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Finding Hope - In the Worst of Times

2/7/2025

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Writing about hope in horrific times?  Really?  Yes!  It feels necessary.  Maybe more important than ever.  So, here we go. 
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We are living in a time where chaos, confusion, and relentless actions are designed to exhaust us, divide us, and silence us.  We can easily lash out in anger or hide away in isolation.   Empathy, accountability, and respect seem to be lacking, particularly from those in power. 
We need hope to help us see beyond the muck of the truly despicable. 
  
The state of affairs in the US right now reminds me of the chaos that once consumed my family, crisis after crisis, brought on by chaotic substance use.  The too familiar dread in the pit of my stomach – afraid to look at my phone to see what the latest disaster is. 

One key distinction is that my son didn’t intend to scare us, cause chaos or harm.   His actions weren’t calculated, malicious, or planned out.  They were simply part of his mental health challenges which set off a chain of reactivity. 
I've talked with many people who've struggled with substance use, and know they never meant to hurt the people they love. 

It’s easy to be frozen in inaction, stunned into silence in times of great disruption, but we don’t have to collapse.  We can find a way to go on and to act in meaningful ways. Wringing our hands helplessly only adds to anxiety and withdrawal.    

We need hope to continue on – to love, to be generous or compassionate, to make a difference. 

Hope is Possible
Here’s what I know: hope is possible even in the most devastating times.  How do I know?  Because on the night my son, Nate, died, I reached over to my husband, grabbed his hand and said, “We will get through this.” 

Partly, I did this because I needed to hear myself say it, to believe it, because anything else was too impossible to imagine.  I said it even though it was also impossible to know how we would get through or what “getting through” meant.  Partly I did this because at least some part of me knew that it was true. 

In our 29 years with Nate, we endured so much – school struggles, family struggles, 14 years of the pain of watching him struggle with substance use and bulimia and all that that brought with it.  We’d faced so many times when I didn’t know how I or we would go on… but we did.  Now, not quite 2 years since his death, I still don’t always know how we will go on, but somehow, one moment, one breath at a time, we do. 

I imagine if you look at your own life, you’ve had moments or maybe stretches of years that feel relentless, agonizing, hopeless.  Times you’ve felt powerless and unable to see your way out of the struggle.  Maybe you’re in a time like that right now.  Either way, here you are reading these words, and that alone is a sign of hope. 

What Hope Is and What It Isn’t

At a conference late last November, “Bridging the Hope and the How,” our keynote speaker, Dr. Ashley Cross, Executive Director of Hope585 in Rochester, NY, said that hope isn’t a feeling.  That we can have hope even when we feel grief, sadness, fear.  I’m still sorting out how that’s possible. No words for it, but I have experienced it to be true. 

I’ve learned hope isn’t a flimsy wish: “I hope things get better.”  That’s just wishful thinking that doesn’t get you or anyone anywhere.  No change comes from weak wishing.  A wish like that allows you to step back and not take any responsibility for what could be. 

There’s another kind of hope that is fierce – it rises from deep inside and says, “No!  This is not how this story will end!”  That force can carry us, be a guiding light that calls us forward, even if we can’t see where we’re going.  This force nudges us forward, fueled by a belief in a better future and a knowing that we can be part of creating the future we long for. 

In his book, 8 Ways to Hope: Charting a Path through Uncertain Times, William Miller writes, “Hope is all about anticipation of what is not yet.  It is a liminal space, a threshold to what may yet be.”  What is not yet… what may yet be… those words alone bring pause.  An interesting reflection.  A reminder that we simply Do. Not. Know. All we can know is what’s already happened and what is happening right here, right now in our direct experience.  We do not know what is coming in the future.  Even when things are happening that make it look bleak.  We still cannot foresee the future.  We don’t have to fall into the trap of foregone conclusions.

Hope and Fear

Miller goes on to say, “…both hope and fear project images of what could come to pass, and both can be powerfully motivating. They are alternative lenses through which we view an uncertain future… Hope tends to expand our horizons, while fear contracts them.” 

Have you noticed that?  Fear brings us into tunnel vision where we only see the path of doom.  It constricts our bodies.  Breathing becomes shallow, jaw clenches, gut grips.  Our thoughts run on a repetitive loop with all that we fear.  “I know how this is going to go!”  We find ourselves unwilling or unable to imagine any outcome other than what we dread. 

“Fear can shut down the creative capacity to find better ways and even the will to find them.  Hope is about finding both the will and a way forward,” writes Miller.  When we feel trapped.  When we feel certain of doom.  When we feel powerless to do anything that will make a difference, we can lose hope.  Of course we can.  It’s so natural.  Especially if the scene feels familiar – you’ve been here before, so  “here we go again” thoughts come rushing in.  Of course. 

But, can you consider that this time could be different?  You’re not the person you were the last time you faced this situation, even if it was only yesterday or a few hours ago.  Which means that everything else about this scenario is also different than it was.  The door to hope cracks open a tiny bit.  Where there is possibility, there is hope.  Where there is uncertainty, there is hope.  Nothing has been determined yet.  Where there is life, there is hope.  Where there is love, there is more hope. 

When people come together for the greater good, hope rises and ripples out.  Hope and fear are both contagious – they spread between people like a creeping vine that quickly takes over.  So, you get to decide if you’re spreading fear or hope.  What seeds you want to plant? Can you be a force of hope, even in times of great darkness when all seems lost?

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but moving ahead in spite of it,” says Miller.  The fear will be here.  As will grief, sadness, confusion, anxiety, but they don’t have to be the only forces at play and we don’t have to give them the final word.  One thing is for certain – running around and adding to the frenzy and panic helps no one.  We must do what we can to find a ground that allows us to come into the world in a healthy way. 

Creating a Legacy of Hope
Hope creates hope.  We can give hope to others when they’re not feeling it.  Our words and actions can create a ripple of hope.  In Hope Rising: How the Science of HOPE can Change Your Life by Casey Gwinn & Chan Hellman, the authors share many ways to cultivate, strengthen, and grow hope.  Hope needs attention and effort to sustain it – it doesn’t remain untended.  In their final chapter, “Leaving a Legacy of Hope,” they share “Lessons Learned from Two Old Guys!” 

Some that feel poignant in this moment are:
  • Teach your children (and friends) to be hope-centered
  • When the time is right, make it OK to talk about the bad stuff in life
  • Empathy always opens doors
  • Listen more than you talk 
  • Run from negative people – find cheerleaders and encouragers
  • Surround yourself with positive role models
  • Focus on strengths, not weaknesses or deficits
  • Use your power and influence to bless children
When you use your powers for good, and act in ways that bless the children and the future children of the world, you are leaving a ripple that builds people up and generates more hope, kindness and caring. 

A friend once called me a “Possibilitator,” a term that lit me up.  I define it as “one who shines the light of hope and possibility, especially in times of darkness.”  In a world where so much is out of my control and beyond my influence, this is something I can offer.  Will you possibilitate with me?  We can also take the actions we’re called to to help create a better future.  None of this is about sugarcoating a shitshow or burying your head in the sand.  It’s about finding sustainable ways to show up for people and things that matter. 

It's All Too Much! Finding the Elusive Balance

Being bombarded by crisis after crisis feels relentless and overwhelming.  I don’t know that there is a magic formula for being informed and staying engaged so that we can take action as needed, while also taking good care of ourselves.  I do know that we must tend our hearts and health - mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional.  When we are well cared for, we can step up when and where we’re called.

Meditation has helped me be with my own mind, developing awareness of what’s going on inside, sitting with thoughts and feelings as they arise.  This allows me to act and speak in a more clear and intentional way.  We don’t need to completely avoid the realities of the world (and we couldn’t even if we tried to),  but with intention we can choose where we direct our attention.  We can help where we can, step away to rest and regroup as needed. Breaks are essential.   

We can carry hope alongside fear as we remember we don’t know what might yet be.

Balance in action and rest is elusive and not evenly matched much of the time.  There are times when we will be all-in on something stressful, that requires immediate action, and does not give us a chance to sit back and be more intentional and mindful.  However, when there are moments to regroup, refresh, and renew our mind and spirit, we must take them.  Those moments are critical. 

When you find people in the news taking over your life to the extent you’re missing moments of sweetness or delight with your partner, friends, or children, something has to give.  At our family picnic last summer, we began swirling into fear and dismay about the future.  My niece, Amy, brilliantly brought us back to each other and the precious gift of family time with a quick declarative, “That man is not welcome in our kitchen.  He is not invited into our gathering!”  Thank you, Amy.  I find I have to remind myself of this often.  To bring myself to what I want to allow into this moment, this space, my personal domain.

We get to choose who and what we give our time, energy, and attention to.  Certain people want nothing more than to consume all of it.  I implore you to take it back so that you can enjoy a quiet lunch with a friend, a walk in the woods with a beloved, sitting by the fire petting your cat, laughing at a stupid comedy, or getting lost in a song while you dance in your car. 

Please take time to notice the beauty and the goodness in life that is here, even as horrific events consume the airwaves.  It doesn’t erase or replace them, but it does broaden your perspective to all that is available.  Beauty, wonder, delight, joy, kindness, lightness – they’re still here even when seem overshadowed by the ugly.

Do what you can for the causes that matter to you, remembering you cannot do everything, nor do you have to.  Serve in a way that works for your body, nervous system, mind, and energy capacity – let others serve in their ways.  Some of us will march and make calls, some will donate money, others will provide meals, others will offer hugs and smiles and kindness where they can.  Others will sit quietly with a distraught family member or friend.  There are many issues to be addressed, personally and collectively. 

In her work of Revolutionary Love, Valarie Kaur reminds us of the midwife’s wisdom - we cannot push all the time.  We must also breathe.  In the resting and breathing, the next push can arise, and also in the pushing, we allow the breath to arise.  Without the breath, you will deplete yourself and have nothing left to give.   
 
If you’re facing a death or dealing with an illness or chronic struggle – your own or a loved one’s - you’re going to need your energy.  What we’re facing collectively in our country and world is something that is going to require sustained energy.  It serves no one for you to be on hyper-alert all the time.  In our journey with Nate, we learned that sleep was vital, and so we chose to turn off our phones at bedtime.  If something bad happened, we needed to be clear-headed and energized so we could respond in a more helpful way, rather than being sleep-deprived and overwhelmed by stress.  When can you allow yourself to disconnect for a period of restorative time?

What Helps You to Hope? 

