigger and darker. I learned from previous experiences what not to do.

    Disappointment—what happens when your expectations are not aligned with reality—can be emotionally and physically painful. But when it turns into devastation, it becomes destructive and crushing, potentially putting you in danger.

    Disappointment is a little hole you can jump over or fill in with some effort. Devastation is a deep trench that is difficult to escape and will require monumental effort. The trick is to take care of it before it becomes insurmountable.

    After my husband passed away, it felt like my wings had been clipped. In a second, I lost my best friend, partner, colleague, and source of unfaltering support. I suddenly found myself having to stand on my own two feet with nobody to root me on, and I felt unconfident and unworthy.

    It took me a while to consider dating. When I did meet someone, I had high hopes for that first relationship. I wanted so badly to experience the security of a stable relationship with a committed partner, the kind I had with my husband. I overlooked the fact that not everyone shared those expectations.

    Unfortunately, this person wasn’t the right one. It was disappointing to feel like I’d wasted my time on someone with whom the stars did not align. I was not prepared to deal with the letdown.

    I felt wronged by the universe for being in a predicament that I thought shouldn’t have happened in the first place. If only my husband hadn’t passed away, I wouldn’t be in this ridiculous, embarrassing situation of trying to re-enter the dating field as a single mother in the early years of her middle age.

    I spiraled into self-pity, wondering why me and why not other people. It was triggering to see others in relationships and wonder why they didn’t have to suffer the way I felt our family had. It can feel isolating and lonely when nobody in your social circles is in the same boat.

    That’s the thing about disappointment. We take it so personally. In reality, everyone has their own share of it; we just aren’t privy to seeing all of the ways it manifests in other people’s lives. We have tunnel vision with the realities we spin in our minds.

    That relationship riddled me with self-doubt, which felt embarrassing because I knew I had already experienced more serious loss than that. Still, I wanted to dissect all of the details and ruminate over what happened, what could have happened, and what might have happened.

    I let it linger too long instead of severing ties when I should have. I let the experience reinforce negative thoughts, like the ones where I told myself that I would never find anyone, that I wasn’t good enough, or that I didn’t deserve another chapter.

    This was a classic case of me not taking care of my disappointment. I let my expectations go wild and I took the disappointment as a crushing blow to my ego. I internalized the pain and let it grow, feeding it irrational thoughts and reactions to perpetuate the negative emotions.

    There is a better approach.

    Disappointment is inevitable and natural, but there are ways we can soften the blow to help ourselves heal and move through the feelings instead of getting stuck in them. When we learn to not hold on so tight and let go, seek joy, and imagine the road ahead, we help ourselves dilute the disappointment until it no longer hurts us.

    Letting Go

    First and foremost, learn to accept what you can control and what you can not. This is paramount to taking care of your disappointment. Holding on to a reality that does not exist only makes your wounds fester.

    I keep a journal, and it serves as an outlet for me to dump my thoughts into. I can go back to previous entries, and it is usually then that I make connections and realize that the grass was not always greener. I did this recently with a breakup, and I read, in my own words, about the red flags that I didn’t heed, which helped give me perspective as I processed what happened.

    When we feel disappointed, our levels of neurotransmitters (serotonin, dopamine) go down. We experience emotional and sometimes physical pain as a result. The first night after my most recent breakup, my chest felt heavy, making it difficult to breathe as I struggled to fall asleep that night.

    Even though I knew on an intellectual level that it was absolutely for the best, I couldn’t get over the feeling that I had done something wrong and, even worse, that I had wasted my time again. I find myself defaulting to toxic habits: lashing out, looking for ways to hold on, giving the situation too much benefit of the doubt, and trying to rescue something that was not there anymore. In a disappointed state, we tend to fall into irrational thinking and unsavory reactions in an effort to make the pain stop.

    We have to learn to wrap our minds around the impermanence of disappointment—it won’t hurt this bad forever—and let it go, instead of desperately digging in our heels. At this stage, there’s nothing more important than acknowledging how you feel, but then moving on and adjusting your expectations.

    Find Varied Sources of Joy

    The old adage “don’t put all of your eggs in one basket” applies here. The person that got away, the job you lost, or whatever happened to cause your disappointment was not the only source of your joy. Or at least it shouldn’t have been. You are a person with many interests, and you are going to find your dopamine and serotonin elsewhere.

    If you don’t have any hobbies, now is the time to explore and perhaps learn something new. This will help redirect your attention away from the disappointment and also make you feel good. It’s always a good idea to fill your happiness bucket, and now is the perfect time.

    Some questions to consider:

    • What did you used to do in the past that made you happy?
    • What have you always wanted to do?
    • What can you do now that you couldn’t do before?

    For me, I decided I wanted to finish some projects I had kept on the backburner when I was busy in a relationship, and I decided to learn pickleball to meet new people and go back to pilates, which I had stopped pre-pandemic and never resumed.

    Conceptualize the Road Ahead

    Disappointment is not the end of your road. You are not stuck in a dead end. You simply encountered a bump in the road and there is a way out.

    First, figure out what you want in your life in terms of priorities and values. I spend a lot of time doing this, but when I encounter disappointment, I still find myself swerving off the path and bombarding myself with negative thoughts. I have to consciously separate the disappointment from my identity, and keep reminding myself that I am not what I lost.

    I remind myself of the goals I have, ones that still exist even in the face of loss. Sometimes we need to adjust these goals and find other plans or even go in new directions, but you are still a person with aspirations, hopes, and dreams that belong to you. Disappointment doesn’t get to take that away from you.

    It helps me to create lists of the small action steps I need to take to achieve these goals. I call them “bite-size” actions. Teeny, tiny steps.

    For example, I made a “glow” list after my most recent breakup, with all of the things I wanted to do to enhance and better my life. It included tasks as small as getting my nails done and as big as setting up an investment account. Check items off your list and build your grit and perseverance as you prove to yourself how strong you are.

    Also, embrace an abundance mindset. There are more fish in the ocean. There will be job opportunities you can’t even conceptualize right now. Trust they are out there and be open to these possibilities. Seek them out.

    When I get a writing rejection, I try to reframe it as a learning opportunity, trusting that there will be more opportunities to submit my work and I will get better with practice. You don’t get one shot and you’re done. There are an infinite amount of opportunities still waiting for you to explore.

    Bottom line: Disappointment is an opportunity to grow your emotional resilience. It’s a chance to get stronger and intentional about your life, evolving into a better version of who you were yesterday.

    One way to approach your disappointment is to remember seven-year-old you. How would you talk to that child? What advice would you tell seven-year-old you?

    Treating yourself with compassion and patience, while firmly steering yourself back into a positive direction, will help you overcome the many forms of disappointment you will inevitably encounter.

    I’m human, so disappointment still stings even with all of the work I have done. But utilizing these tools have helped me navigate through negative feelings, enabling me to heal more quickly and move on toward new sources of joy.

    I like this quote by Peter Marshall. He said, “When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure.”

    Never forget that you are a diamond, nothing less.

  • My Dad Died From Depression: This Is How I Coped with His Suicide

    My Dad Died From Depression: This Is How I Coped with His Suicide

    “Grief is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.” ~Jamie Anderson

    When I was seventeen, my dad died from depression. This is now almost twenty-two years ago.

    The first fifteen years after his death, however, I’d say he died from a disease—which is true, I just didn’t want to say it was a psychological disease. Cancer, people probably assumed.

    I didn’t want to know anything about his “disease.” I ran away from anything that even remotely smelled like mental health issues.

    Instead, I placed him on a pedestal. He was my fallen angel that would stay with me my whole life. It wasn’t his fault he left me. It was the disease’s fault.

    The Great Wall of Jessica

    But no, my dad died by suicide. He chose to leave this life behind. He chose to leave me behind. At least, that’s what I felt whenever the anger took over.

    And boy, was I angry. Sometimes, I’d take a towel, wrap it up in my hands, and just towel-whip the shit out of everything in my room.

    But how can you be angry with a man who is a victim himself? You can’t. So I got angry at the world instead and built a wall ten stories high. I don’t think I let anyone truly inside, even the people closest to me.

    How could I? I didn’t even know what “inside” was. For a long time, my inside was just a deep, dark hole.

    Sure, I was still Jessica. A girl that loved rainbows and glitter. A girl that just wanted to feel joyful.

    And I was. Whenever I was out in nature. I didn’t realize it at the time, but whenever I was on the beach, in a forest, or even in a park, I’d be content and calm.

    Whenever I was inside between four walls, however, I felt restless, lonely, and agitated. This lasted for a very long time. I’d say for about twenty years—which, according to some therapists, is a pretty “normal” timespan for some people to really make peace with the traumatic death of a parent.

    But during that time, alcohol and partying were my only coping mechanisms. I partied my bum off for a few years. I’d drink all night until I puked, and then continue drinking. Couldn’t remember half of the time how I got home or what happened that night.

    Hello Darkness, My Old Friend

    Unfortunately, all that alcohol came with a price. I had the world’s worst hangovers—not only physically but also mentally. At twenty-one, hungover and alone at home, I had my first panic attack. Many more followed, and I developed a panic disorder.

    I became afraid of being afraid. I didn’t tell anyone, because I was scared they would think I was crazy.

    Those periods of anxiety never lasted longer than a few months. But they were usually followed by a sort of winter depression. In my worst moments, I felt like the one and only person that understood me was gone. I felt like nobody loved me, not as much as my dad did. And I did think about death myself. Not that I actually wanted to die, but at times, it seemed like a nice “break” from all the pain.

    Acceptance and Spiritual Healing

    Finally, in my mid-twenties, I went to see a therapist. She helped me tremendously and made me realize that the panic attacks were nothing more than a physical reaction to stress. Yet, it wasn’t until I did a yoga teacher training a few years later that I finally learned how to stop those panic attacks for good.

    Wanting to know more about the mechanisms of the body and mind, I dove into mental and physical well-being, and started researching and writing about mental health.

    I understand now that self-love, or at least self-acceptance, and a solid self-esteem are crucial for our mental health. And I know that people with mental health issues find it so, so hard to ask for help. Their lack of self-love makes them think they are a burden.

    I understand that, at that moment, my dad didn’t see any other solution for his suffering than stepping out of this life. It did not mean that he didn’t love me or my family.

    The pain from losing my dad actually opened the door for me to spiritual healing. It brought me to where I am now. It taught me to live life to the fullest.

    It taught me to follow my heart because life is too precious to be stuck anywhere and feel like crap. And it made me want to help others by sharing my story.

    I have accepted myself as I am now. I know that I’m enough. I’ve learned what stability feels like, and how to stay relaxed, even though my body is wired to stress out about the smallest things due to childhood trauma.

    Let’s Share Our Demons and Kill Them Together

    But honestly, the pain from losing him will stay with me for the rest of my life. And sometimes it’s as present as it was twenty years ago. I don’t feel like covering that up with some positive, “unicorny” endnote.

    I feel like being raw, honest, and open instead. Depression and suicide f@cking suck. What I do want to do, however, is to help open up the conversation about this topic. I want to make it normal to talk about our mental health, as normal as it is to talk about our physical health.

    There are way too many people living in the dark, due to stigmatization and fear. Life is cruel sometimes. And every single human on this planet has to deal with shit. It would be so good if we could be real about it and share our stories so other people can relate and find solace.

    I do hope that my story helps in some way.

  • How I Healed My Mother Wound and My Daughters Are Healing Theirs

    How I Healed My Mother Wound and My Daughters Are Healing Theirs

    “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself… You may give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow…” ~Kahlil Gibran

    Now that my daughters are in therapy trying to heal their relationship with me, I have more compassion than ever for my mom. I haven’t felt angry at her in years. But when I was a teen, I earnestly desired to kill her more than once.

