Joan Didion’s memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking, was the first I had ever read about a sudden loss. It was written in 2005 following the sudden death of her husband, writer John Gregory Dunne. He suffered a heart attack at their New York City apartment, at the dinner table. My mom Ellen died in 1993 of a brain aneurism at the beach at Sandy Hook National Park. Joan was there. Mom was alone.

I dipped a toe into writing to make sense of her death. Long a fan of a tiny pink diary with a heart shaped lock, I had loved to write. Being a paid writer for work, I had to make the designation part of a grief tending practice.

In school I had long been taught by writing teachers not to write too close to the heat. Writing from the red hot center of an inciting incident can make a memory faulty. Maybe we are still in the anger of an open wound. Not sure I buy that as much as a griever any longer. Lots of good studies too, like Expressive Writing Words That Heal, by Dr. John Pennebaker that say it not only helps, it heals.

I was not sure how close to the pain Didion had written her story back when it came out. But it was visceral for me as a reader. I felt mine, when I read hers. Years later I felt the same when reading memoir, Here After. First person, present tense, graphic and gripping about the sudden death of her husband Kurtis during a half-marathon. They wrote from so close to their experience I have seen firsthand how it helped me and my clients.

Part of Amy’s journey, was to journal in her early and devastating loss. To make sense of her pain through writing. When I interviewed her, she told me it was an assignment from her grief therapist. These writings turned Substack, turned USA Today Bestseller, were hot on the page. She shared how important it was for her to make the book itself a smaller cut, shorter chapters and include more white space so that grievers could meet it, even when they were making sense of their own grief. Small enough to tuck in a pocket or small purse. Bite sized chunks to digest even when grief fog is in full effect. I loved learning about these thoughtful and gentle invitations she crafted for readers.

She saw writing not as a way to express thoughts she already had, but as the actual method of discovery itself. The act of writing was how she made sense of the experience. The idea that she could not make sense of what she thought until she wrote it down. She interrogated the details of the evening like a stealth reporter with her journalist chops on full display. I had the unbelievable experience of sitting with her archives at The New York Public Library. One piece that took my breath away was the doorman’s log. It jogged her timeline of the evening.

There are so many details missing from the day my mother died. I have been piecing them together for decades like a crime junkie. From “what if I had been there” to calling years later for her hospital records from Monmouth Medical Center and writing the eulogy I was told I was too shocked to give. The A&P receipt in her beach bag gave us clues. I am so grateful she ate her beloved Santa Rosa plums on that last day.

When we write, we can see our story, thoughts and emotions outside of ourselves. I believe that moving it from the inside to the page helps us become our own story witness. This offers us distance, a new view and perspective. For Didion, writing was both an act of self-preservation and self-understanding. I see this in my Write to Heal clients.

Brain imagine studies found that writing about your emotions calms the amygdala, the part of the brain that is the brain’s threat detector. Is is a small, almond shaped structure deep in your brain that acts as your emotional processing center, particularly for fear and threat. The amygdala receives sensory information and evaluates whether something is threatening, rewarding or emotionally significant.

The book is Didion’s attention to understand her own mind in the immediate aftermath of loss. The “magical thinking” of the title refers to her irrational belief that if she did certain things correctly she could reverse what happened. So many of us can get lost in the “shoulds” this way. Every person that has ever read the book I talk to, shares their reflection of “the shoes.” She could not give away his shoes because he would need them when he returned.

When we move the story we are telling ourselves about our loved ones and our loss from the inside out, we are also telling this part of our brain that the magical thinking has moved to the acceptance of reality. Not accepting that this will ever be right, but that it is in fact real. They are not walking through the door. The threat of another bad thing happening, can quiet.

I am not saying the medicine is becoming a memoirist. But I know that trying on writing as a grief tending tool has proven to help hundreds I sit with in their experience. Many of my grievers in groups and on retreat are often hesitant to pick up the pen. Their inner critic shows up and scoffs. Perfectionism ensues. Or they have a bad taste because they have been given an assignment to write a letter to their dead loved one and became lost in overwhelm. I actually love this invitation, but it can be offered too early, or when you don’t feel ready to imagine this is your new normal.

Gentle invitations to the page can help us exercise this beautiful and effective practice. Sometimes it helps us find words to what is too hard to speak. Maybe it unveils thoughts that are deeply embedded in the subconscious. This can be found in a four minute sprint across the page…ditching grammar and punctuation and trading it for curiosity. Write like nobody is reading!

It never has to be shared, or even read. Lists and free association can create an easy container for a practice. This is my favorite part of my Grief Camp sessions. Seeing “campers” become writers. The next one takes place in March if you have an itch to try it in person with me.

If you geek out on the science of why - here is what we know.

+When you write about something painful, you are externalizing it. Out of the head and onto the page. This creates mental distance — a moat! It reduces the heavy load of holding on. It’s “over there”.

+Writing lights up so many brain regions and memory retrieval. This can help us make sense of even the most difficult experiences.

+We can move from overwhelm to better understanding. Observing our thoughts before we take action.

+Even a short timed automatic write, or list helps organize thoughts, regain control and focus.

+Writing by hand can slow us down allowing more time for processing and meaning making.

+Let it be messy. Ignore grammar, spelling and even sentences. A shitty first draft (even the only draft!) allows us to just to adapt and regulate.

You don’t need a fancy journal to journey this way. Although I do love having a dedicated place to put these thoughts. A safe container. A favorite pen. The New York Times just featured one of my favorites. But I am equally a fan of the old school composition book.

One of the prompts or invitations I offered in our recent group was called “Hello Again”. Every time there was something in the day that you longed to share with a loved one, you can just jot it down. Almost like a phone memo, call or text. Instead of feeling that frustration, sadness or block - see what it feels like to bring them into the magic and minutiae of the day. This helps us to create a continuing bond with our person.

“Hey Mom, it’s candy heart season. Our favorite. I have already knocked back a bag and it is not even February. I put them in a pink bowl on my desk. I sent a pic of one to Quinny that said Love Bug. You would not believe her cooking. Imagine my kid cooking? Miss you”.

Give it a try and tell me what you think. And if you have not yet read either of the memoirs shared - add them to your TBR pile. Hope to write with you soon.

Period.

Full stop!

And yet, where do we go to find folks that care and share your reality? The truth is, each and every day, we are learning new ways to live with our loss. Some days it looks like we are carrying something heavy and most days it is invisible to others. If you have grieved a loved one — you know that while it morphs and ebbs, it is always present.

Just last night in our support circle, a woman shared that after a few months, friends, family and colleagues have seemingly disappeared, “moved on” and stopped checking in on her all together. She has returned their casserole dishes and sent condolence thank you’s and they think she is back. Better. Done!

Her father has been gone for just nine weeks. She is an only child and has rearranged her life and sense of self in ways she never imagined. This profound loss is one she will learn to carry for the rest of her life.

The beauty of being in a group of those who share losing someone they love, is the virtual wisdom exchange that appears in the tender give and take. Long ago loss and fresh grief meet. As heads nod, there is a knowing that allows you to be in it together. Some share words that have been hard for you to express. Others acknowledge and identify with feelings you thought you were alone in. Folks that come together as strangers, soon craft a shorthand and connection, that is found in the easy sharing and understanding of grieving.

Claire Bidwell Smith, my dear mentor, friend and colleague, defines the way we meet our grief intentionally in her teachings, trainings and book of the same name, Conscious Grieving. She shares…

“Losing someone we love is something that happens to us but how we grieve is up to us. Grieving consciously means acknowledging all the ways your life has changed and leaning into the process of grieving. Acknowledging change and leaning into grief looks like seeking support and making space for your grief. And making space for grief means setting aside time to feel emotions, engage in rituals, and finding ways to honor the person you miss in all the ways this kind of support group will offer. we experience loss, it's normal to feel overwhelmed. But true healing begins when you engage with your grief, open yourself up to it, learn how to integrate it into your life, and eventually let it transform you. You don't have to navigate this alone.”

I am honored to lead two 8-week online Conscious Grieving Support Groups, designed to provide a safe and nurturing space where you can share your experiences, lean into your grief, and receive insights and tools to work with for the long-term future.

• Grief Groups begin in January: Groups will be guided through eight supportive and insightful gatherings.