I’m not always sure what helps me have hope.  I do hear my son whisper from wherever he is, “I’m right here, Momma,” and I can feel that.  I know that we still have each other and that he works with me and through me, and for that I am grateful.  I find hope in the people in my life – my husband and friends who bring love, laughter, tears, and joy.  I find hope in the nudges which prod me to create, offering what is mine to offer. 

I find great hope in remembering that many people before me have persevered in similar or worse conditions than I face.  In our country and around the world, many have endured centuries of treatment that could have led to despair and yet somehow, they have carried on.  Leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, and Mother Teresa have shown what’s possible in the face of violence and hate. 

Moms like Lori Drescher, Founder of Recovery Coach University, Pam Lanhart, Founder of Thrive Family Recovery Resources, Heather Ross, Family Recovery Coach, and Alexis Pleus Founder of TruthPharm, who have lost beloved children, inspire and uplift me and many others,  as they work diligently to support people touched by substance use.

Hope Doesn’t Need to be Grand. 

You might spend a little quiet time with Hope and ask, “Hope, what would you have me know?”  Take a few minutes and let Hope’s wisdom flow to you, writing it out in a note to yourself if you like.  In our last Finding Hope Within retreat, one participant received a beautiful insight that “hope can be small pinpricks of light.”  And also, that “hope is in the sidewalk cracks, not the sidewalk.” 

What does Hope want you to know? 
What helps you have hope? 
Who inspires you through their example? 
Are there negative people you need to give less time to? 
How can you sustain and support yourself in stressful times? 
What do you notice that’s good or beautiful in your world today? 
How do you want to show up in a troubled family, community, country, world? 

Finding the Will - You are not Powerless! 

Whether you’re facing a family challenge with substance use or you’re concerned about the state of affairs in the US and the world, your presence, your voice, and your actions make a difference.  When we feel powerless, like nothing we do matters, it’s easy to lose hope.  That’s when we’re at risk of isolating and finding ourselves paralyzed by fear or anger. 

What you do matters!  Your energy and presence matter, so please take the time to nurture and nourish your body, mind, heart, and spirit.  Now is a great time to double down on practices that build internal strength, peace, grounding, flexibility, and clarity.  That can look like getting out into nature, feeling the strength of the Earth holding you.  Practices like yoga, dance, or working out allows your emotions the movement they need.  Take time for contemplation, reflection, and mental rest through meditation, prayer, or journaling.  Find community where you can, because we need each other, so take time to connect with someone you hold dear, go to a support group, attend a spiritual community gathering, or join a resistance group. 

Be sure to take time for silence.  There is too much to take in right now and it can easily overwhelm.  Take media breaks.  Turn off your phone and put it out of sight.  Take a walk without listening to a podcast or talking to anyone.  Create some spaciousness so that you can think and act more clearly. 
Take some time to think about what practices best support you and make some time for them, even if only 5 minutes.  5-minute practices sprinkled throughout the day add up, and they will support you in this time that doesn’t offer any quick, easy fix.   
 
Finding the Way - Some Ways to Get Started:
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Step 1 - Pause... take a breath (or many breaths) - it's hard to imagine anything that could be made worse when we begin this way.  Take this moment to find center and grounding before posting, speaking, or acting.  Then proceed...  

If you care about someone struggling with substance use, please check out the Invitation to Change approach which will invite you to reflect on what it means to help, reimagine the role that loved ones can play in the change process, and provide you with evidence-supported strategies for helping.

If you’d like a simple way to get involved in speaking out about the current state of affairs in the US, 5 Calls offers a direct link to your congressional representative and Senators along with guidance on top concerns you may wish to convey.  Heather Cox Richardson is a clear and steady source of information.  Pace yourself in what you’re taking in and what you’re doing.  Do what you can and then step back to be refueled. 

Donate to organizations doing important work that matters to you – time, money, or needed items.  Whatever feels realistic and doable to you in this moment.  What might fill your heart as you give?

Create the things you are called to create.  It can be easy to shut down in the weight of overwhelm, but your creative offerings, whether that’s art, music, writing, videos, playlists, retreats… they are needed and they matter. 

Make time for music - Here’s an eclectic playlist for finding hope to support you in this wild and crazy time.  And here’s my Power Me Up Playlist for when I need a boost!  Music can lift your spirits or bring the release of tears, encourage you to keep going, or give you something to dance and sing to.  It helps us get out of our heads and into our souls.  Music matters.  Make your own playlist to carry you through the dark times. 

Find Your People – In times when we feel scared, alone, or isolated, community is even more important.  I know it’s harder to access because it takes energy and vulnerability to connect, but the effort will pay off.  Phone a friend!  Can we please bring back spontaneous phone calls and voice mails?  Even if we don’t connect, at least we can hear each other’s voices!  Find a group that supports your hobbies, passions, causes, personal development, recovery, or spiritual needs (to name a few), in person or online.  Remembering that you’re not alone can really help. 

The communities that are supporting my well-being right now that might be of interest to you:
The Open Heart Project Sangha - daily live meditation and discussion, weekly meeting, plus more! 
Bodhi Tree Yoga - a variety of online classes with wonderful teachers and a sense of community
   
Give yourself a little oasis – Speaking of community, I invite you to join me on Monday, February 17, for a mini retreat, Finding Hope Within from 12 – 1:30 PM ET.  Let’s come together, bringing whatever is present and cultivating a little bit of hope – that elusive what might yet be. 

Find and create joy, delight, wonder.  This is not a frivolous thing.  Your energy matters - how you behave and speak matters.  Small acts of kindness and moments of joy matter.  Keep doing what you enjoy with joy.  Joy is a form of resistance says Heather Cox Richardson (take a minute to watch this clip - it's very empowering!).  It allows you to take back your power and refuse to give in to the forces that are bringing you down.   Keep loving on people and believing in a better future, even if we don’t quite know what that will look like.

Find ways to offer compassion – to yourself and others. Our world desperately needs this energy.  Showing up and acting from a place of love, kindness, and compassion makes a difference and builds hope.  Your hope might take root, grow, and spread.  It’s certainly worth a try!

Hold your loved ones close.  Reach out and grab the hand of someone you love and say, “We will get through this.”  Even if you don’t know how, you’re planting the seed of hope and possibility.  Even if you might not get the outcome you would like, are you willing to give it a go? 

What's working for you?  Please, please share!!  We learn and grow together! 

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My altar of hope
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Why CompassioNATE Care?

8/18/2024

4 Comments

 
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It occurred to me that although I’ve been on a mission that has made and distributed over 450 CompassioNate Care Bags since August 2023, I haven’t talked a lot about why this mission means so much to me.  I’m assuming you can tell that issues of mental health, substance use, and homelessness are important to me and that compassion and kindness are my jam.  But why?
 
​Our Story - What We Didn't Know and What We've Learned
💕 Before our beautiful son, Nate, passed on March 29, 2023 just shy of his 30th birthday, we had gone through 14 years of pain, struggle, challenge, as a result of substance use and other serious mental health challenges on top of a lifetime of school struggles.  Life for us, and particularly for Nate, was beyond hard.  In those 14 years, despite our love and efforts to help him, there were too many times he struggled with homelessness in part because Tom and I didn’t know what we know now.  
 
We didn’t understand that his behaviors were serving him in some way, even though there were so many negative consequences taking a toll on him and us.  We didn’t know that ambivalence, especially when one is considering a gigantic change like recovery, is super normal and not a reflection of his desire to get better or how much he cared about himself or us. We didn’t know that there were ways to recover other than traditional treatment, 12 step programs, or abstinence – all things he had tried and “failed” at, giving him more things to beat himself up for.  These are the lost “tough love years” which I grieve along with grieving his death.
 
Not only were we lacking in knowledge, understanding, and guidance, but because we hadn’t yet found the Invitation to Change and had never heard of peer support, recovery coaching, or harm reduction, we were misinformed about addiction and misguided about our role and ability to help.  We hadn’t yet met other parents who had found healthy ways to be in relationship with their kid or professionals who knew effective ways for families to recover together.  We believed we needed to let him (or make him) hit rock bottom, we shouldn’t help him for fear of enabling, and we were powerless.  
 
Society’s prevailing messages convinced us that trying to detach was what love required of us.  The chaos in our lives was painful, harmful, and ineffective for us all.  Not only did tough love not help Nate’s recovery, it took away his family support and put him in survival mode which only contributed to his cycle of shame, use, more shame, and more use.  It hacked away at our relationship, broke trust on both sides, and put Nate in situations where he experienced trauma we’ll never know about.
 
In the times when he couldn’t live with us and didn’t know where to turn, various people - friends, family, professionals, and strangers - stepped in as angels on earth, helping him make it one more hour, one more day, and possibly 11 more years than he might have had otherwise.  I am forever grateful for the people who turned toward him in his times of despair, letting him know he wasn’t alone, that someone cared, and that he and his life mattered.  I am deeply grateful for those who extended kindness, care, compassion, and a hand up when he felt desperately lost, and we didn’t know what to do.
 
Paying it Forward with Gratitude
💕 That love and those people fuel my intention with the beautiful bright CompassioNate Care Bags as one way to pay it forward.  My husband, friends, and I load up these bags with niceties (pens, notebooks, and a little money) and necessities (resource numbers, personal care items, clothing, food, and drug testing strips and Naloxone) to spread this ripple of love to people, our community members, who may be feeling lost and alone.  My friend, Chris Abert, from the NY Recovery Alliance, says, “Yours may be the last interaction a person has.  Be kind.” Makes good sense to me.
 
Doing What We Can
💕 I’m embarrassed to admit the times I struggled with what to do when I saw a person sitting alongside a building or standing on a corner with a sign asking for help.   One December, in NYC I saw a person bundled in dirty blankets, sitting on cardboard outside Macy’s with a sign declaring, “You don’t even see me.”  Oooph!  That hit my heart hard.  They weren’t wrong – thousands of people looked away as they went on with their shopping and window-gazing. 
 
Though I always felt a tug to help, I was afraid to offer money for fear they’d use it for drugs or alcohol.  Why did I care?  I’m not in charge of that.  Maybe they’ll get a McDonald’s meal, a cup of coffee and a donut, and they’ll be a tad more comfortable for a little bit.  Maybe they won’t, but I don’t have to assume the worst. Far too many times I’ve looked away and moved past someone in need, my heart breaking, feeling powerless and lamely excusing myself with, “You can’t help everyone.”  No, I can’t help everyone, but I can do what I can.
 
