What Anger Taught Me

What anger taught me is a precious lesson I will carry with me all my life. In my twenties and thirties, anger was my weapon of choice. Growing up with an alcoholic father and a people-pleasing mother, I soon realized that being angry prevented others from taking advantage of me. Anger helped me feel powerful, strong, and…

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Am I Grieving Correctly?

Am I grieving correctly? I get this question ALL the time. Many of my clients come to me with this big, scary doubt chewing up their brain: Am I doing grief wrong? And ten times out of ten, my answer is NO. What does “doing grief wrong” look like? Here are some common answers from…

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Why it is Hard to Feel Our Feelings

feeling your feelings

Why it is hard to feel our feelings is a subject I could write an entire volume on. I remember a moment during my intense grief over my mother’s death. I was sitting on the oatmeal-colored carpet in our living space, tears streaming down my face. My husband looked at me, sighed, and asked the…

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The Dangers of Spirituality

The dangers of spirituality are not often addressed but they are real. Recently I worked with a client (we’ll call her Brenda) whose mother was diagnosed with a rare illness. The illness caused limited mobility, episodes of forgetting, and an inability to work at the non-profit, a job she loved. Now Brenda had to do…

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Grief Healing Tips: Unfinished Emotional Business

take care of unfinished emotions

In Grief Healing Tips: Unfinished Emotional Business I encourage you to take care of what remains unsaid or not done in the realm of relationships. I hate that I didn’t call Mom enough. I never got to say I’m sorry. I thought we had more time — and now I wish I’d done things differently.…

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Grief Healing Tips: No map or timeline

grief has no map or timeline

Grief Healing Tips: No map or timeline is about how grief takes its own course. As a culture we navigate our lives via Google’s search engine. We rely on Google Maps to tell us how and when we’ll get everywhere. We love 1-2-3’s, how-to’s, and formulas. Unfortunately, there is no reliable GPS, or 6-step formula that can…

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Slowing Down Grief

grief, slowing down grief, easy grief

Grief has a rhythm all its own. Slowing down grief has so many benefits in how we move through the experience. In our haste to speed our recovery, we rush around frenetically trying to find the instant-formula, or 3-quick-steps to grief relief. We make our expectations clear to a coach or counselor: I don’t have too…

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How Do You Say Goodbye?

saying goodbye

How do you say goodbye to someone you love dearly and didn’t know you’d never see again? A couple of months ago, my family and I were at King’s Cross Station in London. My 21-year-old daughter was taking a connection to Leavesden, the studio where the famous Harry Potter movies were filmed. It was a huge…

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10 Ways to Cope with a Difficult Loss

coping with difficult losses

When you lose a loved one, grief knocks you over no matter how strong you are. Here are 10 ways to cope with a difficult loss. 1) Feel your Feelings. Allow feelings to bubble up to the surface: shock, anger, denial, sadness, fear. Everyone’s grief is as individual as their fingerprints, so this order is…

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When someone you love is dying

being with the dying

When someone you love is dying, all kinds of emotions rise up. In Last Acts of Kindness: Lessons for the Living from the Bedsides of the Dying, Judith Redwing Keyssar writes: “People tend to do what makes them feel comfortable when a loved one is dying. In an attempt to control their emotions, some make…

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