Hello friends and family!
I hope you have a good Thanksgiving and Holiday season.
My last update was pretty comprehensive (and a lot). Things have slowed down considerably in accordance with the oncoming winter season. Leaves have dropped here in Eugene, but the evergreens keep their lovely emerald sheen.
One of my support groups recommended this book: “The Grief Recovery Handbook” by John James and Russell Friedman. It is pretty helpful. I am only part way into it. What I like about it is that they say you CAN recover from grief, but it involves a process of facing a lot of things. Hmmm. Reminds me of the path to enlightenment- it is a process and you have to face a lot of things. Ha ha!
Part of the process is to draw a time line and mark on it around when the different losses in your life occurred and how impactful they were. I am finding it will take a few times for me to remember them all and then to feel into them. There are huge areas I have covered over because I didn’t allow myself to be sad. In my case, during my life in the church I was conditioned/ taught that emotions were not good. I thought I should be more spiritual and just drop the “unhelpful feelings” in order to just do what I was told.
In the philosophy of Taoism, I have learned that emotions are what make your life what it is and play an important role. They motivate you and give you what you need to actually LIVE. So, Grief should not be suppressed and passed over. Jesus certainly didn’t suppress his emotions. Even when he knew he could raise Lazarus from the dead, scripture simply states: Jesus wept. Also, he didn’t hold back when he drove the money changers from the temple.
It seems that grief is connected to many events in my life, it feels like a thread inside of me. And since I am “Older” those events can be MANY. They can build upon each other, at times almost piling up. The book explains that anything that clearly changes your life is defined as a loss and has the potential of grief. Some examples: Moves, Divorces, Job changes, pet deaths, and of course death of friends and/ or family members. That can add up when you are old!
The process is to go back through these events in my mind so that I can actually feel those losses and hopefully let go and release things.
Besides all that, my yard looks beautiful and my house is getting there with all the decluttering going on. Yes, the car sale opened up a drive to create more space in my house. I clearly heard Michael telling me in my mind, “So, in case you haven’t noticed, I don’t live there anymore. You need to set the place up so that it works for YOU. Yes, it is true I have moved on…. So should you.”
Yep, he does not hesitate to talk straight to me from wherever he is!
I would like to give a shout out to Melinda Grace Wirthlin for her just published book “Reclaim Your Space with G.R.A.C.E.” (on Amazon) It couldn’t be a timelier book for me. It has many good tips on how to declutter and organize your home and some really good uses of Bible verses!
Somehow emptying my cupboards and giving to others what I truly don’t need, and reorganizing and labeling everything has been very therapeutic. It feels like something I can do for myself to make my atmosphere awesome. For me.
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