• Mother Loss and Spouse/Partner Loss: Each group offers the opportunity to connect with others who understand the pain of these specific losses.

• Limited Spots: Each group is capped at 12 participants to ensure personalized attention.

If you have ever wondered if a support group is for you, come and sit with us. These intimate groups allow you the intentional space to show up for yourself and your grief. I hope to see you there in the new year.

Your knowing what feels right this time of year is entirely up to you. It begins with the permission you gift yourself for letting the holidays look like doing things differently than you have ever done before — or leaning into tried and true traditions that make you feel closest to your person.

We may not know exactly who will carve the turkey or if caroling still feels as festive as it used to — you have the right to show up just as you are this year and decide. And bring your grief along! No need to hide it, or pretend it’s not there for the sake of others. Sometimes being with our grief allows us to feel closer to those we miss and want to remember.

Comfort and joy make look and feel a little bit different this year — and that is more than ok. From reframing the day to ditching what feels too difficult, find self-compassion and allowance in trying to show up for yourself and your grief in a way that feels like a cozy sweater.

I offer you this “bill of rights” should it help. Maybe you can send it along to friends and family so they know how to meet you where you are….

Share

MY HOLIDAY GRIEF BILL OF RIGHTS

I have the right to cry anytime and anywhere (remember tears are movement and need no apologies!).

I have the right to set realistic expectations and remind myself I am doing the best I can.

I have the right to say no, change my mind and leave early!

I have the right to talk about my loved one, even if it might make you sad. I expect you to remember them with me and for me too. Please say their name.

I have the right to try on new traditions - it does not mean I have forgotten the old ones, or my loved one — it just makes me feel best right now.

I have the right to skip this holiday all together without judgement from others or myself.

I have the right to do what is right for me. There is no one way to grieve at the holidays - just my way.

I have the right to heal any which way I choose. That may mean cancelling or going full tilt celebrate - I decide.

I have the right not to know exactly what will feel ok, and I can change my mind, even at the last moment.

I have the right to grieve them, whether it has been a day or a decade.

I have the right for your understanding, even if you don’t agree with my choices.

Be gentle with yourself. Acknowledge that the holidays may intensify feelings of grief and loss. Don't force yourself to participate in traditions if they feel too difficult.

Set boundaries. Politely decline invitations or social events you don't feel up to. It's okay to prioritize your self-care.

Create new traditions. Consider starting a new ritual or activity that honors your loved one, like lighting a memorial candle, writing them a letter, buying a gift from them, or making a donation in their name.

Lean on your support system. Reach out to understanding friends and family who can provide a listening ear or help with tasks. Support groups can also offer community.

Take time for reflection. Build in moments for quiet contemplation, a playlist, journaling, or visiting your loved one's gravesite, altar or a special place they loved.

Allow yourself to feel joy. Experiencing happiness and laughter does not diminish your grief. Cherish moments of levity. Go on a joy hunt!

Seek professional help if needed. A grief coach, grief support group or counselor can provide coping strategies and a safe space to process emotions.

My website, this page and even my instagram may offer some grief tending tools. Nobody needs to grieve alone - if the season gets to be too much to carry, please reach out.

You don’t have to pretend or hide. If the season feels like a struggle - I hope you will find the safety and vulnerability to say so. The weight of an empty seat at the table. The card without their smile. Choose time spent in places and spaces that feel vibrant in the way that feels best for you. Holding you in my heart. Missing them for you and with you. Feel free to share their name and a beautiful holiday memory here, I would love to share it with you.

x, Barri

Uncertainty can bring up thoughts of a future you imagined for yourself and your loved one. It can make you want to call them. Stir up your sense of safety and home in the world? What can you do today?

Vote early if you can today.

Avoid the crowds and tumult. Early voting can bring a sense of peace and accomplishment. Wear that sticker proudly.

Breathe: try 3 rounds of box breathing.

in for four

hold for four

exhale for four

hold for four at the bottom.

Walk:

Go on a noticing walk today.

Take in the colors, sounds, sights. Feel the leaves and grass under your feet. Take your shoes off if you can for grounding. Put your back against a tree and breathe. Placing yourself in the present can help with rumination about the past and future.

Write about it…

Taking pen to paper helps us to move emotions through the body. A way to be our own story witness. To see it outside of ourselves can help us metabolize the hard stuff. Write to your loved one.

Netflix and chill….

Distraction is action!

Drink water!

Hydrate…take a news and social media break. Sit down in the quiet and drink a tall glass of water. Repeat.

Enjoy a Grief Relief kit from me to you… here.

x, Barri

PS. We are all in this together! Our virtual holiday grief support circle begins soon. Details here. Love to have you to and through the holidays and the new year.

and Grief Camp, in person at Kripalu.

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom” - Viktor Frankl

Yes, loss happened to us. We did not ask for this life turning, life altering and all-around shitty event to be bestowed upon us. The reality is though, that it has come and changed the trajectory of our future as we knew it. The rest-of-our-life-movie, rescripted. This has left us wobbly, uncertain and on many days, damn scared. For some who experience a loss, it shows up and shows us that “bad things can happen.” Once we have this in our purview, it can create anxious feelings around what may happen next.

I have been asked many times in my work, and personal journey about resiliency and grief. Along the road of learning to live a life with loss on board, I heard “you’re so strong” so very many times. I began to feel like grief was a world class weight lifting sport. I have now come to realize that resiliency and learning to flex that muscle is what keeps us afloat.

A defining moment in the proverbial sands of time - instantaneously changes our days into the before and after when it comes to grief. We have this defining moment of reality set in. My friend, author and NY-based, grief and trauma therapist, Gina Moffa, coined this phenomenon, Griefall. In her book, Moving On Doesn't Mean Letting Go. she has gifted us a name for this unspoken but unforgettable line in the sand of life’s trajectory. But, how we respond to this moment, through dedicated grief tending practices, is exactly how we grow forward. I will be in conversation with Gina in person, in NY on October 23 at 7pm. You can register here. We’d love to see you!

If you have been with me in The Memory Circle, you know I call bullshit on bright-siding any and all parts of grieving. And yes, I love bad words - and the good juicy science that goes with using them to process feelings and emotions! Add a good F-bomb to the end of a sentence or statement when you are really trying to prove a point, or feel incredibly frustrated and tell me I am wrong. It helps! But I digress.

I am not asking you to accept this loss and move on merrily, or stuff it down as if nothing happened - no, no, never. I am simply reminding you, from the other side of the sandbar - you have a CHOICE in how this next part plays out.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last the human freedoms - to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” - Viktor Frankl

From group support to therapeutic journaling, there are vast and many modalities in the middle, we can lean into when we are untangling the tangles of learning to live with loss. The first step is to craft a plan. This week I asked a client, what feels good lately? Yoga, walks, connecting with friends, massage, canasta… Can you do more of that? In her search for trying to do grief right - she gave herself permission in the moment, to do more of what feels good for right now.

PERMISSION GRANTED!

GIFT A GRIEVER

It reminded me of the positive psychology model and study of Martin Seligman. Less about determining and leaning into the “what is wrong with you” — and more about leaning into daily well-being. (This model has been coined PERMA. (Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and Accomplishments Read more here). In our coaching time together, I will often borrow some of this theory into our conversations and activities.

A few for you:

Look for Delights! (the more you note them, the more you see them!) I borrowed this prompt from Ross Gay, who wrote an essay a day for 100 days on delight. The Book of Delights is a favorite of mine.

List Your Daily Non-Negotiables: From making the bed to showering - give this a try and see where it takes you. Sometimes it shows us what we are actually accomplishing when we feel otherwise.

Mood Boosters: What feels good right now? What things in the “before” felt good? Can I add them to my list of non-negotiable?

Favorite Distractions: My client plays canasta. This is not forgetting her loss, it is giving her a break from it. We need this! What are yours?

Feel Good Places & Spaces (real and virtual): Can you go there? Sitting on a bench in the park and feeding the birds, the frozen yogurt spot with unlimited toppings, a mindful playlist or guided meditation. Music played at 528 hz!

People to Reach Out To: Do you have folks that respond when you need an ear or a favor? How about a group of grief supporters? Sometimes we have them in our circle and sometimes we need to find our circle.