Everyone is Someone's Child
💕 Knowing that any one of these people in need could be my son and remembering that they are someone’s child, I now look at people and see their humanity.  Not too long after Nate died, I pulled off the highway and noticed a man staggering by the railing, looking as if he might fall over.  I stopped, rolled down the window, held out my hand and offered a snack, some money, and a card with Nate’s picture, some encouraging messages and local resource numbers on it.  I looked this man in the eye, and said, “This is for you.  My son died.  I don’t want that to happen to you.  Here are some numbers and some things for you.”  He asked my son’s name, I told him, and he kindly offered his prayers for us. I pulled away sobbing, heart breaking open, somehow knowing this was only the beginning.
 
A Collective Effort Honoring a Legacy of Love
💕 These care bags are created with so much generous support from others.  They provide a chance to offer a little kindness, to see and reach out to our neighbors in need.  One of the things I love most about Nate is that no matter how little he had or how hard he was struggling, he always thought of others, shared what he had, and did what he could for people who were struggling.  This project keeps his legacy of love and caring alive.  I am deeply grateful to the hundreds of people who have donated items, cash, time, and energy to help reach and serve people in need with over 450 bags that have been gifted in the Rochester area and beyond!

❤️I am deeply grateful to RAW Recovery, the NY Recovery Alliance, and Samadhi who have helped me include critical harm reduction supplies in these bags.  Please consider supporting these organizations in the compassionate, vital work they are doing.  

 
What it's been Like
💕 My friend, Cheri, who has jumped onboard with boundless passion, has so many beautiful stories to share – taking  Leo for coffee, learning he’s an artist and buying his beautiful painting of a moon; seeing a woman collapsed on the sidewalk, pulling over, grabbing Narcan from a bag and reversing an overdose. Cheri regularly looks for people in need, asks them if they’re hungry, if they need water, and encourages them to call home as she hands them her phone.  She gives hugs freely and meets people where they are, as they are.  We don’t know how things play out, but we know in these moments a genuine heart-to-heart, soul-to-soul connection has been made.  
 
Another friend carries bags with her, hands them out at lights, and wonders about the stories of the folks she reaches. People share how surprised and grateful recipients are to be seen and treated kindly.  Some volunteers have enhanced the bags with an apple, another snack bar, a little more money, or some clothing they’d otherwise leave sitting in a drawer unused.  They have chats with people they are meeting and sometimes share a hug.
 
This project benefits both the giver and the receiver!  Our volunteers are people who don’t typically work in street outreach - people who want to make a difference, to do something, and haven’t known how.  These bags offer a relatively easy and meaningful way to make a direct impact to a person in need who often feels invisible or scorned.

If I'm in a funk, nothing lifts me like being able to share a heart-to-heart connection, a smile, and a little offering of compassion and kindness.  

 
If You'd Like to Be Part of the CompassioNate Care Mission
💕 Each bag costs between $20-25 because they are chock full of goodness.  If you’d like to be part of the CompassioNate Care mission, there are a variety of ways you can join in. Find what feels good, right, and doable to you, whether that’s shopping for items directly from the wish list, sending donations that allow me to shop and fulfill my commitment, or by being one of the people to carry these bright bags and hand them out with a smile and a blessing when there’s an opportunity!  Thank you to those who’ve helped me so far and thank you to those who’d like to jump in now!
 
And to all of us, may we be beacons of light, hope, and kindness in a world that is desperately in need.   
 
✨Here's how to help create CompassioNATE Care Bags ✨

We last put together 142 bags to hand out in the Rochester area in June - our magical number of 111 plus 31 for his 31st birthday.    I anticipate assembling our next batch this fall, sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  
 
🌟 Each bag has a card in it with Nate's picture, encouraging messages, and resource numbers to support people in finding the support they need. 

🌟 It's easy to contribute!  I've created a wishlist which is open for ongoing donations to make it easy for anyone from anywhere to contribute the items we need.  
 
🌟 Cash donations: We could also use cash donations - these help me to buy what's missing and to put a $5 cash in each bag.  You can contribute in this way through Venmo - @Barbara-Klein-25.  Simply note “Care Bags” to let me know to direct your goodwill to this effort.  

🌟 Want to send loving encouragement? If you'd like to write some notes of love, care, and encouragement to be included in the bags, please mail them to me at PO Box 612, Livonia, NY 14487 - send them any time, I will include them in the next batch we put together. 

🌟 Willing to help hand out bags?  I'm looking for people in the Rochester area to carry bags with them and hand out when they see people in need. Contact me if you're willing to be one of these people! 

 🌟Want to help this mission grow? Maybe you live outside the Rochester area or you're part of a group that would like to assemble and distribute bags - I'm happy to help you get started.  Just e-mail me and I can share with you what I've done and help you get the resource number cards with Nate's picture and messages on the front.  I'm very grateful to my friend, Judy, for helping bring some cards and bags to the Albany area in our first large-scale out of area effort!  

Let's open our hearts and spread some compassion this summer! You can help to spread some light, warmth, and love to those who need it most.
 
Thank you so much for your consideration! The journey continues! The love lives on!

Many thanks to News 8 for covering this effort in a short story in June.  You can watch here. 

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Tending Your Heart

2/19/2024

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PictureImage by Kevin McIver from Pixabay
Guest blog by Heather Ross
Some events are so impactful that they create a distinct before and after in the timeline of your life. The events that unfolded in the second half of 2021 forever altered the landscape of my existence. Within just 6 months I was diagnosed and treated for breast cancer, including a double mastectomy, my divorce was finalized (resulting in the loss of crucial medical insurance which I needed for future treatments), and my 21-year-old daughter Helanna passed away from an overdose.
 
I realize this is a grim way to start a blog post, but surprisingly, the intensity of those experiences led me to a profound perspective shift and opened my life to new possibilities.  Has it been easy? No! But I want you to know what’s possible, even after facing such huge challenges. 
 
When I was in high school a friend and I were sitting on the front of a pontoon boat enjoying the refreshing breeze as her father was driving us to a restaurant on the lake.  A water skier made a massive wave that caused the front of our boat to dip in the water. My friend and I were deep in the lake before we knew what happened. At first, I panicked, disoriented because I didn’t have time to take a deep breath.  Then I stilled myself and waited to see if I floated up. Once I figured out which way was up, I also noticed the sunlight, and I swam toward it as fast as I could so I could take a deep breath and fill my lungs with oxygen again. 
 
Unlike this boating accident, the events of 2021 left me disoriented with no buoyancy to help me float.  There was no light to guide me to the surface so I could breathe again. I felt like I had lost everything. My mind relentlessly told me everything I had worked on for the first 49 years of my life had failed and I had no future. The grief from breast cancer, divorce, and losing Helanna sometimes felt like drinking from a fire hose, flooding me and taking me down.
 
I consider myself to be resilient, and before this time, when an area of my life collapsed, I built it back up better and stronger, but losing my daughter tested my strength in every way imaginable. I couldn’t imagine ever having the strength to face a future without her, so the painful thoughts intensified, becoming more and more believable.
  
I also started noticing memories that had not bothered me before my daughter passed away suddenly became traumatic, and I couldn’t understand why. After struggling on my own for a while, I sought EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy to help me process my traumatic memories.   EMDR encourages the patient to briefly focus on the trauma memory while simultaneously experiencing bilateral stimulation (typically eye movements), which reduces the vividness and emotion associated with trauma memories, calming the nervous system.
 
Trauma is not only about the event itself. It is also about what happens inside us in response to the event. Trauma can be caused by any event that we experience as emotionally distressing, not just life-threatening events. The loss of my daughter made me feel very unsafe. I became preoccupied with thinking about the other horrible things that could happen. The more I thought about bad things happening the more unsafe I felt.  It was a vicious cycle.
 
Trauma's impact extends beyond the event itself and infiltrates our thoughts, emotions, and memories. Our brains work in a think-feel-act cycle.  We have a thought.  That thought releases chemicals that we feel as an emotion in our body, and emotions lead us to action. Beliefs come from thoughts we think repeatedly. Our thoughts and beliefs affect our memories because our memories aren’t fixed.  Each time we retrieve a memory we can distort it. 
 
Over time a memory can become more about your thoughts and judgments about the memory than the actual memory. When trauma is involved, we distort our memories even more in what is called memory amplification. We change our recollection of our past, essentially changing our past. In this case we are making the past worse than it was.  Changing our past affects how we perceive the present moment, and it can change our future because of the state of being we’re creating in this process. 

This explains why my memories that weren’t traumatic previously became traumatic after my daughter passed away. Every time I retrieved those memories, I loaded the trauma with my judgments and feelings of guilt, grief, despair, hopelessness, and shame. I wasn’t aware I was distorting my memories until I started sorting it all out with EMDR.
The original feelings associated with certain memories had been written over, as if I had made changes to a Word document, and saved a newer, harsher version. The more times I retrieved the memories, the more painful they got.  I was changing the feelings associated with the memories and what I made them mean about me. I started seeing myself differently – it was painful and it felt very true.
 
After an EMDR session where my counselor helped me peel away the layers of a highly charged memory of a conversation with my daughter, a lightbulb struck!  For the first time I saw how I had changed my memories. The main emotion I had been swimming in with my memory before EMDR was shame. After EMDR, that feeling transformed to love for my daughter.  Suddenly I could see the real picture and I could feel being with my daughter in that heartfelt moment again. I felt proud of how I supported her during that conversation, and I deeply felt the love between us as we talked.
 
This is where I got curious. If I had changed my past, present, and future by changing my memories in a way that was hurting me, maybe I could harness that power to create a positive healing experience instead. When I retrieve memories now, I include loads of compassion and understanding so I don’t keep traumatizing myself. Compassion and understanding are keys to unlocking healing.
 
My new perspective has me thinking about the possibility of building a beautiful future. I don’t know what my future will look like yet, but opening to the possibility that it will be filled with love and fulfillment rather than being dominated by pain and loss is the first step to creating it.
 
It’s not about sidestepping the pain of the void left by my daughter’s physical absence from my life.  It’s about living with all that’s here and all that’s possible. I have an ache in my heart for my daughter and my life is beautiful because of my deep appreciation for every joyful experience and every moment with the people I love.
 
Want to hear more about this experience?  Listen to Heather's podcast here!  

Here's a meditation I recorded to go along with this post: Tending Your Heart.  Lean in.  You deserve your own tender care.  