    I was in my forties when my mom died. Afterward, I had frequent dreams about her chasing me around, telling me I wasn’t good enough. The dreams lasted nightly for about six months and occurred for a few more years when I felt stressed. The last one I remember, she was chasing me under the covers of the bed, screaming my worst fears—that I was unlovable and unworthy—reinforcing my wounded child.

    About twelve years after she died, I was able to come to a place of comfort with her. While in deep meditation I saw a vision of her spirit bathed with light and love. Freed from her mental and physical sufferings, I saw her as I had seen her when I was a child—my universe.

    Unfortunately, she couldn’t see herself as I did in those days. I knew that she was beautiful. I remember thinking about it as a young child, and when she was dying. How often I’d searched her face, looking for her to see me.

    Like my dad, I have prominent facial features. I wished I had her cute small nose and her pretty lips that always looked beautiful in her Berry Berry Avon lipstick. She had blue eyes, which I rarely saw straight on. She was uncomfortable with her looks. I don’t remember any direct eye contact with her unless she was angry, though I realized there must have been.

    She was born with a crossed eye. Her story was that her parents were accused of having a sexually transmitted disease that caused it, which brought great shame. My mom was also dyslexic. Sometimes at school, she had to wear a dunce cap and stand in the corner or hall because she couldn’t spell. These challenges shaped her self-worth from a young age.

    I loved looking at pictures of her in her twenties with long dark wavy hair, stylish glasses, and a beautiful smile.

    When she died, I didn’t cry. I proclaimed that her reign of terror had ended, and I held on to my anger for twelve more years. That day in meditation, when I was able to break through the veil of outrage that kept me in my darkness, I saw her as a bright light in my life. 

    I had known for years that some of my healing depended on letting go of the story of my time with my mom—one of mental health issues, abuse, and unhappiness. I needed to take time to process our relationship and see her beyond her earthly life. When I was finally able to, I felt better than I expected.

    Through my experience and my work with other women, I’ve learned that the mother wound—our unresolved anger at the flawed woman who birthed or raised us—is two or threefold.

    Our first challenge is processing the actual events that happened as we were growing up.

    The second is letting go of our reluctance to be fully responsible for our mental and physical health as adults.

    And, if we have children, the third is not wounding ourselves—realizing that there was never a scenario where we could be the perfect parent we had hoped to be, no matter how self-sacrificing we were.

    Processing Our Childhood

    Our work as adults is to make a conscious effort to process the hurt, anger, and betrayal that we endured from the female authority figure that raised us (or the figure who was our primary caregiver).

    Even if we resolve that our mother did her best, we are still left to sort through our shame over not feeling loveable or good enough, and the feeling that we missed out on the experience we should have had growing up. Processing and healing could mean seeing a therapist, journaling, or even stopping all contact with our mother.

    I moved far away from my mom, which minimized my contact and gave me space to process. But I kept the past alive in my thoughts. Now when I look back, I see that holding on to my anger well into adulthood added to the years of feeling like I was missing out on a normal life. In the end, I was responsible for my own healing, and it didn’t happen overnight.

    Now, at this place in my life journey, I see the hard parts of my life as the foundation for my life’s purpose, and I don’t feel like I’m missing out.

    I’ve met enough people to know that even those who had the perfect parents—like we all wanted—also have challenges as adults. My work to heal has led me to a deep understanding of the human condition and fueled my passion to love and to help uplift the suffering of all.

    How Our Commitment to Self-Care Helps Heal Our Mother Wound

    We looked to our mother to provide emotional and physical nourishment. Her inability to do this (or do it consistently) created our feeling that we were wronged by our mother. Now, as adults, we need to let go of thinking our mother will take care of us and do our own nurturing work for ourselves. That might seem like a harsh statement, but it enables us to move on.

    The second part of healing my mother wound was letting go of the part of me that doesn’t take care of myself. That little voice in my head that apathetically whispers, “I don’t care” about little things that would improve my health, help me sleep better, or feel successful.

    That little voice doesn’t have as much power over me anymore. So instead of overeating in the evening, which would affect my ability to sleep well, I can override it—most days. I’m also able to notice that when I don’t take care of myself, I open myself up to being the wounded child again.

    We didn’t have a choice when we were young, but now the choice is ours. We need to decide when and how we take up the torch.

    When Our Mother Wound Becomes a Mothering Wound

    My mother wound turned into a mothering wound when I didn’t live up to my hopes of being a perfect parent. Of course, I had intended to be the loving, nurturing, protecting mother, who produced adults without any challenges, but alas, I was not. How could this happen? I tried so hard. 

    I was able to find alternatives to the punitive, violent punishments, shaming, and blaming tactics that my mother used, but as a young parent, I was still challenged with low self-worth issues and an eating disorder.

    Although some of the things that occurred during the three marriages and two divorces that my daughters and I experienced together were horrific, we were luckily able to process a lot of them in real time with therapy and tears.

    Now, with their adult awareness, my daughters are processing their childhood, including my addictions, insecurities, and mistakes. It is almost torture to watch them do that, even though I know they must. And they are so busy with their lives now—as they should be. I miss them.

    To weather this time of my life and continue to grow, I need to employ my practices of understanding, compassion, and detachment, and take deep care of myself. Continuing to love my daughters deeply, to be on call whenever they need me, and at the same time be detached from needing them, has called me to deeper depths of my character.

    We all deserve to be treated respectfully and kindly. As daughters and mothers, we can role model compassion—empathy in action—and boundaries with our mother and our children. We can strive to create relationships that mutually nourish loving-kindness.

    We can focus on healing our past and taking care of our future. We all need to communicate this clearly to our mothers, partners, and children. And, although we can’t walk away from our underage children, we can set boundaries that facilitate healthy relationships now.

    We can be clear—our children don’t need their lives or their mother to be perfect. They need to know that they are loved, and they need to see us love ourselves. Holding on to this love for them and for ourselves when our children are troubled, distant, or even estranged is one of our biggest tests as parents. My heart goes out to any mother dealing with these challenges, especially if you are dealing with them alone.

    I never stopped wanting my mom to be happy. She is now at peace, maybe even joyful. I strive to let myself be at peace. I let myself live in this place of deep tenderness for her—and now for me. I understand that my experience is universal. I needn’t feel alone.

    I realized that this confident and peaceful version of me is the best I can do for my daughters as they heal their mother wounds and take care of themselves, as I am doing for myself.

    To heal our mother wound is to remember that it is ultimately a spiritual journey. Not only are we trying to figure out the depths of our own purpose, but we are bound to the journeys of our kin.

    As with all spiritual journeys, there will be rough passages that tear our heart open and ask us to become more. The journey of the mother is the journey of love. We need to remember, no matter what rough journey is behind us, we are the designers of the path ahead.

  • 5 Questions I Ask Myself Nightly Since My Father’s Sudden Death

    5 Questions I Ask Myself Nightly Since My Father’s Sudden Death

    “Life is for the living. Death is for the dead. Let life be like music. And death a note unsaid.” ~Langston Hughes

    Nine years ago, I was sitting mindlessly in my office cubicle in Omaha, Nebraska, when the receptionist called to inform me that my dad was in the lobby.

    I walked out to greet him: He was happy, smiling, and donning one of his favorite double-breasted suits. He was there because he needed my signature on some tax preparation forms before he handed them over to his accountant. My dad always took care of things like that.

    It was a Friday in February, late morning. We briefly discussed getting lunch but ultimately decided not to in the interest of time. We would see each other over the weekend, anyway. After all, we were planning a trip.

    A week prior, my dad told me he wanted to take me to Vegas for my thirtieth birthday. I’d never been to Vegas. There were things to discuss, hotel rooms to book, concert tickets to buy.

    I signed the tax forms, thanked my dad, and walked back to my cubicle. I don’t remember anything else about this day. It was, in fact, just like any other day. It was ordinary. Humdrum, you might say.

    But the next day…

    The next day is forever seared into the pathways of my hippocampus, every detail a tattoo on my mind’s eye.

    Because the next day…

    That’s the day my dad died.

    I remember the morning phone call I got from my sister.

    9:38 a.m.

    I remember running to my car, half a block up Howard Street, and then another block down 12th. I remember the whipping wind and the stinging cold. I remember the saplings lining the streets of downtown, their branches brittle and bare, scratching the ether like an old lady’s fingers.

    I remember the seventeen-minute drive to the hospital.

    I remember the hospital, the stairs, the front desk, the waiting room, the faces, the hugs, the tears, the complete and utter shock.

    I remember that my mom wasn’t there.

    Three times we called. Where is she? Why isn’t she answering? Who’s going to tell her?

    It seems like our lives are defined by days, even moments, like these—the most joyous or the most unbearably tragic.

    I miss my dad.

    I miss his ridiculously big heart, which we were told was the thing that killed him.

    I miss the lingering scent of his cologne, a sort of woodsy, leathery blend that comes in a classic green bottle. I miss his laugh, which could range from a barely discernible chuckle to a jolly, high-pitched guffaw. I miss seeing him in my clothes—the shirts and shoes and jeans that I wanted to throw away because they were clearly going out of style.

    I miss the things I never thought I’d miss, the quirks and ticks and peccadillos that drove me crazy—like the way he’d crunch his ice cubes or noisily suck on a piece of hard candy in an otherwise quiet movie theater.

    I wonder if I chose to write this today instead of tomorrow because writing it tomorrow could prove too difficult. Or if I chose to write this after nine years instead of ten years because ten years is one of those nice, round numbers we use for milestone birthdays and anniversaries and other such occasions we’re supposed to celebrate. Or maybe because ten years is a whole decade and a whole goddamn decade without my dad just seems too strange to fathom.

    When I think of the last time I spoke with my dad, I can’t help but also think of that Benjamin Franklin quote—the one about how nothing is certain except death and taxes.

    But only one of those things comes with any sort of predictability.

    Studies have shown that our brains are wired to prevent us from thinking about our own mortality. Our brains shield us from the existential thought of death and view it as something that happens to others but not ourselves.

    So, most of us, perhaps because of our biological wiring, rarely even think about the unfortunate truth that we’re going to die, and we have no idea how or when.

    On the other hand, some of our greatest ancient philosophers actually practiced reflecting on the impermanence of life—otherwise known as Memento Mori, which literally translates to Remember you must die.

    “You could leave life right now,” wrote Marcus Aurelius in his Meditations. “Let that determine what you do and say and think.”

    Personally, I don’t think about my own demise a whole hell of a lot.

    But there’s a reason I decided to pack up my things and move to a new city six years ago.

    There’s a reason I decided to make a career pivot five years ago.

    There’s a reason I decided to quit my day job at almost forty years old and start working for myself two years ago.

    Because nine years ago, death did a number on me. I had one of those unbearably tragic days that seems to define our lives.

    And now, before I go to bed each night, I ask myself:

    Was I a decent person today?

    Did I challenge myself today?

    Did I have any fun today?

    What am I grateful for today?

    If I were on my deathbed, would I have regrets?

    Asking myself these things helps me live a more fulfilling life—the kind of life that I want to live. And I’m proud of what I’m doing here, right now. I think—at least I hope—my dad would be too.

    I still haven’t been to Vegas, though.

  • Learning to Honor My Grief When the World Has Become Desensitized to Loss

    Learning to Honor My Grief When the World Has Become Desensitized to Loss

    “The answer to the pain of grief is not how to get yourself out of it, but how to support yourself inside it.” ~Unknown 

    Since losing my husband Matt over eight months ago to cancer at the age of just thirty-nine, I have noticed so many changes happening within me, and one of those changes is a fierce sense of protectiveness that I have over my grief.

    We are living in a unique time in history. The world has turned upside down due to the coronavirus pandemic, and at the time of writing this the UK had just passed 100,000 Covid-related deaths with many more not involving Covid.

    That is an obscene amount of grieving people, and when I also consider the fact that not all loss is related to death, I suspect that everyone in the country is experiencing grief on some level right now.

    But I worry that this universal loss has become so entrenched within our daily lives that it is now considered the norm to be traumatized.

