Most people who are struggling with grief don’t come to me saying, “I want to learn to live wholeheartedly after loss.” Usually, they say something like, “I want to stop feeling so depressed/ anxious/ tired/ angry. I want to stop crying all the time/ feeling demotivated and direction-less/ avoiding intimacy because I’m afraid of loving…
Why You Should Be Suspicious of Stories About Grief & Healing
Yesterday a good friend of mine posted this video of Tyler Cowen, an economist, speaking about why we should be suspicious of stories. Tyler’s point: Stories make a messy reality seem neat, purposeful, meaningful, and that’s one of the reasons why our brains love stories. But the problem is that reality is actually very messy, complex…
How To Release Guilt & Regret When You Didn’t Get To Say What You Wanted To Say Before They Died.
The idea of “closure” has been popular idea in the world of grief counseling in the modern Western world for some time. The traditional belief is that our relationships end when someone dies and that, in order to find peace with that ending, we ideally need to have had all the conversations we would have…
The Most Important Internal Resource That Will Help You To Live Wholeheartedly After Loss
In your journey of learning to live wholeheartedly after loss, if you were able to ask a fairy godmother for just one internal resource that you’d be able to receive in abundance, what would you ask for? What character trait, mindset or internal resource do you think would make the greatest difference in your journey?…
Grieving Is Learning (And How To Grieve & Learn More Easily)
There have been a lot of attempts to describe what grieving is and how it progresses. I’ve found it really useful to see grief as simply a process of learning. Sure, it’s probably the steepest learning curve you’ve ever been on, but grieving and learning to live wholeheartedly after loss is also a lot like…
A Warm Cup Of Sani-tea
I created this collage and wrote the notes for it on 17 January 2011. Here’s what I wrote in my journal about the collage: I know deep down that now is a time of waiting. I can squirm and shout and try to force things, but nothing is happening in a hurry. I have to…