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Heather Ross is the mother of a child who struggled with Substance Use Disorder, A Family Recovery Coach, Invitation to Change Certified, CRAFT trained, and the host of the popular podcast called Living with Your Child’s Addiction.

Heather offers a program for parents that is compassionate, family-centered, based on science, and teaches parents how to create their own peace of mind whether their child is in recovery or still using substances. She believes parents have more power than they realize and the best gift they can give their child is a healthy parent.

When Heather is not helping other parents, she enjoys spending time in nature with her dogs, going to sound baths on the beach, traveling, and creating beautiful memories with friends and family. 

You can find out more about Heather and her offerings by visiting Heather Ross Coaching.  
Here's Heather's free "A New Perspective about Enabling" 
​
Listen to the Living While Loving Your Child Through Addiction podcast 

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Awareness, Recovery, & Retreat

10/14/2023

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August 31 is International Overdose Awareness Day - all around the world people gather to remember and honor the way too many lives lost to substance-related deaths.  We grieve.  We mourn.  We come together to hope for recovery for those still here. 

This year was my first from the perspective of having lost my son just 5 months earlier - 5 months to the day we cried over his casket to say our final goodbyes to his physical form.  When invited to speak at our local Scotty B Overdose Awareness Day (created by another mother in memory of her beloved son), I didn’t skip a beat as I replied to the full-body goosebump “Yes.”  I didn’t know why or even what I’d say, but I knew it was an authentic yes.  That morning I reached out to several people asking, “What do I even have to offer?  My son didn’t find recovery.  My son died.  How can I offer inspiration or hope?”  I cried.  Big tears.  Lots of tears. I received their encouragement and gathered my thoughts, pulling together a message intended to raise awareness, to share Nate’s story, what I’ve learned over the past 30 years, what I wish I had known, and an appeal for greater kindness and compassion for all people. 

My dear friend, a fellow angel mama, and I started the day at an Overdose Awareness Vigil in a part of the city where the need for compassionate, non-judgmental support and care is immense.  We sat in a circle with people in recovery, people in active use, family members, friends, and allies, and people at dire risk.  We shared pizza and memories of those lost.  We shared what called us to this circle that day.  We learned how to use Naloxone to save a life.  We learned about Overdose Prevention Centers and the critical need for them, and we shared space, time, and life.  It was beautiful.  Heart-touching.  Heart-wrenching, and heart-opening.

From there over to Scotty B Day where I met and visited with people in the recovery community - some of the most authentic, sensitive, creative, beautiful people in the world.  I shared table with my friend, the beautiful writer, Jennifer Collins.  In addition to selling my book, I had care bags to give away for those in need, along with Nate’s cards (which have his picture and the messages “I see you.  You matter.  You are not alone.”  and local resource numbers on them) and Never Use Alone cards.  I watched as one young man picked up Nate’s card and withered into a gut-punching, disbelieving gasp… “No, no, no… tell me it’s not true…”  He had been Nate’s neighbor in supportive housing.  “He was doing well…” his confusion voiced as he took in this news.  Yeah.  He was.  Until he wasn’t.  Awareness awakening. 

After I spoke (you can listen to the talk here), I had the beautiful opportunity to connect with so many open-hearted people.  Parents who wanted to know more about the Invitation to Change, who longed for a different way to be with their loved ones.  Parents who heard our story and committed to being with their young ones differently - to let them be who they are, whether they are 3, 9, 11, or 15.  Parents who had lost kids somewhat guiltily confessing, “I did the whole enabling thing…” because they had gone to their child, supported them, loved them.  I offered a reframe: “Sounds like you loved your kid.  There is no need to apologize for that.  Ever.”  Phew.  Exhale.  No need for shame.  You loved your child, as did I.  Let’s let the stories go, drop this all-too-common cultural narrative, and begin to heal around this loss.  Find our recovery.  Other people I met love people in active use, kids who are on the streets, at great risk; these people are doing what they can to love them well, to support them, while also taking care of themselves.  There’s room for it all.  Awareness. Connection.  You’re not alone.  One tiny moment at a time…it’s enough. 

It was a beautiful, encouraging, uplifting, devastating, heart-opening, heart-wrenching day.  I wobbled away from the podium, away from the space, and met up with my husband to celebrate, debrief, and cry.  I was wrung out and filled up all at once. 

The next day kicked off National Recovery Month.  And, I felt myself slide into a valley.  It had taken a ton of energy to prepare for Overdose Awareness Day, only a little over a month after Nate’s memorial service.  It was time for me to immerse deeply into my own recovery.  After putting myself out there, there was a natural reaction to pull back, go within, hunker down, and restore myself.  You might have experienced something similar in your own life.  Even as I continued to post support and encouragement for the recovery movement, for individual and family recovery, I was heading into a gentle crash and into my next phase of recovery. 

Here's what I know about recovery: it begins within and is a deeply personal journey.  As my friend, Chris’s shirt says, “Recovery is any Positive Action.”  It’s not clear, straightforward, or linear.  It is often painful and painstakingly hard.  Recovery can only be approached and managed one minute at a time.  It requires a leap of faith into the unknown, hoping that the effort will be worth it.  Recovery requires letting go of tried-and-true comfort and survival tactics to find new, less certain ways to be.  It calls us to look at past pain, to open our hearts to grieve what might have been as we lean into what’s here, and step toward what’s possible. 

Recovery calls us inward to reconnect with ourselves – our hearts, our spirits, to touch what’s true and to connect with what’s available to us.  Anything that requires a lot of energy, particularly emotional energy, will invite a period of respite and recovery afterwards.  Awareness.  Can we pay attention to the needs of our body, mind, heart, and spirit and find a way to honor that need? 

The first weeks after Overdose Awareness Day were very uncomfortable as I found myself confronting some dark, haunting questions: What if?  What if I had seen how desperately Nate was spiraling out of control and had insisted he come to dinner with us the night he dropped off the grid?  What if I had invited him to stay with us for the weekend the last time I last saw him, 6 days before he died? Would he still be here?  I suspect this is a natural grief response, grasping for what might have been different.  Not so much blame, but a desperate wish that I had known and had the chance to make different choices.  Recovery calls us to face our shadows in order to move forward, so I met myself there and sunk into the feelings and thoughts that swept through. 

After a couple of weeks in intentional recovery mode, I also added retreat into my life, packing up and getting away from home, from Rochester with all its ghosts and ghostly places.  First I headed off with my husband, Tom, to hole up in a hotel and sleep, read, and write some overdue cards, while he worked. 

Next, we headed off to a massive music festival  where we could easily get lost in the crowd in Louisville, Kentucky.  We savored an evening with Brandi Carlile (I just love her...sigh).  Total anonymity and shared love of a great artist held us in this musical escape.

Then Tom dropped me off at a rustic retreat center in the mountains of western North Carolina for a women’s retreat – my first big social space with mostly unknown women since Nate’s death.  I was welcomed with huge hugs from two loving women, soul sisters I’ve known for almost a decade, women who have answered the call to show up for this deep mama loss.  I found my way to my remote charming cabin by the creek and settled myself into it for a musty nap, the creek offering its gentle natural white noise.  And I bawled.  I let my tears soak my pillow.  I let my body shake as sobs moved through me.  In this quiet space of solitude, I let myself feel the fear of something happening to Tom, and felt the deep awareness of how desperately I need him to be ok, to be safe, to stay alive.  How much I need him.  Period. 

Eventually sleep found me, and after a refreshing rest, I was able to enter retreat tentatively, gingerly, dosing out bits of my current reality as I was able.  Giving myself the gift of my own deep attention and care – what did I need?  Feel? Want?  Following this inquiry, moment by moment, without expectation, without judgment.  Allowing space for the bereaved mother, the open-hearted dancer, the tearful singer, the curious writer, and all the bits of me to be present.  Allowing the silence to deepen my connection to myself.  I let myself be filled up, sharing space and energy with other women, each on her own journey, each in her own space, facing her own longings, fears, awakenings, awareness, and insights as retreat worked on us.  It was healing, cathartic, transformative, and I am deeply grateful for it all. 

As we cycle through life, when we can allow ourselves to follow Awareness, Recovery, and Retreat, we grow.  We evolve.  We let go.  We connect.  We become.  The next iteration of who we are in this moment of life emerges.  We open to what’s possible.  We face hard truths.  We heal.  And then we do it all over again.  Maybe this is all life asks of us.  

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Yes, and... Life is One Big Improv

8/14/2023

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I got together with a friend/teacher/mentor/coach the other day and I’m so glad I did.  As we sat outdoors, enjoying our coffee and lemonade, we talked for over 2 hours about life, death, struggle, and joy.  We shared our truths and our hearts.  So grateful for precious 1:1 time like this - real conversation, heartfelt connection and care for one another, true interest in what’s going on in each other’s worlds.  This man and I do not shy away from the hard topics.  We dive right in.  But we don’t wallow in the misery, by any means.  He also reminded me about joy and the ability to choose.
 
He reignited within me a desire for joy by sharing his commitment to only take on work that brings him joy.  Even in important, life-altering work, joy is possible.  Even with something as heavy as supporting people around substance use and recovery, joy is possible.  I want to work with people who are open to wonder, awe, delight, even in the hardest and heaviest of times.  No doubt watching a loved one struggle, fearing for their life, or losing them certainly are some of the hardest, scariest, heaviest times I’ve known. 

And yet, even after Nate’s death, there are turkeys in wildly unexpected places, owls everywhere, feathers dropping out of nowhere, song lyrics, people appearing out of the blue to amaze and delight us, to touch our hearts, to wake us up to the mystery beyond what our little human minds understand.  Even now he reminds me to be touched by the life we shared, the moments of joy and delight, the laughter, the not-so-serious times before things got so serious, and even the joy we found while they were very serious. 

I don’t need to carry the yoke of his death around my neck forever because the delights of life are also still available to me.  Wonder and awe are everywhere if my eyes are attuned to look for them.  Joy dances in my heart, waiting to be set free.  At a campfire, watching grown women blow bubbles, listening to heart-wrenching music with my sister while coyotes yip and yap in the nearby hedge, feeling both invigorated and a little terrified all at once.  Dancing and singing at a P!nk concert, surrounded by glitter, boas, pink tie-dye, and neon landscapes, holding my breath while she soars overhead, praying that cable and harness hold.  Taking in the early morning sun as it casts its light on the hills, on the lake.  Appreciating moments of silence, the stillness of this day.  The fact that I get another day.  That I get to have time with friends who are delightful rays of sunshine.  Getting to connect with one of Nate’s close friends, and being able to bake for her and get to know him through her heart and eyes.  Time for yoga, time to clean if and when I feel like it.  Making time to write and letting go of any rules I might have once held about what a blog should be.  All these things carry their own kind of miraculous wonder and awe. 