I would love to hear your feedback and thoughts. No one or right way is going to help us move forward and learn to live with loss. What IS the truth — is that you have choice in how you do.

FROM THE CIRCLE:

On my nightstand: Always A Sibling by Annie Sklaver Orenstein

On my playlist: Miracle Music great for the nervous system

On my radar: Gina Moffa in Conversation with Barri Leiner Grant featuring her book Moving On Doesn’t Mean Letting Go. NYC at PT Knitwear

On my mind: Free grief relief kit!

x B.

This week in group, I was moved by how many in community could name ways that anxiety seemed to suddenly start running the show as they were experiencing grief — full tilt throttle! Directing, leading and starring center stage. Like Klieg lights on opening night.

While we are learning to live with our loss and looking for some forward movement - looking to the future when we have lost a piece of how we imagined our story was meant to unfold, can upend our sense of security and certainty. Folks used words like untethered, afraid, exhausted, out of control, scared to death…unrecognizable.

Sound familiar?

I recall having a conversation back when with a friend who had also lost her Mom. She is a brilliant therapist and we were talking about a workshop I was hosting. We had a bit of a beef about using the terms “motherless vs. unmothered”.

When my mother Ellen died suddenly, I felt “unhooked” from her. “Unmoored tracks for me,” I told her. “I have a Mom, I am not motherless," I shared. She lives on in me and with me in so many ways. I can say this with now, a few decades of learning and living with this in my rear view mirror — and countless grief trainings now under my belt. I can tell you with certainty, I could not have made heads or tails of this concept when it all went down in ‘93.

Separated from the mothership permanently by the physical lifeline became my truth — but connected to so much that remains in my head, heart and DNA that is her love and how to live a life according to Mom.

I was called a “worry wort” as a kid. “You worry about worrying”, was something I heard a lot. Nobody named this anxiety for me. When the worst happened and my Mom died, I imagined all the bad things I catastrophized could not only come true - but that more could land on my doorstep.

I felt, “anxious grief” - but had no name for it.

We can feel “anxious grief” because we are sent into an unknown and vulnerable future we never imagined for ourselves. Claire Bidwell Smith’s book Anxiety The Missing Stage of Grief was the first place I made the connection, because she made it FOR me! A brilliant teacher, mentor and now cohort of mine, Claire is the first therapist to name symptoms related to loss — from panic attacks to sleep disorders and social phobias and connect them to grief. It was decades after I experienced my own motherloss, that her incredible book landed in my lap. I was using it as as part of my learnings and BOOM!

One of the most debilitating parts of missing my Mom was the life that was continuing to happen as I lived life without her. First it was when I became a mother. I wanted to share the minutia of their every burp, smile and milestone. I went to pick up the phone instinctively only to remember over and over again that she was gone. I always worried I might die. Or worse, they might.

As a writer, I had written lots about my Mom. On her birthdays and death anniversaries, I continued to share her alongside some of my griefy discoveries. How I was living forward and bringing her along — and also missing her like hell. I had called her Grandma Ellen to my girls so I could invoke her wisdom and ways, infusing her into their lives and hearts.

It was not until I read Claire’s book and an account of a young man who was experiencing panic attacks because he had unresolved issues with the father, who had died. Now what? The son now felt as if their outstanding issues could now never be repaired. Somewhere mid-book, Claire offers the idea to this client to write to him.

Each chapter ends with the opportunity to check in on your anxiety level - and to workshop the concepts yourself. It was here that I began to write TO my Mom. It changed me and the trajectory of my healing journey. And quelled heaps of anxiety. While this is no replacement for telling her myself, the idea that I could connect in this way - I believe, cellularly, was and is and has been life altering.

Have you written to your loved one? I ask my clients to do this. Writers and non-writers alike. I invite you to as well. And share it with me, if having a story witness may feel good! Maybe as a form of accountability.

Date the page. Check in with the way you feel before and after. Sometimes this can help to profoundly create what is called a continuing bond. We need to carry our love for them forward. When this love has no landing pad, I believe it comes out sideways. For some, like me, this manifested in anxiety. And we can pay dearly by not naming and acknowledging it.

Can you give yourself permission to do this today?

FEAR IS A NATURAL REACTION TO MOVING CLOSER TO THE TRUTH — Pema Chodron

Leave a comment

Giving name to the grief she felt offered a new way to process — thanks to Dr. Pauline Boss. She is the principal theorist of the concept of ambiguous loss. Her study of this phenomenon describes a loss that remains unclear and has no resolution. Her revolutionary research and the term she coined in the 70s, offers permission to many who experience the lower case (d)eath of a future they imagine— and the countless secondary losses that come along with the dissolution of a marriage. It leads to feelings of confusion, anxiety and in many cases, chronic sorrow. For some, naming this loss, grief inducing, feels like “permission granted”.

When I thought about grief, I always connected it to the loss of a loved one in death. But what about grieving people who are still alive? Grieving the loss of the life you had one minute and didn’t the next? Grieving the loss of yourself? I didn’t even imagine that was a thing, but sadly it is. I know firsthand all about it.

I’m talking about the grief of separation and divorce which sadly is something I have experienced very recently.

If you read some of my previous posts or the book I’m serialising here you can learn more about my story. 

The short version: I had been married for 32 1/2 years when in the autumn of 2022 my husband and I decided on a trial separation. Our marriage had been rather wonderful for most of those years, in just the last couple things had started to decline.

Two weeks after I came back to our house in France, leaving him in Thailand, I found out he was having an affair. 

To say it rocked my world is a vast understatement. It obliterated it. We had been together since we were 19, friends since 15 and we were now 53. I didn’t have even a glimmer of an idea of how to do life without him.

My days had gone from sunny to not just grey, but black.

I didn’t think of it as grief or that I was grieving until my sister said it one day. Then all of a sudden, I realised yes, I am grieving. I’m grieving so many different things.

·       The loss of my best friend

·       The loss of the person who always had my back

·       The loss of someone I hugged every day

·       The loss of the person who took care of car and house maintenance

·       The loss of the person who brought me a cup of tea, made exactly how I like it, every morning without fail

·       The loss of the person who I talked to deeply about so many things

·       The loss of the person who knew me better than anyone else

·       The loss of myself, because if I wasn’t with him, who was I?

·       The loss of all the plans we had for the future

·       The loss of my perfect little family of four

·       The loss of the person who cared for me when I was sick

·       The loss of the person who did all the driving

·       The loss of the one person who I trusted 

I lost my travel partner, business partner, laughing partner, going on picnics partner. I lost everything that was my world. Of course, a few of these losses didn’t happen overnight, but now there was no fixing anything. It was broken beyond repair.

This happened at the very beginning of November and at the start of the new year, a friend of mine lost her husband suddenly to cancer. They thought they’d have longer, but he had a brain haemorrhage and dropped dead right in front of her and died in her arms.

My first thought was lucky you. Then my next thought was OMG how can I even think that?  But that thought didn’t go away. It stuck in my head. It went round and round until I really had to examine it.

Share

I was sad, devastated, hurt, in pain, the same way I would be if he had died. I missed him terribly in every way. Just as if he had died. The Us was gone, no more N*** and Georgia. The difference was that on top of that, I had a broken heart. All the memories of our years together were now tainted with questions. 

There were now sad and painful memories of hateful things we said to each other to add to all the happy memories. He was ignoring me, my emails and my texts. He wouldn’t video chat so we could discuss things. He was ghosting me! His wife of over 30 years!

It would have been so much easier if he had just died. I’d still be devastated and sad, but I’d only have happy memories. Now, I realise that this would not have been easier for my daughters. He wasn’t a bad father, just a shitty husband, and I would never wish for anything that would bring them more pain. 

You see we really had a very good relationship up to the point of his mid-life crisis, which involved a lot of alcohol, cannabis and, being in Thailand, pretty much anything you wanted from the pharmacy. His choice was Valium or Xanax, with whiskey of course. It also involved being at the bar most nights with his friends playing pool or just hanging out. Up until then, we hardly ever argued, we were each other’s best friends, we travelled together and ran businesses together, did most things together, and had lots of exciting plans for the future.