    The news of more deaths no longer seems to shock us. We’ve become detached from each other in order to survive and preserve ourselves, and this is being reinforced daily with messages of staying home and socially distancing.

    Our human need for closeness and connection has become secondary to the very real threat to life we are facing, and so we willingly obey to these new rules—we wear masks and keep away from each other, we retreat, and we don’t complain about the psychological wounds we are facing as a result of this because the alternative is even worse.

    There is a collective sense of numbness, which is a well-known coping mechanism for extreme levels of stress, and I cannot help but tune into this from my own fear response.

    I also feel numb sometimes, and I can certainly see the rationale for adopting this defense mechanism, but this is why my grief feels like a gift to me now: I am thankful that I can connect with and embrace my feelings of pain and anguish. This is my healing; this is me moving through life as I know I was intended to do.

    We weren’t made to deny or repress our emotions, we were made to learn and grow through them, because emotions are energy and energy needs to move. When I refuse to allow my emotions space to be present within me, they become trapped inside. 

    I know this because it has happened to me before. Grief is strange, it is the most painful and intense experience I have ever had, and yet it is also recognizable to me. I know that I have felt it before but in a different form and at a different time.

    Deep down I also have an inner knowing that I am meant to feel it. In the past, I was scared of the enormity and intensity of my emotions, and so was everyone I was close to. They would recoil when I expressed them, so I would repress them instead and do everything I could to push them down.

    The result? Years of suffering with anxiety, depression, and unexplained physical illness and ailments, which I now understand to be a manifestation of my trapped trauma.

    Bessel Van der Kolk defines trauma as “not being seen or known.” To be truly seen is to risk vulnerability, but we are continuously shamed for being truly vulnerable in our society, a society which rewards busyness and productivity above our human needs.

    Unfortunately, this mutual denial can prevent us from healing. In our culture there is a lack of tolerance for the emotional vulnerability that traumatized people experience. Little time is allotted for the working through of emotional events. We are routinely pressured into adjusting too quickly in the aftermath of an overwhelming situation.

    So, we have a problem. At a time when more of us than ever need to embrace vulnerability to avoid retraumatizing ourselves with a lack of connection to others, we are simultaneously battling with a sense of internalized capitalism. Which do we choose? Authenticity or attachment?

    I believe that we need both, but I also believe that it must start with authenticity, and here’s why.

    My grief feels sacred to me, like it’s the last bit of my love for Matt that I have left, and for that reason I refuse to let it pass me by without really experiencing and cherishing it.

    I recognize that the authentic, broken me is just as important as the joyful, whole me, and that I cannot expect to experience one without the other.

    I do not wish to drift into a false identity where I am always “okay” or “fine” or “not too bad” when anybody asks because really that is all I am permitted to say in those moments. I cannot speak the truth because the truth is unspeakable. There is an unspoken rule that we must never expose our pain in too much depth, we must keep it contained within a quick text message or a five-minute chat in order to help keep up the illusion that we have time for compassion within our culture.

    But we all know that’s not the truth if you live as we are subliminally told to live—with a full-time, demanding, and challenging career and a mortgage to pay, with a family to look after and a social life to uphold, with a strict routine that includes time for exercise, meal planning, and keeping your appearance aligned with what is currently deemed socially attractive, and with just enough spare time to mindlessly consume the latest Netflix drama.

    It really leaves little to no time or the emotional energy it would take to fully witness another person’s pain. So, we turn away from it instead, because we know that if we dare to look a grieving person in the eye, we can locate the universal phenomenon of grief within ourselves and find some affinity to it. And that throws up all sorts of questions that go against our busy lifestyles we are grappling to keep hold of.

    When I have too many superficial exchanges, however well-meaning they are, I end up feeling more disconnected and lonelier than if I hadn’t had an exchange at all, so I choose solitude instead. 

    Some pain cannot be spoken of, it can only be felt, and for me, that can only happen when I have the space and time to intentionally tune into the feelings, without having to cognitively bypass them at every opportunity. However, without a witness to my pain, I never truly feel seen or known either.

    The more time that passes, the harder it is to bring Matt up in the brief conversations I am still able to have or to express my true feelings.

    I’m aware that with time my grief becomes less relevant as more and more people are experiencing their own losses. But I have barely even begun to process Matt’s death. He died during the pandemic, and I am still living in that same pandemic eight months on. I have been locked away for my own safety and for the safety of others, so the true effects of my loss and the trauma attached to it won’t be fully felt until the threat has lifted.

    My brain has been wired for survival for almost a year now—what must the effects be of that?

    I am afraid that the rawness of my pain has a time limit to it, and if I do not fit into the cultural narrative of grief, then I will be rejected, and it’s that fear of rejection that continues to pull me away from sitting with my pain. I have become hypersensitive to other people’s reactions, and I can sense when my pain is too raw and uncomfortable for them, so I avoid the loudest and most consuming part of me to enter the conversation in order to make them more comfortable

    But… I’ve noticed a pattern happening when I prioritize others’ comfort over my authenticity.

    I begin to suffer. I experience emotions like fear, anger, and guilt, and these pull me away from the pure-ness that is my grief. Pain and suffering are not the same thing. Pain is a necessary component to healing and growth, but suffering is a bypassing of the raw pain underneath.

    I believe that the key to healing is to embrace the sorrow of loss throughout life. Loss happens continuously, but we often forget to experience it because we glorify the illusion of always being strong, mentally healthy, and resilient. 

    Fear is a block to healing. It activates our survival brain and keeps us there. Never feeling safe enough to process our emotions, we continue to suffer instead.

    Alice Miller, the renowned swiss psychologist, coined the phrase “enlightened witness” to refer to somebody who is able to recognize and hold your pain, and this becomes a cycle. Once you have had your authentic pain validated and witnessed, this frees up space for you to become an enlightened witness to another.

    That is why I believe there are so many people needlessly suffering right now. We are all afraid to confront the human condition of pain because we are afraid to lose our attachments to others, so we mask it and avoid it and deny it at any cost.

    I am terrified of losing my attachments to others too. I am terrified of ending up alone, and I am terrified of never being loved again. But I am more terrified of having to sacrifice my true self in order to gain that love.

    So, I vow not to put my grief on hold, and I welcome you to join me. However deep the pain becomes, I encourage you to sit with it and honor it as being a true reflection of the magnificent intensity of being human.

  • The Day I Found Out from the Internet my Estranged Father Had Died

    The Day I Found Out from the Internet my Estranged Father Had Died

    “The scars you can’t see are the hardest to heal.” ~Astrid Alauda

    On a lazy Sunday morning as I lounged in bed, I picked up my phone, scrolled through my news feed on Facebook, and decided to Google my parents’ names.

    I am estranged from my parents, and I have not had much of a relationship with them in over fifteen years; however, there’s a part of me that will always care about them.

    I Googled my mother’s name first and found the usual articles about her dance classes, and her name on church and community bulletin boards. From what I was able to find, it appeared she was doing well.

    Then I went on to Google my father’s name. The first item I came across was an obituary posted on the website of a business that provides cremation and burial services. However, there was no actual obituary, only a few pictures of a much younger man and a profile of a much older man.

    Was this my dad’s obituary? It couldn’t be, could it? In shock, I convinced myself that it wasn’t his obituary, but I could not shake the nagging feeling that it was.

    For the last month I had a feeling that something was off, that something terrible had happened or was going to happen. At the time I attributed these feelings to work stress and the global pandemic.

    When I learned of the death of one of my mentors, who had been like a father to me, I attributed these feelings to this experience. Could I have been wrong?

    Later that morning I decided to search for my dad’s name in the obituary section of the online local paper. His name came up instantly, and much to my horror, this was how I learned about his death.

    Shock washed over me as I read the obituary. He had been dead for a month when I began having those intense, unsettling feelings of foreboding, as if something terrible had happened. It all made sense.

    My full name, which I had legally changed several years ago, was mentioned in the obituary under his surviving relatives, which quickly turned my feelings of shock into rage. Did my family think that I didn’t care about him? Did they think that I didn’t have a right to know about his death?

    I reached out to members of my estranged support group only to learn that many others had found out about a parent’s passing in the same manner.

    Years earlier I had feared that I might find out about one of my parents passing through Google; however, I had dismissed the fear and forced myself to believe that someone in my family would tell me if one of my parents had passed.

    In the days and weeks that followed I continued to Google my dad’s name. As I read tributes written by friends and other family members, I was hit with the realization that I did not know the person they were describing.

    He was described as a “simple religious man who was a welcoming neighbor, a devoted friend, family man, and an excellent father.” To me, however, he was none of those things, and as I continued to read the tributes, sadness and anger washed over me, and I was forced to reflect on the painful relationship that I’d had with him.

    In kindergarten I remember him telling me over and over, “You are as dumb as a post.” Later, after a visit to see his father, he repeated his father’s hurtful words, “You’re a wild hair, and you’re going to come to a sad end.”

    He continued to repeat these words on a regular basis throughout our relationship. Every mistake I made was met with harsh judgements, such as “You will never be good at that, you were just wasting your time, you were never going to amount to anything.”

    When I failed, he rubbed my failures in my face, and to this day failure is one of my greatest fears despite becoming a somewhat successful professional and academic.

    Time and time again, he told me:

    “It would be much easier to care about you if you did well with your studies.”

    “You’re illiterate, you’re a delinquent, you’re a dunce, and you are an embarrassment.”

    “You are never going to amount anything; you are going to end up working a minimum-wage job with angry, stupid people.”

    “You are fat, you are lazy, you are unfocused, and you are wasting your time with that stupid piano; you will never amount anything with that hammering.”

    After I broke up with my first serious boyfriend, my father told me, “What do you expect? A person like you is naturally going to have problems with their relationships, I fully expect you to have serious problems in your marriage as well.”

    When I was preparing to move away to go to university, he told me, “When you flunk out, don’t expect to come back here, just find a minimum-wage job and support yourself.”

    It’s taken me years to realize that comments like these are verbal abuse!

    Verbal abuse can be disguised in the form of a parent insulting a child to do better, to push themselves to be more, to lose weight, or enter a particular field. It can be disguised as caring or wanting to push someone to be a better version of themselves. Regardless of the parent’s motive, insults and put-downs are, in fact, verbal abuse, and no number of justifications can change this.

    Verbal abuse can have devastating effects on a child’s life, and these effects can be felt well into adulthood.

    Throughout my childhood and into my teens, my parents’ abusive comments caused me to believe that no one would want me and that I was not good enough for anyone. This limiting belief inhibited my ability to form friendships. As a result, I spent much of my childhood and my teens alone, playing the piano or spending time with my pets.

    The friendships that I did form were often one-sided because I made it very easy for people to take advantage of me, because I believed that I had to give and give in order to be worthy of the friendship.

    I also feared failure more than anything else and became very anxious in any environment where I might fail. This inhibited me from trying new things, and I only engaged in activities I knew I was good at.

    It was not until my mid-teens that I met a mentor who not only saw my work but loved me and nurtured me as if I was his own daughter. For the very first time in my life, I had an adult to support me apart from my grandmother and my grandfather, who believed in me and reminded me every day of my value and my abilities.

    “You are good, you are smart and highly intelligent, you’re capable of doing anything you set your sights on,” he would tell me. At first, I did not believe him, but in time I slowly began to see myself through his eyes.

    He talked to me the way a loving parent would have. When I failed, he didn’t make fun of me; instead, he encouraged me to reflect on what I’d learned from the experience and how I could do better in the future.

    He instilled in me the foundation of shaky self-confidence that enabled me to have the courage to apply to university. Without this relationship, I would likely not be where I am today because I would not have had the courage to break free from the verbally abusive narrative my parents had taught me to believe, or to challenge this narrative.

    As I was reading attributes about my father in tributes from people who knew him, I was filled with a sense of longing. Had my dad been the man who was described in those tributes we could have had a healthy relationship, and I would not have had to make the painful decision to cut him out of my life.