Yes, there is a lot of shit in the world.  A lot of angry, scared, exasperated, and aggressive people out there. I see them every time I hit the highway - their energy shouts at me from their window stickers and their rapid pole-positioning.  I see them online venting their frustrations and accusations.  People who are afraid act out; they try to control because too much feels out of control.  I get it. I’ve been there. 

And yet… music is still being made, gorgeous cakes are being baked and decorated, birds still sing, butterflies dance unaware of this craziness, campfire flames leap and kiss marshmallows to golden perfection, stories are shared, memories held, poems melt hearts, dreams ignite, and beauty  is everywhere. 

If only we slow down enough to notice, even when our hearts are broken, love and wonder, awe and delight are everywhere, available, waiting.  Each day, each moment offering a new beginning.  We do not need to buy into the story that life must be a slog.  We do not need to take on the “poor me” persona that comes when people know you’ve had a devastating loss, are facing a dire challenge, or are in treatment for a disease they’re calling fatal.  Hope can remain.  Miracles abound. Truly. 

Sometimes it’s a game to catch Nate’s signs and to simply delight in them.  I let him know I get it. I see him.  I hear him.  I feel it.  I laugh. I thank him. 

Life does not have to be a burden to bear.  Couples do not have to play out the sitcom roles of annoying and being annoyed with one another.  Workers do not have to surrender their joy for a job they hate, be available for it when they have nothing left to give or when they’re supposed to be done for the day.  No one is obligated to be on call all the time.  Turn off the damn phone and be present with the people right here, to this moment offering itself for your delight. 

We can take back the joy.  Even after the unimaginable has pierced our hearts.  Our hearts still long for love, laughter, excitement, delight.  They really, really do.  Don’t worry.  It doesn’t erase the pain or negate the loss.  But, living in endless suffering honors no one.  Living in constant fear serves no one.  Pushing beyond the point of exhaustion is good for no one.  So, bring on the joy.  Show up to life and embrace it wildly. 

Let life live through you.  Yes, I am broken hearted at the loss of my son, and still I get up each day and engage with life.  Yes, I wish he were still here and we had one more chance, and we don’t, so I choose how I will continue to live. 

Where can you find ways to say, “Yes, this bad thing has happened or is happening, and… still I will ____ (have fun, find delight, rest, create peace, etc., whatever is true for you).”  or “Yes, I do have this responsibility/commitment/obligation, and still I can_____________” 

​Where can you free yourself to live life a little less burdened and a little more playful?  Where can you get curious?  What opportunities might you give yourself?  Because one thing I now know for sure is that life is one big improv.  We don’t know what will be thrown our way, and so it’s up to us to choose, moment by moment how to respond.  How to engage.  

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Going On...Even when Life is Forever Changed

5/5/2023

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PictureImage by Dorothe from Pixabay
Nine years ago, I had just begun writing a beautiful little book of healing poems and prayers, or rather I should say I was being woken up by words that compelled me to get up and write them down.  The writing was helping me to process life, and I thought the book was going to be called “Garden of Inspiration.”  About 6 months in, it became clear that that title did not embody all that wanted to be written.  That life was more than just sunshine and rainbows, and people needed to feel not alone even in the dark, horrible, scary, and sad times.  The subtitle for what would become 111 Invitations, “Step into the Full Richness of Life” was born.  It’s a not-so-cute phrase to reflect that sometimes life is horribly painful and sometimes beautifully wonderful and a lot of times kind of just meh… and all of it is part of this human experience we seem to have signed up for.  

Last year after one of my closest friends, Mary Lally, died on Christmas Eve, I wrote about grief, trying to capture the grace and pain of it.  When I wrote Good Grief, Gratitude and Grace and Swimming in the Messy Stages of Grief, I thought I knew what I was talking about.  Maybe I did for that particular grief journey.  However, I am learning that grief takes many forms and shows up in surprising and profoundly non-linear ways.  It’s slow, it’s sneaky, it’s exhausting and intense, and it permeates everything at times (much like pepper juice on half a pizza that seeps over and tarnishes the whole thing).  

In the past 14 years, I’ve navigated a journey that has been deeply challenging and has brought a lot of grief, along with a huge amount of deep and enduring love.  That love continues even though on March 29th, our beautiful son, Nate died.  The pain from this loss is unlike any I’ve ever experienced and as many people in my life have reflected, “It’s unimaginable.”  In the beginning the shock carried and protected us pretty well, getting us through the tasks that had to be handled immediately.  And at the same time, the sense of sacredness landed in my heart as a clear truth - we didn’t have to rush to decide about many things.  We could wait to create a service in a way and at a time that felt right to us.  We did not need to conform to societal norms (Nate never did, so why should we!?) despite pressure from several of his friends who understandably wanted to pay their respects and memorialize him in some way.  

Go ahead and do what you will, I told them.  I can’t do this for you, and anything other than keeping my circle really close and small right now would have wrecked me.  I pondered whether there might be value in grieving in community and maybe we should have a service sooner, but we were not ready yet.  Even now, much remains unclear, and we will just take it one moment at a time. 
What I can say with confidence now that I’m living this dreaded life experience, is that the practices and teachings I’ve been living and sharing for the past decade really are working for me.  They have resourced me well and allowed me to somehow keep on going, to show up for life, to live, albeit with a lot of heartache and emptiness.  

I am so deeply grateful I am that we had found compassionate, kind, and loving ways to be in relationship with Nate over the past few years, that we had many honest, deep, and healing conversations.  There is no question for any of us how much love connected us all.  That is in large part thanks to a meditation practice which built the capacity to cultivate a heart that can hold it all,  expanded open-hearted compassion, and taught us to turn toward life as it is.  It’s also in large part a benefit of Recovery Coach training which helped us to understand addiction and recovery differently than we had in the past.  The Invitation to Change approach definitely helped us foster trust and a loving, respectful relationship.  Thank God we had that approach alive and well in our lives.  I cannot imagine the regret that would haunt me now had we not.  

Now to highlight a few of the things that have helped over the past decade (or longer) that continue to resource me now.  It would have been much harder to incorporate these things into my life now had I not cultivated them over time.  I believe they are always helpful and especially when there is one big thing that might consume our lives, whether that’s a child who struggles, work that takes over, a parent or loved one who requires our care.  There are big things that can begin to define us and our entire existence if we’re not aware.  When they do, it’s time to find a way back to ourselves.  

1. Getting Support - Though this list is very incomplete and the things I’m highlighting are interwoven and maybe this aspect couldn’t happen without the others, I think it’s clear to say up front that I could not be doing as well as I am through this grief without so much loving support.  I am glad that I have learned to ask for what I need, so when my sister asked whether she should come to be with me or not, I could clearly let her know that yes, I would like her to be here.  In the past there might have been more self-abandonment in not wanting to impose on her, denying my needs in order to accommodate what I imagined were hers.  

Knowing what kind of support and when I am open to receive has been critical.  If someone offered food or a healing session that I couldn’t accept in that moment, I’ve asked for rainchecks.  When the time was right, I asked friends to set up a Meal Train for us because we still don’t have the energy or focus to think about preparing meals.  People love to give, so I’ve allowed myself to receive and say, “thank you” without too much discomfort that I’m being self-centered and spoiled.  When I hit a wall from too much peopling, I give myself a break.  I’ve had to pace my interactions in order to honor my own bandwidth in this time.  Learning how to respect my own needs and capacity, even as I invite others to walk alongside me has been critical (I don’t think I could have learned it in real-time so I’m grateful for the years of self-care and focus on developing this skill which allow it to kick in in a time of crisis). 

Over the years I have been and seen others be “strong and independent”… putting off the vibe of the outstretched stop-sign hand, letting the world know, “I’m good.  I’ve got this” and then wondering why no one was offering love or support.  We, as a society, have become overly influenced by this idea of fierce independence and self-reliance.  We need each other to walk through life.  We need to open our arms and hearts and let others in when we’re struggling.  We need to understand that vulnerability is not a sign of weakness and that allowing others to show up and lend their service or their listening ear is a gift to you both.  

2. Pause - you’ve likely heard me tout the value of a pause a million times if you’ve been around for any time. The taking of a breath creates space for a supportive pause.  Even that split second gathering can be the difference between a less-than-well-crafted reaction and a more mindful response.  Practicing the pause over many years has allowed me to be gentler with myself in what is a huge pause now - allowing myself to step back and listen within to what I need and for guidance.  It’s in the pause that we access a deeper wisdom.  When we pause, we take life one moment at a time, which is really the only way to go.  When we don’t pause, we are often overtaken by fear which leads to reactivity and chaos.  In the pause, we gain a little perspective, a little space, a little breathing room.  

3. Self-Care is Vital - Renee Trudeau has taught me to slow down, quiet down, put my hands on my heart and ask, “How do I feel? What do I need?  What do I want?”  At first it felt foreign and awkward and sometimes my answer was “I have no idea…”  Over time this has become part of who I am and how I roll, thank goodness.  What this simple inquiry has allowed me to do in this time is to honor the needs and wants of my body, mind, heart, and spirit.  It has allowed me to respond to those needs and wants and to ask for help.  It’s allowed me pace myself, to honor the sacredness of this time and push aside any outside ideas or pressure of how this should go.

Self-care will look different, moment by moment.  Allowing this is critical.  Sometimes what’s needed is a nap, other times a phone call with a friend, a walk in the woods, or a good car scream!  It’s not formulaic, but rather arises out of the ability to tune in and listen to your own inner knowing.  I am deeply grateful for almost a decade of integrating this into my way of being - I could not have learned it in a time like this. 

4. Gentle Yourself - Many thanks to Jenna, a retreat participant years ago, for offering up this phrase and turning “gentle” into a verb.  As soon as I heard it, I knew what she meant.  Greet yourself with exquisite tenderness, kindness, and care - likely the way you would treat a beloved friend or child.  Often, we are most harsh with ourselves and gentling may not come naturally, but it is a profound gift when we can greet ourselves with compassion, love, and respect.  In times of deep grief or confusion, gentling allows us to be ok enough to keep showing up, one moment at a time.  