We were the couple who always had it together, the envy of everyone else, the only ones I knew who were still in love with each other after such a long marriage and our marriage had always been so much happier than most of our friends. Along with our two beautiful daughters, we were the perfect family. We had a life full of adventure, living all over the world. After years of hustle, we were finally making it financially and had just bought a second home.

So when it all came crashing down, a tsunami of grief hit me. I’ve been sad before and in pain. I’ve lost my parents, my father, not a great loss (bad man) and my mother actually still alive, but dead to me, that’s a whole other story! But this. Nothing had brought me to my knees like this. To know there is someone out there who was everything to you and who now chooses to live life without you is very hard to accept.

In the first few weeks, my whole body ached. Like I would imagine you’d feel if you had been beaten up. I hardly ate anything. The few bits of food I managed to force down my throat felt like swallowing bricks. I didn’t sleep. And I cried, oh how I cried. Crying like I’ve never experienced before. It was as if my soul itself was in pain. 

So yes, for me death would have been so much easier to deal with than rejection. I have to live the rest of my life knowing that for a long time, I had been lied to, that he did nothing after I found out to try and save our marriage, that he never fought for me, that one day he just decided he didn’t want me anymore.

If he’d died, I’d only remember the good times. There were a lot of them.

I’m still grieving and not many ‘get’ it, not many understand. The day my divorce was final it just happened to be a Friday, and on most Fridays, I meet up with friends at a local bar in my village or the next one and we sit and chat. 

I told them that I’d got the paperwork through from the lawyers that morning to say it was all final and most of them said congratulations, like I’d won a prize or accomplished something. They kept saying I should celebrate, and I said, “I’ve never felt less like celebrating”. 

I’d made a mistake in getting a lift with my friends or I would have left. I just wanted to curl up in bed and cry. A song came on, I can’t remember what it was now, but it was one of our favourites and I started crying. One friend held me and whispered in my ear, “I know, I know, I’m so so sorry this happened to you. I’m so sorry.” That’s all I needed, to feel understood. I love all my friends, but that night, just one of them understood. But it helped, it was enough.

Grief has changed me. It’s made me care for myself more, my mental, emotional, spiritual and physical well-being. I prioritise them all now. It’s made me feel invincible in that I’ve survived what I thought would be impossible so I can do anything now. Nothing can touch me. This has been good and bad. I sometimes have a ‘whatever, I don’t care’ attitude to things that I should be more careful about like boundaries when dating.

But one of the more surprising things is that I don’t really worry about anything anymore. I don’t worry about finances, even though for the first time in my adult life I have no backup. I don’t worry about anything. I just accept. Because nothing can be as bad as losing him and nothing will ever feel as bad as my heart breaking.

My purpose in writing this is twofold. First, if you are in a situation like mine, I want you to know you are not alone. There’s a reason why if you google the biggest stresses in life divorce is number 2, with the death of a loved one being number 1.

Secondly, if you are a friend of someone going through this or know someone who is, please be kind and understand that you don’t just ‘move on’ and ‘get over it’. You don’t just ‘find another man’. You wouldn’t say that to someone whose spouse had died, would you?! Understand that they are grieving, even though they may seem like they have their life together after a year or two, believe me, the grief still hits, and some days it hits harder than others.

When Barri and I were talking about guest posting on each other’s publications she sent me the definition of ambiguous grief which was a term I hadn’t heard before, but it explained very well how I felt. It’s a wonderful comfort to know there’s an actual term for the feelings you have. That they’re not just in your head, and it’s not just you feeling them.

“Ambiguous loss is a person’s profound sense of loss and sadness that is not associated with the death of a loved one. It can be a loss of emotional connection when a person’s physical presence remains, or when that emotional connection remains but a physical connection is lost. Often, there isn’t a sense of closure.” - Mayo Clinic Health System

I would also like to add a disclaimer here. I’m not talking about or have any experience of the end of an abusive marriage. I’m sure in that case the feelings would be very different. This is just my experience and how I feel as a nonprofessional about the end of what was a long and mostly beautiful marriage. 

Leave a comment

Once upon the very shittiest of times, I lost my mother Ellen at 27. It was at that very moment — I became untethered from my most secure attachment I’d ever known. The one that had held and nurtured me into a world where her presence equated my safety. And also offered a penchant for fashion and bargain hunting. That may indeed be part of my DNA and personal Disney tale. But, back to the story….

On the day she was gone, without warning…POOF, I was suddenly an adult. With her wise council and life lessons all tucked in tight, sure. But there I was, way past “18” when it all became somehow official, but never real, till then. I was now in uncharted territory. Swimming without “back up” and minus the unconditional love and soft landing of her rarified safety net. One I had come to know and count on so dearly.

Cut to, this morning. I heard Steve Leder share this idea on Kate Bowler’s Everything Happens podcast. He tells Kate, he became an adult at 58. RECORD SCRATCH. He shares, that it was not until his own father died, that he too said he felt this.

REWIND! I listen again.

Oh, how I suddenly was seen in my private understanding of this, what I have come to call, “Changing of The Guard”. I have offered this idea to many a griever in my lifetime. Sometimes I jot it in a condolence card. Recently, I shared this idea with a woman who lost a mother at ninety-nine-and-a-half. This. This, is all she has ever known. A life with a parent in it. The world is giving her messages of a life well-lived and long. But to me…she is suddenly the little girl who lost her mother. She, is suddenly an adult for the very first time. Yes, even Steve says so!

I have collected what I call, “Lessons From Leder” over time. He does not know this, though I once interviewed him about his book The Beauty of What Remains. I keep his wise words and counsel close. I keep his quotes in my notes app. The pod episode was no different. He says out loud what some of us regular folk, only chew on alone.

Share

He said, “If you have to go through hell, do not come out empty handed. It is the best we can do.” I think I have done this by opening a door to some of these same realizations and conversations as I have processed them over time. I am no Rabbi or Leder. Not even close. But of course 27 year old me, could never have known what 58 year old me does now. And still.

The intimacy born of decline…that is what Rabbi Leder shared about the end of his father’s life with Alzheimer’s. He sat with him in silence when he could no longer speak. Learning a new language. The language of touch. He tells all of this to Kate Bowler. It is a master class in grief and loss.

Sometimes I think the more vulnerable and honest we are about what we learn along the way, may just help the next soul have an easier journey. I think that is what he means about not coming out empty handed. Don’t you?

We each and every one of us has an apprenticeship with grief when it finds us. We live with it. We learn with it. We grow with it and we hurt like hell with it. Then we share some truths. It is the same sort of wisdom exchange that I find in grief support group. Wise counsel in the listening and learning from someone who has grief a little further out in their review mirror. Those who put words to feelings and notions we have only dared keep in a journal or on loop in our mind’s eye.

I am so grateful for feeling like this wild and shameful notion of mine is now on the “Leder” board. The unspoken changing of the guard in becoming an adult upon parent loss, at any age — is just the damn truth.

PS. Tonight there is a Blue Moon…a big, fat FULL one. So wherever you are tonight, I will be looking up at the same bright sky knowing you are out there and that we are all in this thing together.

- Viktor Frankl

Yes, loss happened to us. We did not ask for this life turning, life altering and all-around shitty event to be bestowed upon us. The reality is though, that it has come and changed the trajectory of our future as we knew it. The “rest of your life” movie, rescripted.

This has left us wobbly, uncertain and on many days, scared. For some who experience a loss, it shows up and shows us that “bad things can happen” in a life that once felt perfectly and mostly rosy. Once we have this in our purview, it can create anxious feelings around what may happen next. Perhaps we begin catastrophize the what-ifs and could-happen-nexts.

Barri, I can hear you asking, what the heck does this mean as it relates to a life with grief.

This defining line in the proverbial sands of time - instantaneously changes our days into the before and after. We have this defining moment of reality set in. My friend, author and NY-based, grief and trauma therapist, Gina Moffa, coined this phenomenon, Griefall. In her book, Moving On Doesn't Mean Letting Go. She has gifted us a name for this unspoken but unforgettable line in the sand of life’s trajectory. But, how we respond to this moment, through dedicated grief tending practices, is exactly how we learn and grow forward.

Subscribe now

If you have been with me in The Memory Circle, you know I call b@llshit on bright-siding any and all parts of grieving. And yes, I LOVE bad words - and the good juicy science that goes with using them to process feelings and emotions! Add a good F-bomb to the end of a sentence or statement when you are really trying to prove a point, or feel incredibly frustrated and tell me I am wrong. It f&c$ing helps! But I digress.