    At the same time, these tributes forced me to accept that we are many things to different people. To some people we are a wonderful friend, a kind neighbor, and a loving parent, but to others we are a rude jerk, a self-centered person, and verbally abusive or neglectful parent. Each one of us has the right to remember the dead as they experienced them and honor their memory as we see fit.

    Years after cutting my parents out of my life I silently forgave them for the hurt they had caused me, and I worked to let go of the pain from the past. However, at times, I found myself fantasizing about what a healthy adult relationship could look like with my father.

    I imagined mutually respectful philosophical discussions, long walks, trips to far off places, and most importantly, being seen not as an unlovable failure, but as a successful adult worthy of love and acceptance.

    My last conversation with my father before my grandmother had passed away was positive, which only fueled these fantasies. Yet in these fits of fantasy, I was forced to accept my father for who he was and acknowledge the painful fact that some people are just not capable being who we need them to be.

    We can choose to plead for a relationship that will never be, or for the person to be something they are not, or we can choose to accept them as they are and accept ourselves in spite of their abuse. But this means we must let go and accept that the future holds time we can never have together.

  • When People We Love Die: How to Honor Their Legacies and Lessons

    When People We Love Die: How to Honor Their Legacies and Lessons

    “The song is ended, but the melody lingers on.” ~Irving Berlin

    I never went for any of my grandparent’s funerals as a young child, and honestly, I was secretly glad that I didn’t. I was too young to comprehend what death felt like, and I don’t think I had the strength in me to do so. So, when I heard about their deaths, I told myself stories that they had gone on an extended vacation and were having loads of fun, and hence we couldn’t see them.

    This story played in my mind all through the years, and that’s what kept me moving on. But deep inside, I knew I had an intense fear of death and couldn’t stare at it in its face.

    But recently I had to face it when I went to a funeral for a colleague who was like a mentor to me. His sudden and untimely death was like a punch to the gut.

    After his funeral, we went into lockdown, and it felt like the whole world had gone into mourning. It felt as though his death made life come to a standstill. That’s the kind of impression DM had on me. My head went reeling into a state of shock, and I couldn’t tell quite what had just happened and why.

    You see, DM was a magnanimous personality. He was full of life, compassionate, caring, planned, organized, and all of sixty.

    He was radiating with good health, till one fateful day in September he suddenly suffered a stroke. But he fought like a tiger and was soon on the mend. I could picture him coming back to work at least at some level shortly. The stroke took him by surprise as well, for he was quite health conscious and very mindful of his eating habits, etc.

    I always thought I would see DM enjoying retired life, spending it golfing, running charity events, enjoying a good karaoke, singing, entertaining, and spending time with the people he loved. Amidst all his fun, I thought he would still be part of the business as a wise sage. But my dreams were shattered when in January, he suffered some further complications.

    I didn’t think much of it, because had fought like a tiger before and I was sure he would do it again. But it seemed that fate had other plans and took him from us on the 11th of March.

    I could not quite comprehend how or why that happened. It was death rearing its ugly head once again. This time no story could tell me otherwise. I saw no escape because DM and I worked together, and I would miss his presence at work. No amount of storytelling could keep me from facing the truth. He had died, and there was nothing that I could do about it. I had to face this truth.

    I couldn’t bear the thought of being back in the office. The idea repulsed me. I was not sure I would be able to cope. But I had to because we were going into lockdown, and I had to wrap up to start working from home. Every time I went to the office I could still feel his presence there. My stomach would churn.

    I found it challenging to come to terms with his death. How would I get over it?

    I had met DM at a time in my life when I was feeling my lowest. My husband was abroad then, and my kids were small.

    I remember the interview. It was a mortgage admin job, and I was overqualified for it. But the work timings and the flexibility that the position offered fit into my grand scheme of things. And the fact that it is was in mortgages, something that I have been doing for many years pulled me toward the job.  At the interview, something told me that it was going to the best decision of my life.

    We worked together for two years, and during that time, I realized that we were similar in many ways.  DM was quiet, private, friendly, and concerned. Probably because our birthdays were just a day apart, we understood each other even without talking.

    A year later, when he and my husband decided to partner together, I was quite happy because DM was not only trustworthy, but he was also a veteran in his field, was honest and had a brilliant reputation.

    When he passed away, I grieved silently. I kept listening to the song “Memories” by Maroon 5, and something about the lyrics made feel that the singer had written the song for him.

    As I got dragged back into the mundane life I, realized that there were two things that I couldn’t come to terms with about DM’s passing.

    The first was, that to me, DM represented values like honesty, courage, resilience, hard work, kindness, compassion. I always thought that those values were timeless, immortal, and invincible. But with DM’s death, I felt those values got cremated with him. I grieved for those values because I too hold on them very dearly.

    The second reason I grieved was because I felt that life didn’t allow him to sit back relax and have fun, not have a care in the world, and spend time doing the things he loved.

    But as I pondered and reflected more on what it meant, I realized in his passing, in many ways, he handed those values to me as a legacy to carry forward so that I can use it in my life.

    I realized that his death also taught me not to wait for retirement or the future to live my life doing the things I love and want to do. Life is way too precarious, short, and precious for that. We will never know when our time will come, so we must use our time on earth well doing the things we love.

    With that, I realized the person we love or respect never leaves us. They always remain with us in spirit, through memories, in the legacies, lessons, and values they leave behind, just like DM did for me.

    What legacy has your loved one left for you? They must have indeed left something behind. They leave it so that you can carry forward the excellent work they started. It takes time, patience, and courage to see that, and it might be hard when you’re deeply enmeshed in grief. Feel everything you need to feel first, then ask yourself:

    What was important to them? What values did they uphold? What did you admire about how they lived, and how can you embody this in your own life? What can you learn from their choices—the ones they made and the ones they didn’t?

    Jamie Anderson wrote that grief is just love with nowhere to go. So when you’re ready, put all that love into honoring the message they’d want to leave behind.

    As I reflect on what my grandparents would have wanted to leave me, I realize it was to live my best life possible. I am ready to carry their torch ahead! What about you?

  • How I Survived Suicidal Thoughts When I Really Wanted to Die

    How I Survived Suicidal Thoughts When I Really Wanted to Die

    **If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts now, please consider speaking with a trained professional through the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, at 1-800-273-TALK.

    “Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.” ~Lucius Annaeus Seneca

    When I was twenty-four my best friend died suddenly in a car accident. She was like a sister to me, so this plunged me into a deep depression. I had struggled with depression since I was about fourteen, but it became much worse after she passed away.

    At times suicide honestly seemed like the best possible solution to what I felt like I knew was going to be another fifty years of sadness. I wasn’t depressed every day, and there were weeks and months when it seemed like things were getting better. But the depression always seemed to come back and it was wearing me down.

    Despair

    In Andrew Solomon’s book The Noonday Demon, he states that it is easier to convince a schizophrenic person that their delusions aren’t real than it is to convince a depressed and suicidal person that life is worth living.

    “You don’t think in depression that you’ve put on a gray veil and are seeing the world through the haze of a bad mood. You think that the veil has been taken away, the veil of happiness, and that now you’re seeing truly.”

    This sums up exactly how I felt. I needed others to have hope for me when I didn’t have any. I was lucky to have a great support network of family, friends, and professionals. I had a doctor and an amazing therapist who helped a lot.

    I read everything I could on depression and sought out people who were going through similar things. It made me feel less alone to be able to talk openly about the darkness I was experiencing. I craved authenticity. The support I received kept me alive and gradually I started to heal.

    Hope

    As I write this, I haven’t been clinically depressed in two years now. I am blessed with so much love, purpose, and happiness. If I had ended my life back then I would never have met my amazing partner, become a counselor, or seen my nieces grow up.

    I couldn’t skip those painful years, but I wish I knew that things would turn out okay, that I could recover, and that life could be worth living. What I’m saying is, give time a chance to heal you, give life a chance to get better. You will have to fight for it, but it can happen.

    Hope is such a powerful thing, and suicide is the ultimate state of hopelessness. If you can connect with a suicidal person’s hopelessness but also hold and communicate your hope for them, that is a huge gift. They may not thank you at the time, but one day they might. It could be the thing that gets them through that night.

    The Secret We Keep

    Suicide is a lot more common than people realize. One in five people experience thoughts of not wanting to be alive at some point in their lifetime, but it’s not socially acceptable to admit to this. We walk around thinking we’re the only one and must be totally crazy when right next to us someone else might be thinking the same thing.

    It makes sense that when we are suffering our brain looks for ways out, especially if we feel like we are a burden to others because of our suffering. Usually we can dismiss this as a bad idea, an extreme and permanent solution to our problems.

    But what if the suffering doesn’t seem to be ending? What if the pain just goes on and on and you can’t take it anymore?

    The Ones You Leave Behind

    If you are deeply depressed, you may think you are just putting an end to your suffering by ending your life, but you are actually just passing it on to the people who know and love you. It is estimated that fifteen to thirty people are severely affected by each person’s suicide. They are left with questions of “What did I do wrong?” “What did I miss?” “What could I have done?” The people left behind are also at a higher risk of suicide.

    This is painful to hear when you are desperate for an escape. I don’t mean to guilt trip anyone. But instead of passing on this pain to others you could try and channel it into something positive. Even if that is just your own recovery and survival.

    Some of the greatest creatives and altruists are people who have known deep pain. It was their experiences that prepared them and allowed them to create something good in the world. We are all going to die eventually, so if you do nothing else in this life, do your best with all the years life gives you.

    Grief

    I was at a conference recently and the facilitator, a therapist who specializes in working with people bereaved by suicide, told a story. She was walking along the street when a woman almost accidentally stepped out in front of the traffic. The therapist was too far away to grab the lady so instead she yelled out “Don’t leave us!”

    This story brought tears to my eyes. It reminded me of the loss that people feel when they lose someone, especially to suicide. I think of the pain that I felt when my best friend died, the absolute grief, and then I imagine how much worse it would have been if she had died by suicide. I am so glad I did not successfully inflict that on my family.

    Safety Planning

    I suspect many are feeling suicidal right now, given that we’ve all been isolated, some with mental health issues and no support; others trapped with their abusers; others still feeling overwhelmed by financial struggle. If you’ve been feeling suicidal the first thing I would suggest is telling someone. It could be a friend, a family member, a therapist or a helpline.

    I know this can be scary. You might be worried they will think you’re crazy or rush you off to hospital. I can’t say for sure what will happen, but I can say that if you pick someone good, they will most likely ask you some questions and try to come up with a plan to keep you safe while you feel this way.

    Be clear with what you are thinking and feeling. There is a big difference between feeling that you don’t want to be alive sometimes and planning to end your life. It’s all important and it’s okay to talk about it. If the first person doesn’t respond well, that’s okay; tell someone else. There are good people out there.

    Maybe you are reading this and thinking that no one would care if you died, and your family wouldn’t miss you. Well, someone would. Maybe someone you haven’t even met yet. Someone who will never get to meet a person just like you. You are completely unique, and no one can replace you. Please don’t leave us.

    **If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts now, please consider speaking with a trained professional through the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, at 1-800-273-TALK.

  • What Expecting to Die Young Taught Me About Living a Happy Life

    What Expecting to Die Young Taught Me About Living a Happy Life

    “I’ve come to trust not that events will always unfold exactly as I want, but that I will be fine either way. The challenges we face in life are always lessons that serve our soul’s growth.” ~ Marianne Williamson

    At the age of nine, I was sitting in a doctor’s office at Baylor University with both of my parents when we were all told I wouldn’t live to see twenty-three. The doctor casually told us my dad would probably never get to walk me down the aisle and I’d likely never make my mom a grandmother, but there was great chicken pot pie in the cafeteria on the first floor.

    Enjoy the rest of your day.