5. Honoring each Soul’s Journey - My son and I have always been deeply connected and certainly our lives were interwoven, yet several years ago, it became clear that they were also separate.  He had his path and I had mine.  Related, but distinct.  Not dependent on one another for our state of wellbeing.  It’s why I knew with every fiber of my being that I could, actually, be happier than my unhappiest child.  I would not lay that burden on him; I did not need him to be ok for me to be ok.  Thankfully my husband wisely articulated, “Yes, there’s love for him, but there’s also love for me, for us…” meaning we didn’t have to give it all away in an effort to save him.  We needed to live our life even while we loved him, supported him, and walked alongside him the best we could.  

Had my wellbeing been completely linked to his, I may well be totally devastated now, unable to imagine going on.  My heart is shattered, my life has a huge Nate-sized hole in it, and I often feel sick when I imagine forever without him in it.  And, I am going on.  I know I will find my way back to myself and into whatever this new reality becomes.  I will show up to life and live because we still have work to do, because I am determined to make our journey and his life and death matter.  

You too are more than the one thread that feels all-consuming. I promise.  Who are you beyond that?  It’s worth the time to explore.  To remember that you were a person before this thing came into your life, or even if your thing is something that’s been a part of you all your life, there’s more to you than just that.  Don’t let yourself be defined or boxed in by any one thing.  Stretch to see what more is here.  

6. Acceptance - NOT as in I’ve reached the (non-existent) final “stage” of grief, and I’ve got this, but rather an acceptance of what is here.  This goes along with #5 and also goes beyond.  Acceptance of what is, not being at war with reality, allows us to meet ourselves and our lives exactly as they are.  When we stop wishing that things were different (and believe me, I’ve never wished that more than these past 5 weeks), we can begin to live here and now with the qualities of truth and presence. This is what is.  Now what?  

Part of the acceptance that has guided me over these past many years was knowing that we could not save my son’s life.  That it wasn’t even our job to do so.  We could only love him as he is for as long as he’s here, but how long that was wasn’t up to us.  Accepting that limitation freed me to love him differently, less desperately.  It allowed us to have more honest conversations where we were each safe to share.  Accepting him as he was meant I didn’t need to impose on him what I thought he should be or how he should do things; at times I was able to consider his perspective, put myself in his shoes.  What I wanted wasn’t necessarily what he did.  I had to try to honor his autonomy and walk alongside him and try to avoid letting my fear throw me into a state of telling or yelling.  Acceptance allowed him to feel seen, heard, loved, and respected and allowed a softening in me toward his life and what the outcome might be.  

For months we’ve been pretty aware that we were watching our son die.  We did what we could to explore better supports and treatment.  We loved him fiercely.  And we also looked at quality of life, honoring that he’d prefer to live on his own, have a job, be able to write and record his music (which he did) than be in an inpatient facility, even if it would keep him safe and alive.  Acceptance allowed me to choose who I wanted to be and how I wanted to show up, even when I was terrified that he would die.  Acceptance allowed us to have a closer, more loving and trusting, open relationship than we would have otherwise.  And acceptance now allows each of us to grieve in our own way at a our time, knowing that we will need and want different things at different times.  Navigating together, but individually.  

7. Cultivating a Heart that can Hold It All - this is a phrase I first heard from Buddhist meditation teacher, Tara Brach, and it’s one I’ve taken to heart ever since.  It’s the idea that seemingly contradictory states of being can coexist in a way that the mind can’t make sense of but the heart can.  It requires us to get away from black and white, either/or, all or nothing thinking and to recognize that even in the most painful times, there is also beauty, peace, and joy.  Making room in our hearts for it all to be there is exquisite, because it’s already all there anyway.  Often, we are just overly focused on one or the other, squeezing one out because it doesn’t seem to fit, adding to our suffering by not allowing ourselves the full richness of this human experience.  

A meditation practice that invites us to sit with the breath, to notice what we’re noticing, but not need to rush to fix or change it, helps us to develop this capacity to be with all of life.  To turn toward even the pain and discomfort, to sit in it, not needing to rush past.  

There are times when I’m sick and tired of this grief thing that has landed like a cloak on our world, and I’d like to just get on, get “back to normal,” but at a deeper level I know there is no going back. There is no normal any more.  I can only go forward into what is next, and as exhausting and uncomfortable as it is, I don’t want to bypass the divinely human experience of a deep grief that reflects a profound loss and a deep love.  

At times I’ve wondered if I’m doing this wrong because I see people look at me, expecting that I will be devastated all the time - how could I not be?  I’ve lost my child.  But I’m not.  I mean, I’m on the verge of tears most of the time, thoughts of Nate and the ache and longing to hold him one more time don’t ever go away, but I can also take in the beauty of a magnolia bloom, laugh with a friend, find comfort in mindless TV, sleep at night, and be grateful for the lack of worry that comes with knowing where he is.  When I think of forever without him, I get punched in the gut with a wave of nausea, I lose my breath… and so I ride that wave.  I allow it to be here (because, as we’ve already acknowledged, it is here) without pushing it away.  If I get sick and tired of saying the same things over and over again (which I do), I allow the sick and tired.  It’s amazing how much our hearts can hold if only we allow them to.  

8. Gratitude - I have been practicing gratitude for at least 12 years now and it truly has changed my experience of life.  (You can check out the research on how gratitude actually rewires our brains).  It hasn’t changed my life circumstances, because most of those are out of my control.  But it has changed how I walk through life, what I focus on, what I notice.  Gratitude is one of the simplest things you can weave into your life.  In any moment you can pause, get quiet, look around and notice what you’re grateful for.  Whether you speak it out loud, write it down, or simply notice, take a moment to breathe it in to your being.  What does it feel like to feel grateful?  Where in your body do you notice it?  

I notice a softening and expansion in my heart, a fullness and deepening of my breath, a broadening of my perspective in that moment of “oh yes… this is here too.”  The more we look for things to appreciate in life, the more it becomes part of who we are.  Every day I take photos of beauty, inside and outside my home.  It’s part of my gratitude.  I also reflect every evening on what I’m grateful for over the course of the day.  Sometimes I pause and reflect in the morning before I get out of bed.  I’m grateful the sun came up again, and I have one more day.  I’m grateful for my tears which give me the natural release for this grief.  I’m grateful for the friends who let me carry on and share my raw feelings with them.  I’m grateful for the birds singing outside my window, the sunlight, the stunning beauty of the sky and sunset, the fresh burst of blooms that remind me of new life, even in the presence of death.  

9. A Huge Dose of Grace and Self-Compassion is always of benefit.  

That’s what I have to offer today, 5 weeks into the most profound grief of my life.  I’m here.  I’m still me even as me is forever changed.  The core of who I am and what I know have been deeply impacted by this loss, and yet they carry me still.   
​
I hope that maybe there’s something here you can bring into your life to help carry you when times get hard as well as when things are flowing smoothly.  I’d love to hear what resonates with you or what challenges you.  Please share in the comments or drop me a note.  I may not reply right away (or even at all) - that’s part of gentling myself right now.  But you reading and responding always matters.  Thanks for being here as we walk this human journey in all its richness.  

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Carrying Pain

2/19/2023

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Pain.  Fear.  Worry.  I’m noticing lots of us don’t know what to do with these very human, and very uncomfortable experiences.  Many of us have been conditioned to push through pain.  We don’t understand or don’t want to sit with it.  After all, we live in a culture that says things like, “No pain, no gain!” (Which, by the way I call bullshit on!). 

If we allow it, our pain informs us.  It tells us when something is wrong.  It lets us know we need some loving care.  It begs us to rest and regroup - to nurture ourselves until we’re ready to consider what to do. 

We all carry pain.  One of the elements of mindful self-compassion is common humanity, reminding us all humans suffer.  It’s part of our shared human experience, not a sign of weakness and not something that happens to you alone. 

I have found myself living with some really heavy pain mixed with a lot of fear lately.  At times I’ve found myself feeling flat and dull like a cardboard shirt liner.  Some days it’s a slog to simply do the next thing.  Other days I compartmentalize a bit and put the painful stuff aside to enjoy being with myself or with a friend.  One thing I know for sure is the more I’m able to express or share my pain, the less burdened I feel. 

When we try to carry it alone, giving it nowhere to go, no release, no expression, no tears or screams, it eats us up inside.  It comes out - always - just maybe not in a healthy way.  Sideways, misdirected, harmful. 

What Helps
​

What helps me in these times is to talk about it with someone who simply listens without trying to fix or advise.  It helps me to write about it.  It helps me to cry, even if the tears come from an unrelated song or movie.  It helps to get outdoors and look for beauty.  Because what’s scaring me is so outside my control, it helps to find what I can control - picking one small task and seeing it through (I’m talking super small, like getting a load of laundry through the dryer or wiping down one kitchen counter). 

I’m learning to be with my pain, and to not be with it alone.  Give it space.  Give it voice before its pressure builds up and blows, before I become so numb that I hide away and lose myself to the world. 

Where did we learn to believe we have to be OK all the time?  That it’s weak to admit we’re hurting or scared?  Maybe from parents who held it all together as they went through hard times.  Parents who did what they had to do to get through, who weren’t raised to talk about their sorrows or hardships and didn’t know how to care for themselves.  Maybe from a world that feels hard and harsh - a world that instructs us to hide our tears and “get over” our grief. 

                     Pain carried alone is like poison, slowly taking us down. 

What if we faced pain together?  

As we face our scary realities, I wonder what might happen if we can each let down our armor.  Maybe we can be afraid together.  Maybe in that fear, we can break through - maybe shared vulnerability will help us face what we need to in a realistic way.  Maybe.  Maybe if we trusted one another to be honest and open about what’s going on, we can face it together.  Maybe if we stopped pretending we’re OK, maybe if we’d open our hearts to one another, take a breath, slow down long enough to be really real, maybe then we’d get somewhere.  Stop pushing, stop running and let ourselves break down to break through. 

Maybe we need to stop jumping too quickly to problem-solving and let ourselves admit just how scared we are first.  Maybe we can admit we don’t know what’s coming or how things can change, and then uncover some fresh ideas.  What if we could learn from each other’s fears as we share our own?  Can we come together to find a way forward?  It seems worth a shot. 