I am not asking you to accept this loss and move on merrily, or stuff it down as if nothing happened - no, no, never. I am simply reminding you, from the other side of the sandbar - you do have a CHOICE in how this next part plays out.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last the human freedoms - to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” - Viktor Frankl

From group support to therapeutic journaling, there are vast and many modalities in the messy middle, we can lean into when we are untangling the web of learning to live with loss. The first step is to craft a plan. This week I asked a client, what feels good lately? Yoga, walks, connecting with friends, massage, canasta… Can you do more of that? In her search for trying to do grief right - she gave herself permission in the moment, to do more of what feels good for right now.

It reminded me of the positive psychology model and study of Martin Seligman. Less about determining and leaning into the “what is wrong with you” — and more about leaning into daily well-being. (This model has been coined PERMA. (Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and Accomplishments Read more here). In our coaching time together, I will often borrow some of this theory into our conversations and activities.

A few for you:

Look for Delights! (the more you note them, the more you see them!) I borrowed this prompt from Ross Gay, who wrote an essay a day for 100 days on delight. The Book of Delights is a favorite of mine.

List Your Daily Non-Negotiables: From making the bed to showering - give this a try and see where it takes you. Sometimes it shows us what we are actually accomplishing when we feel otherwise.

Mood Boosters: What feels good right now? What things in the “before” felt good? Can I add them to my list of non-negotiable?

Favorite Distractions: My client plays canasta. This is not forgetting her loss, it is giving her a break from it. We need this! What are yours?

Feel Good Places & Spaces (real and virtual): Can you go there? Sitting on a bench in the park and feeding the birds, the frozen yogurt spot with unlimited toppings, a mindful playlist or guided meditation.

People to Reach Out To: Do you have folks that respond when you need an ear or a favor? How about a group of grief supporters? Sometimes we have them in our circle and sometimes we need to find one.

No one or right way is going to help you move forward as you learn to live with loss. What IS the truth — is that you have choice in how you do.

Share the memory circle

FROM THE CIRCLE:

On my nightstand: Not for Nothing by Kathy Curto: glimpses into a jersey girlhood

On my playlist: Analysis by Emma Jayne.

On my radar: Get Griefy Magazine

On my mind: Living With Loss grief support groups.

x B.

Share

I have been now been holding a LWL widows support group for a year. I have grown to know of the very particular language and understanding they speak amongst themselves. I appreciate their wisdom, humor and better understand this deep and particular sorrow from a new perspective. As the sister of a widow, a sister who has shared mother loss alongside me, it has helped me to know her grief as a widow better, too.

I admire how they lift one another and see each other so clearly. How very alike they are amidst their different marriages, ages and stages in life and familial relationships. I have seen glimmers of this in other grievers, but this group especially.

In an early session, I suggested picking someone in group, if you did not already have one, as your “I've landed” person. Letting someone know, who understands, that you are heading out and home safely. There is so much grief support that supposes that you actually have a “friend group” to lean on — let alone a friend group who understands. Each has lost their emergency contact and while this is no replacement, it is a new system they have put in place. So many in my groups need to put many new systems in place—and this is one my widows wanted. They also want a “new name” for widowhood. Most don’t care to use the moniker at all and think it makes them sound older, weak, sad…and overall, think we can do better or do without it.

Two of the women have had a child marry and planned weddings without their beloveds. Each figured out how to honor and remember their spouse, in their own way. One woman, we will call her Sue, said she did not want any “slanted heads and low level pity talk” on the big day, so she was going to send an email missive before the event so all were clear on how Dad would be remembered.

Another walked her daughter down the aisle and had a “mother-daughter” dance. One of the group has a wedding and wedded in-laws in her future and is taking notes! She is sharing how she is navigating the early stage planning and because of group, now has her own team of specialized “widowed wedding planners” in supporting her.

No topic is off limits. From sex and dating to still having all of his clothes in the closet years in and everything in between is shared. This week I posed a question in our session… “What do you wish people knew about your grief”? I always wondered what it would be like if we wore grief on our sleeve—literally. Imagine it emblazoned on t-shirts like concert souvenirs? What then, if there world could actually see on the outside, what we may be healing and dealing with on the inside? Would we, could we, meet one another with greater civility and humanity? I sometimes see a driver acting up in traffic or quick on the horn. Perhaps it is just a jerky driver, but I often think — what happened to you? Is grief on board? What does their shirt say?

Here are some of the astute answers, reflections and what my group this week, wants the world to know:

1. I want to be invited, but I may not come. Don’t count me out because I am no longer a couple. Let me decide. And if my single status makes you uncomfortable, well, that is your problem.

2. Say his name! I still want to talk about “Dave”. I want to tell you stories and I want to hear the ones you remember about him. Saying his name does not make me more sad, not saying his name does.

3. When you try to change a service, let’s say the cable offerings, or any bill for that matter, they will ask for the person named on the bill. Even if you say they are dead at the very beginning of said call. If your dead spouse is the named entity, they will ask for proof that he is dead. They need a death certificate. The business of tending to a death, is wildly difficult, expensive and confounding. Folks of the end of these calls are NOT grief informed and should be!

4. The micro-griefs of the above, add up to…keeping your cable as it is for two years until you go to change the name on the account in person, with death certificate in hand and they say they don’t need it. You intend to write to said cable company and ask if they know how much this policy hurts.

5. You need dozens of death certificates.

6. You may cry at the car dealer - and that is more than ok. Know that it doesn't not mean you are unhinged. This is just more a “him” job than a “me” job and it sucks that I need to do this alone.

7. I may want to be fixed up. I may not want to be fixed up. Please don’t ask me about it in the first year.

8. How he died is a lot less interesting or important than how he lived. But, I want to talk about both. Know that it is always more about how you ask… Are you drilling me with questions, fodder for gossip — or are you truly here to care?

9. If “I can’t imagine, or I don’t know what I would do…” is the start of your sentence. Please refrain.

10. Know that I do many household jobs and carry the responsibilities alone that were once handled by two. Be patient me with. Be impressed. We built this “life” as a team - it is a two person gig, now being covered by one.

11. I may or may not want help. I don’t know exactly what I need. Keep asking, and make a specific offer.

12. I have not only lost my husband, but I have lost so much that he stood for - values, income, physical strength, hobbies, my hang-out friend, support system, laugh partner…

13. Part of me also died with my husband. I am learning who I am without him.

14. I am the keeper of our memories. Some things about me, only he knew.

15. It is hard as hell. I am getting used to doing hard well. And I don’t always want to…

16. There are so many secondary losses as a widow. Ones you cannot imagine. Ones I wish you understood, but know you can’t without being a widow.

17. I have lost my emergency contact.

18. The world is largely grief illiterate.

And most of all, the person who would be getting them through all of the hardest parts of this grief, is the very guy they are each grieving. Please feel free to add yours to the list in comments. This is a moving and living and breathing entity. I hope you will pass this on far and wide.

Leave a comment

I always say groups are a wisdom exchange and have never believed that to be more true than in the hearts and shared sage advice of these incredible women.

x, B

I suppose it’s important to caveat that no matter what age you are really, you do grow with grief. As you get older, the grief gets older with you too (I’m not buying it a fucking cake though, that’s really taking the biscuit). However, there is a further layer of isolation I have found in my own experience being younger and bereaved and that of my community and what they have shared with me. For some context…

My mum, Sue, died in 2016 when I was just 1 month into being 19. For years after her death, I dismissed the age I was when she died. I told myself that if I was 25, 30, 45 and so forth that it would suck. That is true. But I wasn’t allowing myself to sit with the true depth of what it meant to lose a parent whilst still in your teens. That sentence alone still breaks my heart, having ‘teen’ and ‘lose a parent’ in the same breath is just mind boggling.

Share

I disregarded that I was in fact still a child, though I definitely didn’t think I was. I thought I had it all figured out, as most bold teenagers do. I knew the career path I wanted to go down, where I wanted to travel and who I wanted to spend my free time with. For a 19 year old, my life was going pretty well and I was swell about it. When my mum died, I remember thinking ‘Well something had to give, life can’t be that good for any one individual without the other shoe dropping’. And if I’m honest, I think I still live with that fear sometimes, that when life gets good I feel the cold hand of doom looming over my shoulder, coming to bring me back to reality.