    Eight months later, on my tenth birthday, the possibility of my dad walking me down the aisle was permanently taken away when he died suddenly of an aortic and thoracic aneurysm. He had the same genetic abnormality I have, which caused the aneurysm, so by my logic, confirmed by the doctors, my demise was not far behind.

    I had no idea the day I turned ten, the day I lost my dad, my misguided and broken heart gifted me a license to be entitled and reckless until the day I died. Which, according to the medical community, wasn’t that far away.

    Let me back the medical drama bus up back to the day in Texas at the hospital just for a quick, minor detail to note.

    That day my dad and I were simultaneously diagnosed with a genetic disorder called Marfan Syndrome.

    In a very tiny nutshell, it’s a connective tissue disorder found on the fibrillin one gene. It essentially weakens all connective tissue in the body. The result is a body whose heart, lungs, eyes, and spine are severely impacted. A prominent and common feature with this condition is “abnormal” height. People affected are relatively tall (I’m 6’2”, my dad was 6’9”).

    For precautionary purposes, we both stopped participating in any activities that raise the heartbeat, to decrease the risk of having an aneurysm or potentially causing damage to the face due to dislocation of the lens in the eye.

    No contact sports, no exercising, no gym at school. I was basically told I could walk, bowl, or golf. I hated sports anyway, so I was excited to not have to dress for gym.

    This consequently led to a lifetime of comments like “You don’t play basketball or volleyball?! That’s a shame!” or “Omg, you’re so tall!” As if I wasn’t already painfully aware, but I digress…

    Point being, I was told from a very young age on a fairly regular basis, “You can’t.” So I learned to habitually answer, “I can’t” every time someone asked me to do pretty much anything.

    What possible negative effects could this have?

    I couldn’t see it at the time, but this led to a lifetime of constantly assessing every situation based on whether it was going to speed up my untimely death or not.

    I didn’t learn how to question whether or not I liked things but whether or not it was something that was going to kill me sooner or later. In turn, I missed a million opportunities to get to know who I was as a young woman.

    All I knew and all I was told were all the things I couldn’t do all the time.

    This short-term life span turned my life into a short-term life plan. Soon enough the emotional pains of being a teenager and the new kid in high school, along with unresolved daddy issues, kicked into high gear, and I had no idea how to deal with any of it.

    So, I drank. A lot.

    The rest of high school and most of college was a blur. I got married at twenty-three because, well, time was running out for me. And then, when I was twenty-four, doctors told me my life expectancy had suddenly increased to forty.

    (If there’s one emoji to express how I felt it would be the face with the wide eyes and red cheeks that looks like he would say “Oh sh*t!” if he could talk.)

    I panicked and started trying to speed up the clock. Living wasn’t for me. I wasn’t raised to live; I was raised to die. Live all the places, have a baby, buy the stuff, laugh all the laughs, and then die.

    This is where my excessive drinking turned into full-blown alcoholism and prescription drug addiction.

    I was either going to OD or make my heart explode, but I wasn’t going to stick around. I must note that none of this was planned, intentional, or a suicide mission. In my mind at the time, I literally didn’t know what else to do, not even how to ask for help.

    So, someone asked for help for me. Rehab is a whole other blog.

    I’m thirty-nine now, well past my expiration date, and still learning how to live life today. In my drinking days, life revolved around morbid reflection. In early sobriety, life revolved around morbid projection. Today life revolves around just this day. This hour. This moment.

    When one of my coaches asks me to journal about how I want my life to look in five years or where I want my business to be long term, I still don’t know how to answer that.

    I don’t understand long term. And for the longest time, I always thought that to be a nightmarish curse. Until now. 

    My inability to see life long-term seems to be all the rage these days. There’s Eckhart Tolle, Wayne Dyer, and Deepak Chopra all preaching about being present, being here now, and being there with the spirit of love, and I’m over here wondering how long the two-week wait to hear if this gets published is going to feel or if I’ll be around to see it go live.

    When you think about it, we’re all terminal. No one gets out of here alive. Yet we all run around like we’re going to cheat death.

    We run out of joy staying married to jobs, people, and places we are no longer passionate about. We’ve forgotten how to be happy because we’ve made it so elusive.

    It only feels elusive because we’ve spent our time wrong. We’ve spent our time focusing on how we can create a living for ourselves instead of how to create a life for our hearts, and the only way to do that is to get to know yourself first.

    In designing my life by listening to my heart, I discovered a few things along the way.

    I learned that we habitually state we are human beings, but we spend too much time doing. We get stuck in the how and what next instead of being right where our feet are in that moment. I learned to create space and presence for life to happen organically instead of allowing my mind to race with perceived fears.

    Living in each moment used to mean living as recklessly as possible and constantly challenging the odds just to see if I would make it. Today, living in each moment means being driven by what my heart is calling me to do.

    I’ve learned to take the time to figure out what the voice of my heart sounds like instead of the blazing of doubt in my mind. This finally allowed me to see what felt light and right in my life and allowed everything that feels heavy to fall to the way side.

    Heart driven. Soul led.

    This journey was started by a seed that was planted three decades ago. The seed called “I can’t” grew into a self-fulfilling prophecy filled with destruction, heartbreak, sorrow, and the urge to run from everything.

    When I stopped running (drinking, using, blaming, complaining) and learned to be still with myself and all that had encompassed my life, an entirely new life was born.

    In designing my life and healing my soul, I have found that happiness can be found in big moments like reuniting with my soulmate, winning a competition, or leaping into a new career. It can also be found in the smaller moments like watching my child choose a book instead of watching television, receiving flowers just because, or just being grateful for the sunshine.

    But I have found I am the happiest and most content when I am meditating, creating a safe space for others, and playing. Playing like a child on a daily basis is where it’s at. Whether I’m writing, coaching, baking, or gluing rhinestones on anything I can get my hands on, that’s where I’m at complete peace.

    And that (happiness) seems to be the individual goal of most people I meet, but it doesn’t seem to translate into the collective thinking. That’s where I’ve found the hiccup. The getting tied up in what we see everyone else doing, where everyone else is succeeding, and then wondering why we don’t have that perfect slice of peace pie that everyone else seems to have.

    The hardest thing I’ve learned is there is no special sauce, no magical happiness-to-sadness ratio, and no one-size-fits-all solution. We each have to define happiness for ourselves.

    For me, this means doing the work. It looks like me getting brutally honest with my past, mending my mistakes, giving love to every person I meet, and telling those who are close to me what’s really going on every day.

    This connects me to you and you to me, and this is ultimately the biggest lesson I learned.

    We all want to be seen. We all want to be heard. We all want permission to be ourselves. I’ve experienced what that feels like, and now I’m living a life that I was told would never happen. I stopped believing other people’s opinions of me, my life, and where they think it should be when I realized those opinions and thoughts are about what’s missing from their life, not mine.

    There is no slice of peace pie waiting for you or for me. We each have our own pie to flavor, bake, and share. I guess that would be called Purpose Pie. I sit in gratitude every day I have found my pie and am able to share with all who are hungry.

    All of this because they told me I was going to die and the hospital chicken pot pie was nice.

  • Why Remembering You’re Going to Die Is the Best Motivator

    Why Remembering You’re Going to Die Is the Best Motivator

    “Don’t be afraid of death; be afraid of an unlived life. You don’t have to live forever; you just have to live.” ~Natalie Babitt

    Once a month, I visit the local cemetery and walk around. I’m not there to visit anyone in particular. I’m there to remind myself of my own mortality.

    And it always wakes me up.

    I soak in the energy: I read the simple legacies on the tombstones, from young children to those who made it to 100 years old. I’m not morose. I’m not negative. I’ve simply found the greatest motivational tool in the world, and I assure you it’s not quotes on Instagram or Pinterest. It’s not the latest YouTube clip.

    It’s one thing and one thing only: remembering we are all going to die soon.

    How Many Summers Do You Have Left?

    Seneca was a roman philosopher who lived 2000 years ago and a leader of the stoic movement. One of his essays, entitled On the Shortness of Life provides a reminder to all of us: our time here is nearly over.

    And yet what Seneca argues, and does so brilliantly, is that life isn’t really short. The problem is how we waste so much of our lives on things that don’t matter: wondering what others think, getting caught up in gossip, wasting our lives on social media and the non-essential.

    When this happens, it’s no wonder we lack clarity and meaning in our lives. It’s no wonder we feel overwhelmed, overworked, and overstimulated on a daily basis. When we’re in this place, we don’t have the time or energy to think about death.

    And yet, our time is running out. I like to think of it this way:

    How many more summers do we have left? How many early June mornings with the sun barely making its presence known as we sip coffee do we have left? How many moments with our kids, family, and those who we love do we have left? How many times do we get to do what we love for yet another day?

    We don’t know the answer to this, but I do know one thing: it’s much closer than we think, and every day is a gift. Let’s examine why remembering our own mortality is the best way to start living and how you can use it as leverage to live boldly today.

    Ask the Tough Questions

    Reminding ourselves of our mortality invites us to ask the tough questions from our lives. These are the questions we often avoid, yet are always running in the background:

    Who am I?

    Why am I here?

    Is this life for me?

    Am I on my own path, or someone else’s?

    Because they’re uncomfortable, they become easy to avoid through busyness, noise, and the endless demands of a 24/7 digital culture. Usually we don’t take any time to face these questions unless someone close to us experiences a crisis (or we do, too).

    But within these questions lie powerful answers. They allow us to get honest with ourselves instead of giving in to the usual mental chatter we so often believe. By asking the tough questions, we start to achieve clarity around what matters… and we start discarding what doesn’t.

    Release What Doesn’t Serve

    When I moved from New York City to Phoenix, I experienced a wow moment. No, it wasn’t the awe-inspiring sunsets, although I love those. It was the moment I realized my walk-in closet was bigger than my old space in Manhattan.

    And yet, I realized as time passed, with all this space, I started to accumulate a lot of stuff. One day, as I was preparing for a meditation (yes, my closet doubled as a brilliant meditation room), I realized: I had no space left. I looked around and noticed I barely used anything that was taking up so much space. I was overwhelmed.

    Much like our lives, I had filled my space with the non-essential. Remembering our mortality allows for clarity around releasing what doesn’t serve us. These may be habits, mindsets, environments and yes, even people.

    Even just doing this step often releases a heavy burden we feel in our lives: there’s too much going on, and it never ends. Once we have space, we feel lighter, clearer and more empowered to start figuring out what we really want. 

    Clarity Around Our Dreams 

    “But Tommy…I don’t know, I really don’t know.”

    I sat there in a conversation with one of my clients and wasn’t buying it. She was here for a reason, and I wasn’t going to let her off the hook. Of course, I’ve said this before too, and deep down, I was afraid.

    My belief is that, deep down, we all know what we want; it’s a matter of the layers we’ve stacked over the years clouding our honesty. This is where using our mortality as leverage truly shines: we get to be honest, unapologetic and share our truth.

    Often, we’re afraid to declare what we want for fear of embarrassment, failure, or standing out too much. When faced with our mortality, none of that matters. There’s a dream deep within you waiting to be explored and declared.

    The question, then, becomes: Will you have the courage to discover and declare it?

    The Power of Urgency

    Have you ever had a project due in three months, yet put it off until the last minute and somehow got it all done? We all have. This is the power of urgency, deadlines, and accountability: We get clear, focused, and set boundaries to ensure we finish.

    But how often do we do the same with our own lives? Most people don’t operate with any sense of urgency in life; there’s always tomorrow, next week, or next year.

    Until there’s not. The beauty of reminding ourselves our time is limited means we’re operating with high levels of urgency, knowing every day truly matters.

    When this happens, we say no to the things we should. We tell people how we really feel. And we overcome the resistance on our dreams, the self-doubt, and uncertainty. We feel those yet move forward anyway.

    Because the pain of regret hurts more than putting ourselves out there. When this happens, we start to trust ourselves and recognize our dreams are worth it. Best of all: we’re worth bringing them to life.