Hurt people hurt people.  Let’s be people who are healing to help others heal.  It will take some time.  We have time.  It’s always better to slow things down than to try to operate from a place of reactivity.  Our pain and our problems deserve our time, our attention, our love, and our full presence.  Especially when things feel really dire.  In those moments, may we open our hearts to one another, let our whole selves come through, and come together to find our way on.    
 
To the One Who is Hurting
by Barb Klein
 
To you, Dear One,
                The one who’s not doing as well
                as you’d like the world to believe,
I see you
I feel for you
I know what it’s like -
                to armor up and soldier on
                to put on a smile when you feel empty inside
                to feel lost and alone, and oh, so scared
Where do you turn?
How do you let it out     
                so you don’t carry this unbearable weight
                alone?
Please let yourself let down
                some way, somewhere…
Please…
Don’t carry this alone. 
It will tear you up inside
And leave you as destroyed
                as the one you worry about.
Please, find someone -
                let someone walk by your side.
You don’t have to pretend to be OK.
Really.
In each of us there lies a secret pain -
                too big to let out, we fear,
                afraid it will take over the moment it’s revealed
You are not alone.
You are one of thousands of millions,
                pretending to be OK,
                shoving it down, this poisonous pain,
                burying it away,
                hurting and hurting and hurting some more.
Let it out.
Let someone in.
You do not have to carry this alone.
When pain is shared
                it becomes less heavy -
                perhaps.
Perhaps a new possibility might arise…
                if not, at least you can face it -
                together.
It’s too much for one person to bear, this poisonous pain.
I see you
I feel you
I’ve been there (just yesterday, in fact)
I wrap you in a love that reminds you -
                You do not suffer alone
Let’s carry this together
                as we step into this day,
Not pretending we’re OK 
It’s OK
We’ll go on and find our way
Somehow
Some way
We will get through another day
 
Gentle yourself in whatever way you need.  Rest when you need to. Know that pain doesn't have to be pushed through and that it's not weak to ask for help.  Cry.  Scream.  Write.  Whatever works for you to get out any pain you're holding.  Let it out, get it out so that it doesn't tear you up inside. Please offer yourself tons of grace.  Find your own version of what helps.  

And if, in this moment, you're feeling peaceful, relaxed and full of joy!  Great!! Soak that in - breathe it in to your bones so you remember you can find this feeling when you need it.  

As always, please meet yourself with kindness, gentleness, tenderness, and compassion.  And know that you are not alone. 

I offer you this meditation, In Painful Times, as a practice to support you.  

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Out of the Darkness & Into the Light...

12/21/2022

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As I revisit and revise this post, originally written for MomPower in 2020 and then re-written for this blog last year, I am feeling into what's alive for me at this moment. I am grateful to re-read this message and take it into my own heart as I sit with myself with tears streaming down my face. I offer it to you again with love.  

​Today marks the winter solstice here in the Northern Hemisphere.  On this darkest day of the year, the pivotal moment between dark and light, it is the perfect time to honor the darkness that has come into our lives.  It is a time to honor those who have been lost and to remember them with love.  It is a time to honor the struggle and the perseverance of those who are on a challenging journey and to honor ourselves and other loved ones who have also found a way through the darkness. 

In honoring the darkness and in grieving the losses we have endured, we bring those moments into the light.  When we bring them into the light, they are no longer hiding in the shadows, lurking in shame, or hidden in silence.  We claim and name our experience.  We see it for what it has been.  We presence it. 

When we do this, we are able to step forward into the light.  Just as the days begin to get longer with a bit more light from tomorrow on, we too can begin to bring more light into our homes and our beings. 

Addiction, cancer, mental illness (to name a few) are painful diseases, as you undoubtedly know.  They affect everyone in their wake and can take down entire families with the weight of suffering. 

However (and this is a big however), the journey into darkness does not have to take us out forever.  It is possible to find hope, joy, peace, love, and to create a brighter tomorrow, even when we have been impacted by a loved one's disease. 

If you are reading this, you are alive, and for that fact alone there is reason to celebrate.  You have been given the opportunity to live one more day.  What will you do with this one precious life you have been given?  How will you set your soul free to express itself?  What is uniquely yours to do?

Is there some way to honor your journey up to this very moment--the good, the bad, and the ugly, the full messiness of it all?  The painful, the joyous, the fearfulness, and the hope?  Whatever it’s looked like in the past, today marks a new day, albeit a short one.  Tomorrow offers the light of fresh possibility, as each day does.  How do you want to step into tomorrow? 

If we are able to find a way to turn our pain (or darkness) into possibility (or light), we can transform these heavy experiences into something that serve and support us and others.  We can show up for life more fully.  We can become who we were born to be. With each loss I experience I also experience a fresh resolve to live this life even more fully. 

Let’s face it, the past 3 years have carried a full load of darkness, collectively, along with anything that you might have experienced personally. 

For many the holidays are emotionally-charged times and may bring in a healthy mix of emotions… sadness, joy, celebration, loneliness. I know I will be feeling both sadness for those who are not with us during this holiday season as well as joy and gratitude for those who are. 

There is room for it all.  When we allow ourselves to feel it all, to allow our hearts to carry this messy mix of what makes us human, we are able to move through it. 

“Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.” ~ Brene Brown
 
So, let this pivotal day be a day that marks the honoring of both the dark and the light.  Let us take a step back and look at the big picture of our lives and recognize that our experiences have not been all good or all bad, but rather a mix of both. 

These diseases can entomb us with their heavy cloak of darkness if we let them, but we can choose to lift up the corner of that cloak and peek outside.  We can lay down the heaviness and step into the light.  We get to choose. 

We may well prefer the moments of lightness, light-heartedness, and light in general, but there is also a gift to receive during the dark and challenging times.  We must be willing to sit with this part of our reality if we are to truly enjoy the light. 

I have found that it is in the dark where I have grown the most.  I wonder if that might be true for you as well.  I offer you this poem for consideration.  

The Places We Grow
It’s in the dark,
in the shadows,
where we stretch and grow.
 
We face ourselves
and see a new or forgotten aspect,
a piece we’d rather ignore or deny.
 
But there it is…
staring us down,
daring us to change,
to find a new way,
or to simply come into acceptance.
 
Sometimes it’s about overcoming
or adjusting.
Finding a way to do this with
love, compassion,
and gentle communion.
 
Honoring the self…
who I am,
where I am,
what I need,
what my baggage is.
 
And stepping into a deeper layer,
excavating and shifting,
allowing new light in,
and new hope out.
 
These are the places we grow –
often watered
and nourished with tears.
 © Barb Klein, 2016, “The Places We Grow,” from 111 Invitations: Step into the Full Richness of Life
 
Where and how can you nourish yourself today?  How might you allow some new light in--to your being, to your life?  How can you allow a little more hope to shine into the world? 
 
Begin by greeting yourself exactly where you are--gently, with tenderness, care, and compassion.  Offer yourself the space and grace to feel into what’s alive within your heart at this moment.  Ask your heart what it needs at this moment to be truly nurtured and nourished.  Then respond accordingly.  You deserve your own loving care.
 
We are on the cusp of a new year and we can only hope that 2023 is bringing with it new possibility, hope, and fresh beginnings.  Today let’s pause.  Let’s look at our lives and our loved ones with reverence. Let’s honor this journey where we have walked, crawled, and stumbled while we look ahead to the light of new creativity.  Let’s let this darkest day of the year—December 21-- be a personal pivotal moment for us to enter an illuminated future.  
​

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Mind Your Business

11/30/2022

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I’ve heard this said a number of ways from the not very nice “Mind your own business!” to a gentler reminder to “stay in your lane, in your boat, or in your hula hoop.”  I’ve come to take it as sage wisdom, not a harsh rebuke.  A “prescription for peace” as my friend and colleague, Joanne Richards, calls it. 

When we love someone with substance use disorder or other mental health issues, we can find ourselves in their business a lot.  They aren’t doing well.  Things don’t add up.  The stories we’re getting or what we’re observing don’t compute with what we’re being told, so we’re going to get to the bottom of it. But, can we, really?  We’re not in the other person’s head or life, so we won’t truly know what’s happening unless they share it with us.  We can only make up our own stories.  Stories which often lead to more wondering, more worrying, more distress. 

We can do this with friends and other loved ones too - they haven’t called or replied to a text.  What’s that mean?  Are they mad?  Did I do or say something wrong?  Are they ok?  What’s wrong?   People are complex, so we never know what may or may not have upset someone.  We don’t really know what’s going on for them unless we talk to them directly about it.  Our mind masterfully, effortlessly, and unknowingly dreams up disaster scenarios in the blink of an eye.

How do we know when we’re out of our business?

Here are some of the common ways we might find ourselves out of our business and into someone else’s. Read through with gentleness and without self-judgment.  Maybe some familiar to you too. Great!  You’ve just raised your awareness!  Now you get to choose what to do with that! 
  • Finding ourselves wrapped up in fear, struggle, and resentment. 
  • Spending an inordinate amount of time thinking about this other person.  Checking the phone for calls or texts or checking in with them repeatedly.  Monitoring their activity and whereabouts.  Believing you need to know what’s going on with them.  If you don’t hear from them, you worry if they’re all right.  
  • Lying in bed, mind drifting into sleuth mode trying to piece together bits of stories or observations to figure out what’s really going on (at least in a way that makes sense to the mind).  Looking for inconsistencies, trying to make sense of what’s unknown.  When we don’t know the truth of what’s real, we make up all kinds of stories so our mind has something to hold onto. 
  • Seeking answers to the unknown, forgetting that we can never really know the future.  
  • Losing sleep grasping for control in any way we can because things feel so out of control.  
  • Wandering throughout the day aimlessly during unscheduled times.  Unsure what to do, nervous energy carrying us from one thing to the next… doing a little of this and a little of that, but lacking the focus to dive deeply into any one thing for any length of time. 
  • Eating for comfort rather than for hunger or nourishment.  “Stress eating” is a real thing… and I am very, very good at it!  Eating our feelings… it happens!  
  • Connecting our sense of peace and well-being directly to someone else’s.  Unless they’re doing well, we can’t be either. 

How do you know when you’re out of your business and into someone else’s?  What are your clues?

Why does it matter?

This is particularly important for those of us with whom mental health is at play or substance use is in the field because chaos and frenzy can easily become the norm, and it can consume you. 

Finding ourselves out of our business matters because in those moments we are not honoring our peace and well-being.  We are sacrificing them to concerns that are out of our control.  We may be adding on to the suffering by beating ourselves up for doing this because “we know better.”  Knowing and doing are not the same thing, turns out!