My mum dying when I was 19 was like watching the biggest pillar of my life be smashed to bits and there was sweet fuck all I could do about it but try to piece together the debris from it and form a new patchwork life. All the things I had figured out and were set in stone all went to goop and I was now gifted with seeing the world for what it can truly offer: pain, hardship, loss and grief.

So what is a 19 year old to do when her sole care giver dies and it’s replacement is this beast called grief. Well, I can tell you what I did…I buried it deep for 3 years because no one gave me a blueprint on how to navigate grief in your late teens and early twenties. I was desperate to be normal, to not be the girl who’s mum died and could still be fun and have it too. I once had the guidance from a mother who instilled ‘you can be anything you want to be if you put your mind to it’ to having to be my own cheerleader. Yes, I had support from friends and family, but no one can put you back on course like your mum can, right?

My 20’s have consisted of mothering myself. That’s hard to write. Of being my own biggest cheerleader, confidante, compass. With that being said though, I’m proud of that. That’s partly down to my own work and of course what my mother embedded in me. Though she’s not here, she is deeply ingrained in me and my morals.

It is tiring though, and for anyone reading this, you’ll perhaps understand. That though these people might have given us the toolkit, it is so exhausting sometimes executing it. The days when life is just hard, whatever it may be, the longing to just go to mums and have a cuppa and put it all down for a second is harsh. The realisation that my metaphorical ‘safety’ net no longer exists and I have to catch myself, always.

A recent group circle attendee shared this with me and it’s stuck with me ever since. She too lives a similar experience to me. It went along the lines of:

“I knew my mum would die one day, of course, I just didn’t expect it would be now with me being this age. I guess I’m just meeting that version of me sooner than others”

Meeting that version of me sooner. wow. I thought that was really powerful. We will all lose loved ones, just some of us are there sooner than others. That’s not to diminish and say ‘You’re a winner, you got here first!’. But that for some of us in our stories, the plot thickens extremely faster than others.

Now, upon reflection from all of the above, I’ve maybe got some things to say that dare I say, am relatively grateful for. Maybe grateful is too strong of a word for it, because I’m not grateful my mum died. But as years progress, I can appreciate some of the gifts grief has taught me at such a young age. Hold the toxic positivity, this isn’t what this is. Though growing up with grief has been challenging, it has formed me into a version of myself I didn’t even know I could access. I like, no, I love the Amber today. She’s been through some shit, but she tries everyday to not let it harden her. Opting into life after loss is a choice, and I try to choose it everyday where I can. Some days are harder than others, but she tries.

Living with grief from a young age has taken from me but also given a perspective that is paramount to how I live my life. I’ve met people who haven’t experienced grief and death until they reach well into their 50’s (That’s a good gene pool) and before I used to really envy them and for real, curse them. Now, I wouldn’t say I pity them, but there is a genuine worry. I think, to (gratefully) go through life for such a long time without being touched by the hand of death is such a gift, but I also then think…’damn, it’s going to come like a tonne of bricks when it does, how will they cope?!’. I suppose they’ll have to tune into The Grief Gang pod like the rest of us ey?!

I often, as of late, think about a parallel universe where 19 year old Amber’s mum didn’t die. What would she be doing? What would she be like? What would her outlook on life be? Who knows. I try not to speculate too much, because to me, what’s the point?

This is my life, my story, my grief…and I’m just trying to make the most of it whilst I’ve still got time.

PS. You can connect with Amber and The Grief Gang here. Warmest thanks for sharing your story. If you might like to guest post, reach on out. 🤍

Yes, loss happened to us. We did not ask for this life turning, life altering and all-around shitty event to be bestowed upon us. The reality is though, that it has come and changed the trajectory of our future as we knew it. The “rest of our life” movie, rescripted. This has left us wobbly, uncertain and on many days, scared. For some who experience a loss, it shows up and shows us that “bad things can happen.” Once we have this in our purview, it can create anxious feelings around what may happen next.

Barri, I can hear you asking, what the heck does this mean as it relates to a life with grief.

This defining line in the proverbial sands of time - instantaneously changes our days into the before and after. We have this defining moment of reality set in. My friend, author and NY-based, grief and trauma therapist, Gina Moffa, coined this phenomenon, Griefall. In her book, Moving On Doesn't Mean Letting Go. she has gifted us a name for this unspoken but unforgettable line in life’s trajectory. But, how we respond to this moment, through dedicated grief tending practices, is exactly how we grow forward.

Subscribe now

If you have been with me in The Memory Circle, you know I call bullshit on bright-siding any and all parts of grieving. And yes, I love bad words - and the good juicy science that goes with using them to process feelings and emotions! Add a good F-bomb to the end of a sentence or statement when you are really trying to prove a point, or feel incredibly frustrated and tell me I am wrong. It helps! But I digress.

I am not asking you to accept this loss and move on merrily, or stuff it down as if nothing happened - no, no, never. I am simply reminding you, from the other side of the sandbar - you have a CHOICE in how this next part plays out.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last the human freedoms - to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” - Viktor Frankl

From group support to therapeutic journaling, there are vast and many modalities in the middle, we can lean into when we are untangling the tangles of learning to live with loss. The first step is to craft a plan. This week I asked a client, what feels good lately? Yoga, walks, connecting with friends, massage, canasta… Can you do more of that? In her search for trying to do grief right - she gave herself permission in the moment, to do more of what feels good for right now.

It reminded me of the positive psychology model and study of Martin Seligman. Less about determining and leaning into the “what is wrong with you” — and more about leaning into daily well-being. (This model has been coined PERMA. (Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and Accomplishments Read more here). In our coaching time together, I will often borrow some of this theory into our conversations and activities.

A few for you:

Look for Delights! (the more you note them, the more you see them!) I borrowed this prompt from Ross Gay, who wrote an essay a day for 100 days on delight. The Book of Delights is a favorite of mine.

List Your Daily Non-Negotiables: From making the bed to showering - give this a try and see where it takes you. Sometimes it shows us what we are actually accomplishing when we feel otherwise.

Mood Boosters: What feels good right now? What things in the “before” felt good? Can I add them to my list of non-negotiable?

Favorite Distractions: My client plays canasta. This is not forgetting her loss, it is giving her a break from it. We need this! What are yours?

Feel Good Places & Spaces (real and virtual): Can you go there? Sitting on a bench in the park and feeding the birds, the frozen yogurt spot with unlimited toppings, a mindful playlist or guided meditation.

People to Reach Out To: Do you have folks that respond when you need an ear or a favor? How about a group of grief supporters? Sometimes we have them in our circle and sometimes we need to find our circle.

I would love to hear your feedback and thoughts. No one or right way is going to help us move forward and learn to live with loss. What IS the truth — is that you have choice in how you do.

Share the memory circle

FROM THE CIRCLE:

On my nightstand: Louder Than Hunger by John Schu

On my playlist: I Wished On The Moon by Joy Oladokun

On my radar: Claire Bidwell Smith’s book signin featuring talk with Marisa Renee Lee on Conscious Grieving, NYC 3/28 at PT Knitwear

On my mind: Living With Loss grief support groups.

x B.

Amy began to write at the suggestion of her therapist. You can follow that Substack, At The Bottom of Everything, here. Her account of fresh grief is so stunningly real and raw, because she was in fact writing from the red hot center of her pain. She took entries from her ‘Stack’ and stripped them down to the unornamented truth . What is left, is this petite memoir? A non-linear riff like no other.

The economy of words leaves you with no place to look away, or space for soft landing. You are in the trenches with her as she writhes in discomfort in a future she never intended to be staring into. Her own reckoning with the here after. I asked if the title refers to the before and after of the date he died? We all have one. It quakes beneath our grounding, like an equator that is dropped into the trajectory of a life well-imagined. Believe me, it is stunningly healing.