    Integrating This into Your Life 

    Steve Jobs, in his riveting Stanford commencement speech, said it better than I ever could:

    “Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

    So, how do we use our mortality to make bold decisions and start to live our dreams today? You don’t have to be as extreme as I am with visiting your local cemetery, although I’d recommend it.

    Here are some of my favorite ways:

    Journal about your legacy.

    Take yourself twenty, thirty, or forty years down the line. How do you want to be remembered? Write it all down.

    Write a letter to your current self.

    Again, fast forward to a time in the future when you’re on your last days. Write a letter to your current self, letting them know whatever you wish.

    Do a guided meditation.

    There are various meditations around visualizing one’s own death (and return back to Earth). These are beautiful ways to face reality and get in touch with what truly matters.

    Spend time with older people.

    Strike up conversations with people and even your own family who have been on this planet for a while. Often, you’ll find gems of wisdom within them.

    Remind yourself of death once a day.

    Every day take a moment and anchor yourself in the beautiful gift we all have. With this energy, ask yourself: What is one bold step I can take today?

    It’s your time now.

    Embrace your mortality, make the decision you’ve been putting off, and never look back.

  • 8 Things I Learned from Watching My Mum Die

    8 Things I Learned from Watching My Mum Die

    “Pain changes your life forever. But so does healing from it.” ~Kayil York

    In 2012 my mum got diagnosed with cancer. After an operation, she was cancer-free for some time when in March 2017 it was discovered that the cancer had returned and had spread everywhere, notably to her lungs.

    She was adamant that she did not want further treatment, which would have been palliative at best anyway and would have had significant side effects. Nobody was able to make a prognosis regarding how much longer she had left. Being seventy, there was a chance that it would develop slowly.

    Nothing much seemed to happen for a little while when suddenly from one day to the next, she couldn’t use her legs anymore, and a few weeks later in July 2017, she was able to move into a hospice, having her last wish fulfilled. After a further four weeks, she passed away.

    Those four weeks were a rollercoaster. Her condition changed up and down. But mostly I could not get my head around how she could die. I simply couldn’t imagine how her body could go from functioning to shutting down.

    I lived about 500km away and went up to see her for long weekends during that time. I experienced the hospice as a very peaceful place. Nevertheless, I often sat by her bed, holding her hand and feeling utterly overwhelmed and helpless and scared.

    I was convinced that I should be doing something, saying something, but could not think of anything at all that might ease her final passage. The relationship with my mum had always been difficult, thus this also felt like the last chance to make my peace with her, with us.

    Seeing her in pain was horrific. She quickly advanced to a stage where she was no longer able to ring for the nurses. Wrinkling her forehead became the indicator for her pain. It was terrible to know that this was probably happening when nobody else was in the room and who knows how long it could take for anyone to notice.

    Once the nurse came to administer more painkillers, it took another ten to fifteen minutes until you could see them work and my mum’s face slowly relaxing. The ten longest minutes.

    After three weeks, swallowing became an issue. Even just taking a sip of water became a massive struggle and ended in coughing fits. The doctors said there was nothing they could do to make it easier. With all the medical advances, it seemed crazy that she had to endure any pain at all.

    Her last four weeks were the toughest in my life so far and the first time I experienced the death of somebody close, and from such close quarters. At the same time it also turned out to be the most rewarding time.

    One of the things that struck me was that almost everyone has or will experience the death of a loved one. It had such a monumental impact on me, and I can only assume that it does for a lot of people, too, and so I would like to share my story.

    Here are some of the lessons I learned, which arose from a very specific situation but which I feel are equally applicable to other challenging situations in life.

    1. You are alone.

    Dying is personal. Watching somebody die is personal. Your whole life is personal.

    There is simply no manual or set of guidelines to refer to. Not to how we live, not to how we die, and not to how we grieve.

    Sometimes we might confuse our personal life lessons with universal laws. A number of people were giving me advice (I didn’t ask for). Advice about having to be there for her final breath (in the end my mum decided to slip away with no one else in the room). Advice about the importance of the funeral or on the appropriate length and ways of grieving.

    Some of the forcefulness behind the messages were overwhelming at the time and had me doubting my own feelings and decisions. While I fully appreciate they meant well, I had to remind myself that only I can decide for myself what to do and how to do it. There is no right or wrong. What feels right to someone, might feel very wrong to you.

    Listen to your inner voice! Tune in, and your heart will tell you what to do. We all have an inner compass; it’s just a matter of learning to access and trust it. Equally, when the tables are turned, be conscious of how you talk to people. Offer support and share your experiences by all means but give room for the other person to go their own way.

    2. You are not alone.

    In other ways I was not alone. One of the most important lessons for me was to accept help. Yes, bloody ask for help! I tend to be a control-freak, proud of my independence, always having been able to deal with things by myself. Suddenly I felt frighteningly helpless. I felt like everyone else had it figured out and I was failing miserably.

    Everyone in the hospice was amazing, whether it was talking to me, listening to me, letting me cry, offering me a cup of tea, providing me with food, or holding my hand. It meant the world and I stopped regarding accepting help as a weakness. There is no merit in going it alone, whatever it may be. You want to help those you love—allow them to be there for you, too.

    3. The power of a good cry.

    In line with my wish to be independent, I hate crying in front of people. I worried it would upset my mum. I worried I made other people uncomfortable. I worried the tears would never stop.

    Then somebody told me that it’s physiologically impossible to cry continuously. I can’t remember the time, but it’s something like twenty minutes after which the crying will automatically cease. That thought comforted me: The worst that could happen would be to cry for twenty minutes. That seemed manageable. Besides, there didn’t seem to be much I could do to stop the tears from coming anyway.

    Once I relaxed about crying, I discovered how transformative tears could be. They offered and still offer a release of tension that would otherwise keep building up inside. They have a message that is worth listening to. They are part of life. Don’t feel ashamed. Don’t worry on other people’s behalf, because it’s not for you to figure out how they deal with your tears.

    4. Feel it all.

    I used to strive for a life made up of only happy moments. People would tell me that without the crap, we wouldn’t appreciate the good. But I’ll be honest: I was not convinced.

    When feeling ‘negative’ emotions, in addition to feeling them, I was annoyed that I felt them, adding another layer of frustration. I engaged in an internal fight against those emotions, and as you may guess this only made things worse.

    Here I was dealing with feelings that were new to me, also in an intensity that was new to me and which felt uncomfortable as hell. I quickly worked out though that I couldn’t push them away. I couldn’t distract myself. Eventually I came to accept them as part of me and part of the experience. And the thing is that everything passes—the “good” as well as the “bad.”

    Don’t judge your feelings. Allow them to flow through you. Fighting them will only make them linger longer. Feel them and seek to learn from them. Everything we feel can teach us a lesson.

    5. Some things you cannot prepare for.

    Since my mum’s initial diagnosis, I had been mentally preparing for her death. Or so I thought. Grief took on many different forms for me. I hadn’t expected any of them and had nevertheless been going through various scenarios beforehand. It turned out to have been a waste of time to even attempt preparing for any of it. And this applies to most things in life.

    It will be whatever it will be. But most importantly you will be okay!

    It sucks at times. It still comes over me at random times. The realization that she is no longer around hits me again and again, as if it’s news. I often dream of her. Things happen, and I want to tell her about it and then realize that I can’t talk to her ever again. I have no idea where else my grief will take me so I have given up spending time of trying to anticipate it but I have faith that I will manage.

    6. Carpe diem.

    We know we will die one day, yet we still generally live our lives as if we will be around forever.

    Okay, I’m not saying that I’ve seized every minute of every day since my mum passed away. I forget. But I also remember. I remember that life is short. Death puts things into perspective in many ways. Is it worth getting upset or stressed over certain things? Do I really want to hold a grudge? Is this really worth my time? Is this who I want to spend my time with? How will I feel looking back on my life when my time comes?

    I ask myself these questions more often nowadays, and it has changed my life for the better. I am overall more relaxed and I stress less. I am more precious over how I spend my time and who with. I am less willing to put up with things that don’t feel good to me (this is where your inner voice plays a crucial role, too). It is liberating to say the least.

    7. Gratitude rocks.

    Almost a decade ago, I started a daily gratitude diary. I found it tough in the beginning. After a crappy day, I just didn’t think anything good had happened. But practice changed my mindset with lasting effects.

    It’s not about forcing yourself to be happy all the time; it’s about changing your perspective and focusing on the “good” without denying the “bad.” It helps me not to take things for granted in everyday life.

    Even during my mum’s last weeks, I found many things on a daily basis that I felt grateful for: I was grateful that even on her deathbed we were able to share a laugh. I was grateful to witness through her friends and family how she had touched other people’s lives. I was grateful how it brought me back closer to some people. I was also grateful for little things like sitting on her balcony in the sun or listening to music together.

    Above all I was and am grateful for having been given the opportunity to witness her dying. Especially given our difficult relationship, I am grateful I was able to say goodbye – I am aware not everyone gets the chance.

    8. Resilience is a superpower.

    If I got through this, I will get through other stuff, too. Death is outside your control. You have no choice but to deal with it when it comes your way. You do have a choice how to deal with it though.

    You can find the lesson in whatever life serves you. You can combine all of the above and be safe in the knowledge that you will be okay. I feel more resilient and I am confident that it will help me master other situations in the future. It doesn’t mean that there won’t be pain. But you are able to handle it and bounce back.

    I sense that my list of lessons learned will continue to grow. One of the keys I believe is to be open-minded, drop the pre-judgment and expectations. I never would have imagined that all or any of this would come from my mum’s death.

    Whether it’s grief you are dealing with or other challenging circumstances, I hope you will find the cathartic power in your experience that can lead to incredible personal growth. Whatever this may look like for you.

  • Sometimes You Have to Die a Little Inside

    Sometimes You Have to Die a Little Inside

    Sometimes you had to die a little

  • There’s No Expiration Date on Grief (So Don’t Rush Your Pain)

    There’s No Expiration Date on Grief (So Don’t Rush Your Pain)

    Woman Sitting Alone

    “They say time heals all wounds, but that presumes the source of the grief is finite.” ~Cassandra Clare

    I lost my father to a heart attack when I was sixteen. I went to school on the morning of April 14, 2008 having a dad and went home that night not having one. I soon found myself dealing with an unfamiliar cocktail of emotions, pain so overwhelming that I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

    Every time I thought I was pulling myself together, I’d notice his belt buckle sitting on the dresser, or a pair of his socks on the floor, and suddenly the haphazard stitches I’d been sewing myself up with would tear open with heart-wrenching sobs.

    I lost the ability to make simple decisions like what takeout restaurant to order from or what to watch on TV. Nothing made sense that week.

    Dad had been my best friend, though not in the sense that he tried to act my age or allowed me to get away with things. On the contrary, my father was quite strict, always pushing me to be a better person.

    He was my best friend in that I could go to him with any worry and receive honest, unbiased advice. He forced me to see the good in myself instead of dwelling on the negative. I could cry in front of him knowing that he didn’t feel awkward or want to avoid me like dad characters on TV sitcoms.

    On the day of his death I had to accept that I could rely on no one but myself. That in and of itself seemed challenging, but now I had the added burden of everyone else depending on me. I was the shoulder that my mother and younger sister cried on.

    As the oldest child I became second in command under Mom. She relied on me for help with planning funeral details and making sure papers were in order. I didn’t mind the new role because it was empowering, as though by helping Mom I was giving back to Dad for everything he’d done for me.

    My greatest character flaw has always been focusing on the future instead of remaining grounded in the present. Not surprisingly, my father’s death and my long-term response to grief were no different.

    I cried for the entire week after he died. I cried along with everyone else at the funeral. Surely that’s all that grieving was supposed to be, right?

    When the funeral was over and the house was devoid of mourners, I picked my life up from where I was before his death.