Byron Katie talks about “your business, their business, and God’s business.”  Much of what we worry about falls in the latter 2 categories, so when we can rein it in and come back home to this being, to our business, we can relax a bit.  If we accept the reality of what we can control or even influence, we will see that it’s very little of our world.  Maybe then we can give up trying… In a really healthy way. 

When I find myself out of my own business and fretting about someone else I can actually say to myself, “OK, come back here… right here.  This breath, this body, this being” and feel myself relax into the true moment I’m in. 

What can you do differently?

Here are some ideas that have worked for me.  YOU are the expert on you.  See what resonates with you and what you might like to try.  What do you know to do but have lost track of or gotten out of the practice of doing? (It happens to all of us!)

Begin by shifting the focus back from the other person to yourself.  To your self-awareness, personal growth, to your peace, your joy, your desires, the core of who you are. 

Shift your focus from what’s wrong to what’s right or good in your life.  Recognize that this is not an either-or proposition.  We live within the whole of it.  There is always beauty and goodness to be found.

Find simple tasks that have a start and finish to them (or break larger tasks down into small chunks) - that sense of completion can be very satisfying. 

It takes practice to come back to ground, back to center, when you live in never-ending chaos.  To come home to yourself requires self-awareness in order to even know that you’ve left yourself.  It takes a willingness to break the cycle of spin. 

It takes a desire to honor your peace and well-being.  We say we value these things over and over, yet how often do we de-prioritize them in favor of something else, consciously or unconsciously?  How often do we push them away, choosing to swim in fear and despair instead?  How often do we forget that we really do have choices about our own behavior?  Where do we begin? 

Begin with a PAUSE.  You’ve likely heard me say this a million times, because this is the number one tool I know for getting grounded.  Take a breath.  Take a step back.  Observe yourself - what are you doing?  Where is your mind going?  Get into your body and feel your breath moving in and out of you. 

Rather than push away the worrisome thoughts and feelings, allow them to be there (they’re here anyway, and we really can’t stop them from coming).  Meet them gently, with love, with understanding, with compassion and care.  Feelings come whether they make sense or not.  The thoughts you have probably do make sense, especially if past history has shown you what could happen.  When we stop fighting with them or beating ourselves up for having them, they may just dissolve on their own.  Likely they will at least soften.  Put your hand on your heart or give yourself a gentle hug and just tend to your own precious being.

Also, get curious.  Question your thoughts - are you certain that they’re true?  What happens for you when you let go of or stop repeating a distressing story?  When you stop spinning it over and over in your mind or telling it to others?  Notice what you feel in your body, heart, and mind.  What’s different in your energy and presence?

Once you catch yourself solidly in someone else’s business, find the practices that support you in disengaging and realigning with your true self, getting solid within your core. 

How can you give yourself a break?  How might you take some time and space away, for yourself?  Putting the phone on Do Not Disturb, turning it off, or putting it away is one of the greatest things we can do for our own mental health these days.  This little device can pull us out of the present more quickly than anything I know.  It breaks connection with the person right in front of you (even having your silent phone out can do that - if it pings or chimes even more so). For more on that, check out Omega's article, "Put Down Your Device & Pick Up Your Life." 

Also, if and when it makes sense, connect.  Reach out.  Listen to what’s up for the other person.  You can share your concerns if there’s an opportunity to do so in a loving (non-lecturing) way, but it may be more valuable just to get together and listen, really listen. 

Give yourself time for your own nourishment and nurturing. Are you eating in a way that truly feeds you, body, mind, and spirit?  Are you getting the sleep you need?  Drinking enough water?  These are some of the basics, so start there. 

Then, stretch a bit… when was the last time you just let yourself have fun?  Played for no reason at all?  Laughed out loud so hard you thought you’d pee your pants?  Lazed around doing whatever you wanted for more than 5 minutes, without guilt or apology? 

Nourishing our bodies, minds, hearts, and spirits is a worthwhile endeavor.   Unless and until we take care of ourselves, we’re going to keep showing up to life in a way we don’t like - frenzied, frantic, scared, angry, yelling… 

Tune in to who you want to be and how you want to be, especially in this relationship. Do what you can to reconnect with that version of you.  

Send out a prayer or light a candle for a person you love who you’re concerned about.  Send love out through the airwaves - this fills you both up with this beautiful energy. 

Send loving texts of support and don’t wait for or even expect a reply.  Stop asking questions you don’t really want the answers to or won’t believe anyway. 

Breathe and ease up.  Consider that things might be ok (because maybe they really are).  Let go of being the 911 operator, and maybe don’t be available for all the crises when they arrive.  Stop being the one who thinks they have to connect all the dots. 

Continue to learn and practice healthier, more effective, more intentional ways of being.  Allow yourself to be imperfect and awkward as you try out things that might not come naturally.  Discover the payoff for yourself. 

What if?

What if things are working out in a way you can’t see or imagine?  They might be.  Isn’t it as possible as the disaster scenarios the mind so skillfully devises? 

Permission to hope, to dream, and to remember that miracles happen all the time.  You’ve heard the stories.  Why couldn’t they be true for you or your loved one? 

Remember to catch moments and appreciate the beauty that they offer.  Lean into enchantment over fear.  Rest into good enough and stop doing too much.  Gentle yourself through the hard times.  Remember, you are most worthy of your own love.  And know that you are most certainly not alone in the struggles. 

Thoughts? 

How does this land with you? What are the ways you get back to your own business, your own center when life pulls you off?  Please share in the comments.  We learn together.  We grow together.  We find new ways when offered a fresh perspective.  

And, if you would like to join Joanne Richards for her next (free program) Prescription for Peace on Saturday, December 10th, please register here.  I find her offerings invaluable, and will be there!  Maybe I'll see you!  Who couldn't use a little more peace at this time of year?  

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Recovery is Possible

6/5/2022

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By guest blogger, Cathy Taughinbaugh, Certified Parent and Life Coach
 
When my daughter emerged from recovery, I felt the relief of being able to let go of the stress and fear I had been feeling. The changes she'd made in her life lifted a weight off my shoulders.  
 
I realized that I was now looking at a person who could overcome challenges, learn from life lessons, and have the discipline to stay on track. I felt a shift and the changes in her, yet there was the whisper of fear. As time went on, I found I could put those fears away and embrace the new possibilities of life.
 
Good News!
 
While you may have heard that addiction is a hopeless condition, the good news is that most people do find their way to recovery from substance use and overcome other problems getting in the way of living a healthy life.
 
Recovery for many means letting go of the devastating misuse of alcohol or other drugs that have derailed their lives.
 
When a loved one emerges from a substance use problem, families have many options. For example, some live with parents or other family members. Others live in a recovery house or transitional living. I have seen people change their lives and thrive against all odds. Many different paths can lead to living a healthier life. We need to embrace them all and support what works for our loved ones. 
 
According to John Kelly, PhD, "In 2016, my colleagues and I surveyed another nationally representative sample. We discovered that the national prevalence of those in recovery is approximately 9.1 percent or 22.35 million U.S. adults. Nearly one in 10 persons in the U.S. has recovered or is recovering from a substance use disorder.”
 
Kelly goes on to say,” The statistics are tremendously encouraging about recovery. Still, it's important to recognize that the recovery change process is complicated. The journey to remission can be bumpy, and it can take a long time."
 
Yet, people's lives get better after working through a substance use problem. People in recovery from addiction will tell you that. Most who do recover go on to get a job, go back to school or give back to their community by volunteering. The more years a person has in recovery, the more their life improves.
 
Any positive change can bring excitement, coupled with the pride around the hard work that it took your loved one to make the change.
 
Change can be challenging. The temptation to fall back into old ways is always there. Yet as time goes on, the change process feels more comfortable and automatic. New habits become ingrained and that helps prevent relapse.
 
Families Recover
 
We are all recovering from something, and each family member can find their unique path to leading a better life, supporting their loved one's change, or learning new approaches to life for themselves.
 
For instance, my recovery was about letting go of focusing all my attention on our family's issues. I needed to learn to find myself again and regain the balance in my life. 
 
As time went on, I put things into place that helped me, such as exercise, writing, yoga, and keeping friends and family close. 
 
The more you support yourself and your loved one in this delicate process, the better. Family members can be a source of encouragement and hope for their loved ones. That support can be unique to your family, as everyone's recovery path is different. 
 
Whatever we are waiting for – peace of mind, contentment, grace, the inner awareness of simple abundance – it will surely come to us, but only when we are ready to receive it with an open and grateful heart. ~ Sarah Ban Breathnach
 
For anyone making a change, it takes time to get back to themselves. The exciting part is that your loved ones will be able to access the many possibilities for their lives as they move forward. It will be rewarding to observe your family's new direction.
 
And with any change comes the need for healing, compassion, and understanding. 
 
It's crucial to stay connected to your loved one. Everyone needs a support system, especially when you are making a change in your life. 
 
A support system will give you the mental and emotional nourishment to stay on track each day. 
 
Everyone feels better when communication is open and positive. When people feel better, they tend to do better. Having a clear understanding of how others are doing and what you can do to help lays the foundation for change.
 
That includes noticing the hard work your loved one is doing to maintain their recovery, keeping your emotions in check, and taking time to listen without judgment. 
 
Our brains start to look for the positive when we approach life, looking for possibilities rather than getting caught up in worrying about what could happen. 
 
The shift in thinking can be contagious. The more you can support and encourage your family members, the better off your loved one will be. 
 
Everyone will benefit if each family member can focus on themselves and how they can contribute in a helpful way. 
 
You can stay connected to your loved one. You can be a positive influence and take care of yourself.
 
Finally, having a sense of gratitude for what is going well in your life also lights the flame of possibilities. Gratitude helps you notice what is going well in your life and keeps your mind on a positive track.
 
Recovery is possible for anyone. Know there is hope and that change is often right around the corner. 
 
Cathy Taughinbaugh is a Certified Parent and Life Coach, and the author of The Compassion Antidote: A Path to Change for You and Your Child Struggling with Substance Use.  You can find out more about Cathy’s work and book at her site: https://cathytaughinbaugh.com/

 


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    About me...

    I am a writer, coach, and teacher, and I love capturing life's many moments through writing, whether that be journalling, blogging, poetry, or essay.  I have always found the written word as a natural way for me to express what lies within.  

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Barb Klein
Inspired Possibility
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