In the very same space, later in the week, I joined my dear friend and Spiritual Medium, Cindy Luffred. Have you connected with loved ones from across the veil as a grief tending tool? Both of us believe we are, each and every one of us, born intuitive. Some of us honed the skill and others may have been told it was make believe or silly. Ever notice kids and dogs seeming to communicate with something that appears not to be there? Yup, that is it. If you are a believer, her Slightly Spiritual pod is a must listen. I am excited to tape an episode with Cindy and Ali this week.

Cindy channeled messages from loved ones. We used some writing techniques to help drop into connecting with guidance. How comforted guests felt by tapping into these meaningful exchanges.

One prompt shared with the group that I like to use in making connection with my spirit team (my Mom Ellen at the helm!) is:

“What would you have me know.”

Want to connect this way?

1. Get paper and pen.

2. Find quiet and safe space.

3. Honor this time as sacred.

4. Light a candle.

5. Mediate on your breath.

6. Close your eyes and invite in your guides.

7. In this quiet, prayerful moment - ask for guidance.

Whether it is relationship or work advice, or just the connectivity of this new way in which to bond - simply glide your hand across the page and listen for what comes through.

Dan Harris, former TV journalist turned 10% Happier, talked this week about micro-interactions. Every day we hold the door, order coffee, admire a neighbors dog, thank the post office attendant and any number of the many micro-interactions daily. Dan shared the good juicy science around these daily exchanges. Data shows, they have a HUGE interaction on the quality of our lives. From a dopamine hit to a reduction in anxiety - these tiny moments are massively life-enhancing. BOOM!

Sure, sure, we already do this. But, do we savor them with intentionality? Let’s all make an effort to make this micro moments macro. Suddenly you notice the barista’s eye color, the neighbors lovely smile and white teeth.

New LIVING WITH LOSS virtual grief support groups are now open. Nobody should grieve alone. We need and deserve to be witnessed in grief - click here for details.

“Grief shared is grief abated. “ -Elizabeth Kubler Ross

Come sit with us. x, B.

PS. Sign up for my newsletter to know about all upcoming events & gatherings.

Share the memory circle

As a summer camper who retreated to the old pines of the White Mountains in New Hampshire, the same camp my mother attended before me, I know those trees and roots hold wisdom, healing and memories.

Share

We used to sing the very same songs at Camp Wicosuta, that my mom and her camp friends and counselors sang before us. One was an ode to The Old Pine. A 100 plus year old tree near the gathering space for campfires. When I was reading about the area near the retreat center, where I will co-facilitate next week, I marveled at the story of a local “tree-ring specialist” who found that a 249-foot-tall beauty in the area is 777 years old. Oh, the stories it could tell us. The celebrations witnessed, many visitors past, weather trials and growth it has known over time. And there it stands. New for some. Old for many.

I think about who walked before us. Who will walk the path we forge. The deep roots that hold us steady and life events that blow their mighty winds, taking us entirely off course in a trajectory we could never have imagined.

As a little girl, I used to search the corners of the barn, boat house, arts and crafts cabin and summer bunks searching for my Mom’s name emblazoned in marker. Equal parts star camper and badass - always. “Ellen Jane” or “Ellen was here ‘52” I thought of her picking blueberries on the path to the lake as I did. Or getting up on waterskis. I love being part of the tradition we shared. Without her now 30 years, it reminds me of memories shared together and apart.

There is nothing I can put in my suitcase that will magically help those who are showing up for the healing space of a grief retreat. Sure, I pack the tools of my trainings that I will share. But more, a heart that knows the many rings of time. If you opened my preverbal trunk, you could note and date so much Mom knew and taught me. You would see many signed in a way the “after” rings can’t know or show.

RETREAT:

The act or process of withdrawing especially from what is difficult, dangerous, or disagreeable.

A place of privacy or safety: refuge.

A period of group withdrawal for meditation, study or instruction under a director.

To withdraw. Slope backwards.

To be in community, a forest of deep understanding is a Circle I never knew after she died. To bear witness and help foster a knowing for grief and its largess is awe inspiring. Not only as someone who holds space, but by the group that chooses to gather and the beautiful wisdom exchange that unfolds when they show up.

Whether or not you have time to “retreat” for days among a forest of those who understand the roots of pain and heartache of healing - far or near to home - it is needed. To be seen and heard and witnessed in grief of every and any incarnation is essential. Put it on the packing list of tools for your survival kit.

Being part of this Conscious Grieving support team is sacred. Bringing Mom along, holy. May everyone who attends Sad Camp (as one retreater dubbed it last time we gathered) weed and water and tend to their grief in a meaningful and memorable way forward.

1. My mother would be really good and pissed.

2. I would forever be known as the sad girl.

Oh, the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of grief and the great unknown of a future forever altered. I once said this aloud to a trusted friend, who said, “Of course it does.” Permission granted!

While I knew somewhere deeply, that it was very much not the truth, I felt very much like the only girl in the whole, wide, world who had lost her mother when I did. If I dared to bring up her name and talk about losing her suddenly at 50 of a brain aneurysm, not everyone was ready to hold space. I was deeply cognizant of the change in “cabin pressure” that my dead mother talk brought to the oxygen in any room.

Share

Early in grief, I learned to speak of her in hushed tones. I wondered if the feelings inside would ever subside. Passing folks on the way to work, I had a newfound awareness. A young woman breezed by me in Grand Central Station and I wondered, did her Mom die too? Watching commuters dash to their trains and scoop up tickets to destinations here and there, I longed to stand at the top of the marble staircase and scream at the top of my lungs - “Where are you all going, don’t you know my f&%cking mother died”.

I long for a world, where we all have our unique loss or ailment splashed bravely across our chests like concert tees. I would know exactly what you were carrying on any given day, the date of the inciting incident and perhaps we could meet one another with deep understanding, empathy and grace. I would buy a ticket to where you were going and we could sit shoulder to shoulder and talk mother loss or menopause, divorce, miscarriage — or whatever our tees helped to download about being in the same silent-ish club.

Maybe my loss is farther flung in the review mirror of my life - and I can tell you about the curves up ahead. Stops that are worth it. Things I learned the hard way and what I wish I had known. Each time I meet a motherless daughter, and it happens like I am wearing some sort of magical magnet on my heart, I feel it my duty to make her path less bumpy and curvy in sharing my truth. We speak the same shorthand in so very many ways, even if we are indeed strangers. Oh, we are so much more alike than we are different. Someone I shared with years ago said, “You are a hope dealer”. Just further down the path — but, I will take it!

I have felt a little voice in my head for years post loss. Like the tiny hatchling in the 1960s childhood favorite by P.D. Eastman, “Are You My Mother”, wondering and wandering around searching for the nurturance and remothering I never learned to let it. Perhaps it felt shameful to have questions and curiosities. Maybe a betrayal to my Mom and our relationship - old and continued?

Today, if I were waving a flag of the most urgent understanding three decades later, it would be this…don’t go it alone. We are not only born for connection, but grief shared is grief abated. Ask for help. Lean into the grief and the rollercoaster that all the unruly and curious emotions may bring. Allow for the remothering you SO deserve. Hold the joy and the sorrow — all of it is the truth of healing.

Find a support group, or just that one motherless daughter who can pour a little hope on top.

I’m always down to be your dealer.

Leave a comment

But, damn, if it isn’t lonely. I have beef with the pride we bestow upon one another for being resilient in the face of grief. I want to call bullshit on it as an “always useful default” for coping. It can be good, of course — and prove to be a painful mask for processing the grief and shame (and whatever else you tuck under the hood while you dead lift life above your head, with a million tons of resiliency on the bar). But, I digress.

Sharing some of my life queries and curiosities openly with other women, took me a while. I can see now that it came about when I kept meeting other motherless daughters in quiet corners of my life and realized we had so much in common. Putting my curious toe in the water of sharing, this phenomenon came up again and again. It felt downright immature in many ways. In our loss, perhaps this was the fall out of some arrested development? It is hard to know or see clearly when in the midst. It felt embarrassing and naked for me.

It showed up again when I miscarried, three times, along with the heartache and grief associated with my infertility. Then the dissolution of a 17 year marriage, divorced and dating for the first time at 40, HRT and menopause, empty nesting. These are the life changes, tumult and sage advice Mom had shared with me and my sister before she died suddenly at just 50. So much needed still, and left unanswered. I played “what would Ellen do”, and I also leaned on my best fiend.