    I avoided living in the “now” because the present was too painful, yet simultaneously tried to convince the rest of the world that I was a strong woman dealing with her pain. I stayed focused on getting into college and doing all of the things I knew my father would have wanted for me.

    This worked well until my senior year of college. I was on the Dean’s List, I had just gotten accepted into graduate school, and graduation was right around the corner.

    Then my boyfriend proposed.

    Except, I never expected that he would propose with my mother’s engagement ring, the same ring my father bought and proposed with. There was now a reminder of my father glimmering on my finger every day that I couldn’t ignore.

    Despite it being one of the happiest moments of my life, my engagement caused all of the sadness I’d buried to start bubbling up to the surface with such vigor that it felt like the day of his death all over again. I couldn’t run home and tell Dad the happy news. He wasn’t going to be able to walk me down the aisle.

    I realized how much I had been lying to myself. I hadn’t finished grieving because I hadn’t started grieving in the first place. I had been so focused on taking on the role of adult of the house that I didn’t give myself the chance to feel angry, resentful, or depressed, or to find the acceptance I really needed in order to move on.

    During the funeral people approached me to say that things would become easier in time. In truth, I don’t think this is ever the case. I have decided that grief never ends; we just find different ways of working with it in our lives.

    At twenty-four, I pretend to be a stoic and emotionless professional woman, but discussing my father with people still melts me like butter. I think about him and write about him more now than I did seven years ago, and that’s okay. There are no time limits for grief other than the ones we force on ourselves.

    If I could talk to my sixteen-year-old self, I’d tell her she shouldn’t feel guilty for her sadness. She’s entitled to grieve however she wants, for however long she wants. More importantly, I’d tell her that it’s important to take the time to sort out those feelings instead of hiding from them or putting other people first.

    I admit that certain memories of Dad still trigger a twinge of heartache. I will always feel emptiness in my life without him here. But I am aware of how much of him still lives with me—in my smile, my hobbies, and in the shared memories of people in my life who had the honor of knowing him.

    The key to grieving is not to try to stop it as quickly as possible. Grief cannot be shut off at will, despite how long I spent trying to convince myself otherwise. What matters is that we acknowledge that we are in pain and try to find the goodness in our life despite it.

    I used to look down at my engagement ring and feel numbed by sadness, both for the past and for the things that can never be. But with a new mindfulness I can look at my ring, this gift from my father, and know for certain that I’m allowed to move on and find the same happiness that my parents had.

    My father’s never going to disappear from my life; he’s just talking in ways that require careful listening.

    Woman sitting alone image via Shutterstock

  • You Can Make a Difference: 7 Ways to Create a Powerful Legacy

    You Can Make a Difference: 7 Ways to Create a Powerful Legacy

    Man Silhouette

    “Don’t be afraid of death; be afraid of an unlived life. You don’t have to live forever; you just have to live.” ~Natalie Babbitt

    Recently I was searching for information online about a friend of mine who I lost touch with about a decade ago.

    Pam and I went to psychology graduate school together in the early nineties and stayed in touch for a few years after that. But in those pre-Facebook days it was easy to lose touch with people, and Pam and I eventually drifted apart.

    Curious about what my friend was up to, I typed her name into Google. Imagine my shock when I found her obituary. It turns out that she had died three years ago from colon cancer at the still young age of forty-four.

    Even though Pam and I lost touch a long time ago, learning about her death hit me hard. Months later, I’m still shocked that she’s no longer with us.

    Pam’s death was also a wake-up call for me. As a gift to future generations, I want to use my life to create a powerful legacy and to make a positive contribution to the world. Yet, up to this point in my life, I haven’t taken intentional actions that will create the type of legacy that I want.

    And while I hope to live for at least another forty years, the date of my death is outside of my control. Like my friend, I could die at any time.

    But no matter how many or how few years I have left, I absolutely have the ability to positively impact the world and touch lives far into the future. And so do you!

    The truth is that we create legacies with every single action that we take. The question we need to ask is whether or not were taking intentional actions to create the type of legacy that we want to create.

    After much reflection, I came up with the following seven ideas for how I plan on building a powerful legacy with my life. I hope that they inspire you to do the same and without needing the wake-up call that I received.

    1. Decide what legacy you want to create.

    In order to create a powerful legacy with your life, you need to decide what contribution you want to make to the world. I suggest spending some time journaling and reflecting on the following questions:

    • If you knew with certainty that you only had five more years to live, how would you spend those years, and why?
    • What message do you want to send with your life to the world and to those who matter most to you?
    • Imagine that you are attending your own funeral. What would you want your family and friends to say about you and how you lived your life?

    2. Start creating your legacy today.

    We all have a limited time on this planet. And yet, we often live our lives as if our time was unlimited, putting things off, thinking that we’ll always have more time. I’m sure my friend Pam was expecting to live a lot more than forty-four years.

    Yet the truth is that none of us knows how long we’ll live. If you want to create a powerful legacy with your life, then you need to stop wasting time and start creating it today.

    Look over your answers to the questions from Point 1. Based on your answers to those questions, identify three to five specific goals you can set for creating the legacy that you want. Then, for each goal, figure out the first step you can take and start taking it today!

    3. Simplify your life and focus on the essentials.

    Another friend of mine, who died a few years ago, created a powerful legacy by simplifying his life and focusing on the essentials. John centered his life around three main things—building powerful connections with others, creating beautiful art, and cultivating his own spiritual growth.

    I would guess that most of John’s life energy was devoted to these three activities. John didn’t let himself get distracted by trivial or meaningless pursuits.

    Learn from my friend John. Figure out the two to four things that are most important to you and put the bulk of your energy into those activities while letting go of the rest.

    4. Treat everyone you meet with kindness. 

    A powerful legacy can often be created with the simplest actions. Simple acts of kindness have been known to change lives in powerful ways.

    And a simple act of kindness can inspire acts of kindness by others—which means that every time you touch someone’s heart with your kindness, you create positive ripples, ripples that will last for a long, long time.

    You can even create a kindness ritual. For example, sparked by my friend’s death, I’ve decided to contact one friend a week, and send them a short note letting them know what they mean to me.

    5. Serve to the best of your ability.

    None of us can do it all and none of us is perfect. And yet we often use those as excuses to do nothing. We do nothing because we can’t do everything or we do nothing because we can’t do what we want perfectly.

    My suggestion is to just serve to the best of your ability. Do your part to make the world a better place, and stop worrying about the fact that you can’t do everything or that you can’t do it perfectly. The truth is that we can all do something to serve and doing that something creates a much more powerful legacy than doing nothing.

    6. Do the next right thing. 

    Maybe you don’t know what kind of legacy you want to create with your life. I completely understand that. We live in a complicated, overwhelming world in which our attention is pulled in a thousand different directions.

    If that’s how you’re feeling, then I suggest that you focus on doing the next right thing every time you’re faced with a choice or decision. Every time you do the right thing—however you define it—you create a powerful chain of actions which leads directly to a powerful legacy.

    7. Remind yourself that you have limited time. 

    In certain Buddhist traditions, people are taught to imagine a little bird on their shoulder and to ask that bird every day if today is their last day.

    Repeatedly using this technique or similar ones reminds us to make good use of our time and that we need to work toward creating our legacy every single day.

    — 

    A few days ago, a friend told me in an email that she didn’t think she had a legacy. The truth though is that we all create legacies with our lives.

    The question isn’t whether or not we’re creating a legacy. The question is whether or not we’re actively creating the legacy that we want to. Incorporate some of the suggestions above, begin leading your life deliberately, and I have no doubt that you’ll create a powerful legacy that will last for generations.

    Man silhouette via Shutterstock

  • 7 Things Everyone Should Learn Before They Die

    7 Things Everyone Should Learn Before They Die

    Woman reading book

    “I would rather die of passion than of boredom.” ~Vincent Van Gogh

    I attended an interesting event a few nights ago. It featured ten speakers who spoke for ten minutes each on ten things you should know before you die.

    The speakers included TV and film stars, CEOs, cover-shooting photojournalists, traveling journalists covering natural disasters, and HIV survivors. As you can imagine, there was a wide spectrum of perspectives shared.

    Here are a few of the lessons that stuck out for me. A lot of these can profoundly change your mindset, how you view the world, and how you choose to react to things. You just need to take a step back and put things into perspective, which leads us into our first one.

    1. Maintain perspective.

    A journalist told a story of how he traveled to Haiti after the devastating earthquake that hit them a few years back. In the capital of Port-au-Prince many of the homes had fallen apart, and people who already had nothing were now living in small plots of land in public squares in the city.

    The separations between each family’s plot were drawn in by hand, with tents and tarps set up overhead.
    In one particular plot was for a seven-year-old girl and a one-year-old boy.

    The speaker spoke a bit of Creole French and asked the people in neighboring tents which family these children were with. They replied, “That is the family.”

    The seven-year-old girl and one-year-old boy’s parents and older siblings had been killed. She was now responsible for this baby.

    This is where the notion of perspective comes in. The next time you’re upset at traffic, or someone is taking too long in the checkout line, or someone hasn’t texted you back quickly enough, take a step back and ask yourself, in the grand scheme of things, is this really worth being upset about?

    The book Unbroken drove this point home for me. Reading what this man went through quickly made me realize, if I were privileged to be born into a first world country (Canada) in the current peaceful time, I have absolutely nothing to complain about. A reminder to myself the next time Netflix is slow to load something…

    2. Take care of your health.

    Health is the gateway to happiness. If you are not living with your fullest energy and vibrancy, how can you expect to get the most from life?

    This was the main message from a middle-aged woman and entrepreneur who broke the status quo and went her own way in life, much to the dismay of her parents. She dropped out of school and traveled the world, falling into a few rough crowds on the journey and eventually settling in Toronto.

    There, she visited a local fresh juice place that ended up changing her life. She fell in love with how the juices made her feel and the energy they gave her, and ended up opening her own juice place called “Juice for Life” (which her Jewish parents hilariously thought was called “Jews for Life” at first). She’s now the founder and CEO of Fresh Restaurants chain in Toronto.

    Anyone who knows me knows health is massively important to me as well. I always pose the question: Is it not a bit crazy to think that people will spend more money on their car, their fashion, and accessories than they would on their body?

    Ask anyone with a serious illness what would they rather have; they all would give up everything they own to get healthy and undo the damage that was done.

    3. Be true to yourself and your calling.

    If you are living and doing something that doesn’t align with you, how can you ever be truly happy and enlightened?

    This was the main message from the founder of Yuk Yuk’s comedy club, a popular spot in Toronto.

    You can imagine the reaction he got from his friends and family when he told them he wanted to enter the comedy business. This was his passion, however, and he knew from experience that if he was doing something different, he would rarely be at peace or be inspired.

    When you find something that aligns and resonates with you, you will know it from the energy it gives you.

    The Vincent Van Gogh quotes sums the message here up quite nicely: Would you rather die of passion or of boredom?

    4. Don’t be afraid to stand out.

    When you go your own way and make your own path, you alone write your legacy.

    This was the motto of a female photojournalist who spoke to us. She joined the world of journalism in the sixties and seventies, when it was completely dominated by men. She was different from what was considered the norm and despite ridicule, sexist remarks, and being seen as lower, she used it to her advantage.

    Being shorter than the male photographers, she was always in front of the pack, allowing her to capture some of the closest, most personal photos. She became one of the first females to have their photos published on the cover of multiple well know magazines, and went on to be the prime journalist covering Terry Fox’s run across Canada.

    It is your inherent right to challenge the status quo. Never be afraid to forge your own destiny due to the thoughts of others. People may laugh at you because you are different. You could pack up and quit here, or you could feel sorry for them because they are all the same.

    As well, never be afraid to challenge why things are the way they are. After all, this is the very question that has forged almost all innovation mankind has ever done.

    5. Don’t play the victim.

    As I mentioned earlier, one of the speakers was a girl born with HIV. She was abandoned by her parents and adopted by a supporting family with nine other adopted children.

    Her new family took her in with love and put her through school like a normal child. But when the other children’s parents found out she had HIV, it was no longer normal. They refused to invite her over to birthday parties and sleepovers and forbade their children from being friends with her.

    She could have closed up and felt angry at the world, but instead she took a position of power and action. Now in her late teens, she has spoken globally, on major TV networks and YouTube, to educate the world on HIV and how ridiculous it is to “ban” your kids from socializing with someone who has it.

    Many people constantly place blame on everything and everyone and make themselves a victim. Why did this happen to me? Why can’t I make more money? Why am I stuck at this job?

    The world doesn’t owe you anything; you were not born a victim. Yet when you look around how many people do you find complaining about their situation but not taking any action or effort to improve it?

    The world gives you so much to work with if you work with it and put in the effort.

    6. Re-direct your energy.

    An actress told her story of failed audition after failed audition while witnessing other people’s success. She knew she could have gotten caught in the negative energy of envy and blame—upset that others were getting roles, getting paid more, or traveling more.

    She didn’t go this way, though; she knew envy can be channeled into focus and motivation.

    The lesson in here is quite simple. Instead of wasting energy being angry, envious, or jealous of those with more success, redirect that energy and ask, “What can I learn from this person to improve my own life?”

    As a result of doing this, she re-auditioned for a part she hadn’t received and was so motivated she ended up blowing them away and getting the role on the spot.

    7. Give your attention.

    One of the speakers began his talk with a severe stutter. The energetic crowd grew quiet, not knowing how to react. He then switched to a more fluent voice and told the audience he suffered with this stutter for the first twenty years of his life.

    When he was a young teen, he worked at one of Vidal Sassoon’s salons, doing odd behind the scenes jobs where he didn’t need to speak, like sweeping and tidying up after customers. Most people didn’t give him the time of day or would mock his difficulty in speaking.

    One day it was announced that Vidal Sassoon himself, the CEO, was coming to visit their Salon. Vidal made a point to meet with everyone, from the highest manager to the ones attending to the cut hair on the floor.

    When he approached the young boy, he asked what his name was. The boy tried to respond but was too nervous, and his stutter was so severe that he just could not get his name out. Vidal smiled, crouched down in front of him, and said “It’s okay, son, I have all the time in the world.”

    The greatest gift you can give someone is your attention. Never allow yourself to get in the mindset that people are “below you,” because even the smallest conversation can make someone’s day. People will forget many things, but they will always remember how others made them feel.

    —

    Imagine a world where everyone learned the lessons above from a young age. It’s possible, but starts with each of us.

    Woman reading image via Shutterstock

  • Don’t Wait Until the End to Wake Up to Your Life

    Don’t Wait Until the End to Wake Up to Your Life

    Man in a Cave

    “Don’t be afraid of death; be afraid of an unlived life. You don’t have to live forever; you just have to live.” ~Natalie Babbitt

    My friend died recently.

    I saw him just a few hours before he died too. He stopped by my office as he had done numerous times before to say hello. I’d seen him go through various challenges and come out better. His life was great, and the future looked bright. And I was happy for him because he had worked so hard to get to this place.

    My friend died that night in a freak accident.

    I was stunned. Why him? Why now when he had so much to live for?

    As I was dealing with the sadness and shock of this sudden loss, I remembered the gift of life and the precious few moments we had with each other.

    I hope these reminders will help you treasure each moment with yourself and with others:

    1. Slow down.

    Most of us live our lives like someone who always drives on the freeway. We get to our destinations faster, but when we avoid the slower country roads, we miss out on the beauty of the land and the people.

    We get so caught up in our busy schedules and our to-do lists that we lose out on the ordinary moments that we often disregard as meaningless or unproductive.

    When my friend died, the realization that I would never experience his impromptu visits again hit me hard. I just assumed I would see him the next day, as I had done countless times before.

    I now understood how precious the moments we did have were. I understood that beauty is in each moment of my own life—that I don’t have to wait for the peak moments to feel alive, happy, or loved. I can slow down and enjoy all the blessings of being alive right now.

    2. Learn to talk about death.

    Our society doesn’t face the reality of death too well. We live like we will never die. We fail to plan and prepare. We put off the important things until it’s too late.

    Why? It’s scary to talk about, and it’s emotionally taxing to think about.

    I remember being intensely afraid of death as a child. I’d been to a few funerals, and the sight of dead bodies was something that haunted me. Sometimes I still struggle with thinking and talking about death until it hits close to home.

    The sudden death of my friend reminded me of why talking about death with your loved ones is so important. If I died today, will my family be taken care of? Will my spouse know my funeral and burial wishes?

    Talking about death allows us to make plans for the inevitable event so that those closest to us can know what to do when we die. They will be going through enough heartache, so helping them to feel prepared will ease their burden.

    3. Embrace uncertainty.

    Like death itself, we are often petrified to embrace uncertainty. That’s understandable. One of our basic human needs is to feel a sense of control in our lives. Taken too far, the desire for absolute certainty can be harmful.

    As a recovering perfectionist, I know about overreacting if plans don’t go exactly as expected. I would become irritable or lose focus. My sense of well-being was often diminished by relatively minor detours from my plans.

    But I’ve learned over the years that the most amazing thing about uncertainty is how we can be blindsided by joy. If we avoid uncertainty, we deprive ourselves of all of the wonderful possibilities that can come from the unexpected.

    And while the unexpected is also bound to bring pain, it’s from that pain that we find nuggets of wisdom to help us grow emotionally and spiritually.

    Though death itself is the one ultimate certainty, when and how it comes is unknown. Just like my beloved friend, I will die—on a day, time, and manner not of my choosing.

    Embracing this ultimate uncertainty frees me emotionally to live in the present where I am more likely to be happier and fulfilled.

    How do you embrace uncertainty? Start by looking for joy in the most unexpected places. Look for it when you’re afraid, upset, discouraged, or sad. And recall the times when you were surprised by joy. The more you do this, the less you’ll fear the uncertain because you’ll know that joy is always within reach.

    4. Live with purpose and meaning.

    Why do you do what you do? Is it to please others or because you find meaning in it?

    Because we push death to the fringes as a society, we are often out of touch with our own mortality. With each passing second, we grow ever closer to the day we will die. We put off our own dreams and desires to some unknown future date that may never come.

    Bronnie Ware, a palliative care nurse, recorded the top five regrets of the dying. At the top of the list was this regret:

    “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

    The death of my friend prompted me to think: What would be my number one regret if I were dying today? Would I have the above regret? Would you?

    If you’re struggling to create meaning in your life, start by thinking about the kind of person you want to be. Finding meaning is more about being than doing. The latter helps, but your being follows you, regardless of what you are doing.

    5. Be generous with your love.

    During their funerals, we always talk about how much these people affected us during life. Why can’t we tell them when they are alive?

    I often think back to the last day I saw my friend. What would I have done or said differently had I known I would never see him again? A part of me felt unresolved. I wished I had a chance to simply offer a few words of appreciation.

    When we lose someone, we’ll frequently have unresolved feelings—regrets about the unsaid, the harsh words we wish we could take back, or the things we wished we could have done to ease their pain.

    But don’t let this stop you from telling the important people in your life how much you love them. Small acts of kindness and selfless giving are also essential ways of expressing love.

    Visible and concrete expressions of love will be a soothing balm when faced with loss.

    Wake Up To Your Life

    Let’s be honest. The vast majority of us are driving on the freeway of life. We’ve fallen asleep behind the wheel, lulled by the seemingly endless highway that stretches in a straight line to the horizon.

    No matter how long the highway may seem from where we are, it will eventually come to an end. Don’t wait until the end to wake up to your life.

    Roll down the windows, get off the highway, and take the unbeaten path.

    Be present to the gift of your life in this very moment.

    Be courageous by being true to yourself.

    And be grateful for the ways death teaches us to live.

    Man in a cave image via Shutterstock

  • When the People We Love No Longer Exist

    When the People We Love No Longer Exist

    “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.” ~Steve Jobs

    A week ago a woman I loved died. She was a member of my family and had been dying for a while from bone cancer, so her death did not come as a surprise.

    I was traveling when I got the email, and I sat in Abu Dhabi airport surrounded by the banging and steps of people and grieved.

    Yes, I knew her death was imminent, but at a deeper level I found the news confusing. When I last visited her in her hospital room, her eyes were open and her breath constant; we chatted, she laughed, and we talked about seeing each other again.

    What was deeply confusing, and still is, is the fact that she will never exist again—not in the same form. Some believe she has gone to another world, some believe she now exists as particles, but the reality is that her shape, the twinkle in her eyes, the way she held my hand will never exist again.

    All of us who have gone through loss will understand this deep confusion. How can something no longer exist? How can one not call or talk to or hug a person anymore within the space of a day?

    My husband and I sat on the pews in the small suburban church and listened to beautiful things said about her.

    People spoke of her struggles with self-doubt and loss, as well as her ability to inspire and support women to find their own path. She could be conflicted and generous at the same time—she was human.

    A friend of mine once said that light on fractured glass is more arresting than glass that is robust and flat. I couldn’t have agreed more, as the words in the church about the woman we had lost recreated her and we could feel her living, just for that moment, in all her light and shade.

    From everything I’ve read coping with grief, it’s all about letting it out, about not having expectations about when the grief will end, about communicating about it with family and friends who understand.

    I let it out yesterday; I couldn’t help myself. The real rain came, though, when I looked over at the coffin and knew there was a woman inside, and her lack of life, of existence, overwhelmed me.

    So, how do we process the confusion that occurs when people that are special to us are no longer in our lives? Death is just one way these people can disappear; they can also disappear through relationship breakups, geographical separation, or they can simply vanish.

    The overwhelming feeling I get is one of too much space. It becomes very obvious that that person occupied some space within my existence and the vacuum is very hard to bear.

    In practical terms, it may be that I saw that person once a week, once a month, once a year, and now my dance card is not as full because they are no longer on the floor. Even if they had a negative impact on my life, I miss them, some parts of them.

    I guess the comforting thing I’ve learned from experience is that eventually others will come onto the floor, that the vacuum is not permanent, that each person who comes and goes brings more and more to my life and my understanding of existence.

    As Salman Rushdie writes in Midnight’s Children, “I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I’m gone which would not have happened if I had not come.”

    When the people I care about no longer exist, I have the perfect opportunity to reflect on how I can integrate the best parts of them into my life.

    The woman I loved and lost was passionate about empowering women. I have carried the same flame, and her death inspires me to work even harder to encapsulate women’s voices into my writing.

    As a counselor, teacher, and friend, she also cared a lot about people and always wanted to help. When she spent the last year in and out of hospital, the love that she gave came back in spades with the constant stream of visitors and helpers by her bedside.

    Watching this really taught me the value of giving, not only to help others but also to develop relationships that were more about creation than destruction.

    We also have a choice to address the question of existence more broadly when people we were close to no longer exist in our lives.

    The older I get, the more I understand that existence really is very temporary. It makes sense, then, that the temporary nature of existence means that existence is, in itself, quite extraordinary.

    As science writer Lewis Thomas wrote, “Statistically, the probability of any one of us being here is so small that the mere fact of our existence should keep us all in a state of contented dazzlement.”

    We can choose to ignore just how temporary our lives are, or, we can choose to say, “Well, I’m only here for a bit so I’d better get on with it and work out how I want to live and give.”

    Steve Jobs said, “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.”

    Steve’s understanding of the temporary nature of existence motivated him to create an extraordinary life, and, ironically enough, he will live on through his creations for years to come.

    It’s the day following the funeral. There’s a bunch of bright purple, pink, white, and yellow flowers on my desk. Someone left them at the front of the church because they wanted to do something tangible that indicated just how much they appreciated the woman’s life.

    In writing this I’m also doing the same. My gift of flowers, of words, for the woman who no longer exists, but who is now a part of this temporary life that is extraordinary just because it is.