Losing this best friend of 40 plus years, who was very much the kind of friend you need and depend on in a whole other and different way in motherloss, is a double-doozy. When she has known your Mom and shows up to share in some or most of the above since 1988 — there is ironically, and suddenly, nobody to talk to about it. It’s been six or seven-ish years now. (Grief math, not my strong suit). Resiliency soon became an island of isolation and silent suffering.

Back to the break up. I needed some paperwork for a Co-op board when we were buying a studio in the city. As I dug in, I realized the bank account had less than I knew, and our decade old, bestie-owned business needed a financial come to Jesus. Money talk is never comfy, but there it was. It was certainly spent on merchandise and business back stock - this was not embezzlement or something torrid, nor did we share a million dollar enterprise. I sent an email and asked for a call. It never came. Never.

I will keep the details of the particulars private. But a ping pong of emails and voicemails into a void, became our ending. We met on first fashion jobs. Our kids called us “Aunt” and still feel like cousins. It was and is and remains, awful. This is not to air dirty laundry. I read between the lines that something in my “new marriage” and our now living states apart had resulted in her not feeling a part of my life any longer. A part of the story I was not privy to, until “the break up”.

I never heard her voice again. What I have heard, are very similar stories from a handful of fantastic women you may all wish to have as friends, too. I thought on the heels of motherloss, that this may have felt different for me. This was the one person that knew my deepest truth. When I was exploring the idea of dating, she said - “I would marry you.” Our lives were intrinsically woven with gorgeous braids of hurts and wins and work creations that glittered with unimaginable beauty. The “me too” I have heard from other women as well as clients that are showing up for grief support with me, over friend loss, has me opening my own door. Again. I refuse to embrace the suck of this loss. I am making space and time to grieve the future I imagined with one another. We were going to be old ladies together. There are few who know the kind of history and kind of connection we shared outside of my own sister.

I don’t get to have the kind of closure I might have hope for or needed. A eulogy. A funeral. Sitting Shiva. I had only one wish when besties became partners—that our work never get in the way of friendship. Dad warned me this was never a good idea. He is the only sibling that did not join his family business. Again, this or money or a hundred other things may or may not be the reason, but I don’t really get to know. Some have said, it is none of my business.

I wonder often, if it may have come to this in or out of work life. Do we divorce friends too? One day we wake up and wiggle out of the familiarity that used to fit us so well? She was my cozy-cardigans-and-old-overalls-best-travel-pal-and-made-well-done-French-Fries-taste-like-the-best-meal-on-earth-girl. And, oh so very much more. Shit, we even started to look alike.

I often think I see her from afar now that I am back in town. Have the same urge to give her a buzz when I see something that I want to share, and my muscle memory reminds me that she is no longer on the other end. A new mourning has dawned.

I mean, nobody can go this journey alone-nor should they even try! I for one, am beyond grateful we found one another. As one client said of this season of holidays à la grief …it is the “most” time of the year. Which of course will mean different things to different people - but I for one, feel that “most” in my very bones.

Thanksgiving was my Mom’s favorite holiday. Much less for the turkey from Hink’s farm or the tiny pigs in a blanket that were a sure thing— but, mostly because it was that once a year where we were all together. It was a long standing family tradition that wherever you were in the world, my extended family made their way to my Aunt Trudy’s house (and my Grandma’s house before her). It was a come-hell-or-high-water and I-don’t-care-what-your-in-laws-do, call home.

This year, like many since she has been gone — looks different. That’s where you come in. I am so very grateful for you, your friendship and readership. Support comes in all ways—and I consider this circle of support, right here on the page, a way for us to connect and be there for one another. Your messages mean the world to me. I read and respond to every last one! Giving major thanks for you and hope you feel it.

The holidays can be a mixed bag when you are feeling grief-y or need relief from the downright buzz of being overwhelmed. I want to be there with you — even if that is sharing a zoom room. My wish has always been to create community with you and for you - and I hope you find this a tender space to land.

Subscribe now

I am excited to share a wonderful workshop planned with my amazingly gifted friend and colleague Kelsey Sawyer, MA, BC-DMT of Riverbend Grief and Movement. We will gather for a virtual healing and feeling few hours where you can lean into release. Come as you are — cozy clothes, something to sip on and write with…a yoga mat, or the rug and a quiet space.

Our prompt-led, rest focused write and release workshop will utilize guided movement, meditation, inspired readings and free write techniques that can ease anxiety and overwhelm and move what may not be serving you, this time of year. A dedicated place and space to put down what you may be carrying— a mini, getaway from it all. You can REGISTER HERE.

Invite this practice and a few tools in, as we navigate new ways and days ahead. So much can show up in mind and body that we don’t address in all of the busy. I hope this will help.

Wishing you a peaceful holiday-meeting it however it feels best to you. Sometimes it will require a little self-imposed break. I am offering up the idea of taking a walk during your day.

Enjoy a nature break from wherever you are gathering.

Feeling the leaves or street beneath your feet.

The sun on your face. At your back.

Grounding in the here and now.

Notice the sounds around you.

And then, notice what delights you.

Perhaps jot down a few.

Share them with me!

I hope to be with you on December 4 — creating a circle of support and ease. Come as you are and sit with us for a while. Ahhhhh, that sure sounds nice.

Lots of love-

x, B

PS. We never want finances to stand in the way of support, so please send along a message and we will get you there.

I’ve got a question.

Perhaps a little writing prompt.

Who in your circle are the illuminators and who are the diminishers?

This week in my grief support groups, we explored this concept as shared with me on an episode of Everything Happens with Kate Bowler. On the podcast, she is in conversation with David Brooks discussing, how we might get better at really knowing people. (Cue the empathy!) While it is not solely a grief talk, this idea of illuminators, struck a chord with me.

In the practice of grief tending, attuning to the “you” we meet in the depths of loss and grief, can be some of the heaviest lifting in the healing. In the throws of loss, we can also find folks we depended on, disappointing in the way they show up or show out. Perhaps you have lost a few you thought you could count on? I know this can feel like a reckoning on a reckoning.

As you meet and become acquainted with this “new” or “after” you—it is a tender and profound practice to find those that can meet you just as you are. As Mr. Rogers said, “look for the helpers”. As Books suggests, look for the illuminators (and name the diminishers). Do you need to reset the dial on certain friendships? Find true north on life’s compass?

Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way, calls these folks “believing mirrors”. As you look around you, can you find the ones that “get it”. That lift you up? Help you shine. Reflect back a you, you love?

It can be hard to ask for or even know what support looks like in grief. Perhaps it is a grief group. I love group for the wisdom exchange of illumination that unfurls. Beacons and lanterns in the dark that help you shine. There is such deep understanding and empathy in group. Beyond the halls and walls of this type of support, can you amass a “get it” team?

I am proud to gather today for a free workshop hosted by Reimagine and For Grief, and hope you will join me. We will talk more about this concept, a perfect topic as we come into holiday season.

Allow me to be one of your illuminators, it would be my honor.

x, b

Donate Subscriptions

When he enters the tiny elevator he thinks most have come on to pet him and know him. He licks and loves and sniffs. We have come to know their names, and exchange niceties as newer residents.

The last few days have brought a worry and distress to our exchanges. It is palpable. The private inner thoughts of some, have made our rides together, grief confessions. The heightened security in the city had some on edge. Mentions of helicopters and protests. Other’s have shared they have family in Israel. Going about daily life feels fraught with confusion. Helplessness. I hold them all close to my heart.

In this collective stage of unrest, quite often, our grief begets grief. What you are already feeling can ignite a sense of regrief or a grief spike (as it is sometimes called.)

As a grief specialist, I invite you to lean into some grief tending.

How best serve these feelings?

Donate your time or funds to a place you feel could use your support.

Join a peaceful gathering.

Light a candle.

Say a prayer.

Educate yourself.

Exercise.

Take a break from the news.

Spend time away from social media.

Make a soothing playlist or dance out your anger.

Call a friend or relative to talk.

Be in nature.

Journal.

Leave the house or your work day to take a walk.

Stay hydrated.

Be with friends or reschedule plans.

Listen to an audio book.

Treat yourself to comfort foods. Bake, cook or order in!

Make an extra therapy appointment.

Move your body.

Rest.

Breathe.

Sending love,

x, B.