Heavy hearts, like heavy clouds in the sky, are best relieved by the letting of a little water. -Christopher Morley Crying is good for you. Tears reduce stress hormones from your body, the remove irritants and lubricate your eye, and tears also contain antibodies. Our emotional tears help stress leave our body and increase endorphinsContinue reading “Monday Meditation: Go ahead, have a good cry.”
Author Archives: ancarroll
This Thing Called Grief (Thomas M. Ellis)
Thomas Ellis’s book This Thing Called Grief is a wonderful and digestible book on grief. At only 132 pages, you can get through it in a day if you are inclined.
Monday Meditation: Changing Perspectives
If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. -Wayne Dyer Grief is hardly an experience in which you immediately see opportunity. Grief is awful and painful and raw and exhausting. In grief, we see everything we no longer have, we see obstacles, we see fear. What if, hidingContinue reading “Monday Meditation: Changing Perspectives”
Keep Healthy Habits
Healthy habits tend to disappear when intense stress arrives. We stop exercising, we sleep less, we eat poorly, we stop making health care appointments. Non-grief-related stressors tend to come in bursts that dissipate after a time, allowing us to resume our regular healthy living habits. Grief, on the other hand, brings long-term stress that includesContinue reading “Keep Healthy Habits”
Monday Meditation: Allow for Self-Correction
If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading. -Lao Tzu Imagine life as a highway. You’re driving along, and you realize that you are going in a direction you hadn’t intended or the way you thought you wanted to go is turning into something you had not expected. YourContinue reading “Monday Meditation: Allow for Self-Correction”
Monday Meditation: A Challenge to Change
When we are no longer able to change a situation—we are challenged to change ourselves. -Viktor Frankl In the wake of a loss, we may pray that someone we know has the ability to raise the dead. Unfortunately, no one does and death remains an unchangeable situation. Frankl, who spent time in Auschwitz, knows muchContinue reading “Monday Meditation: A Challenge to Change”
Monday Meditation: Be Present
The point of power is always in the present moment. -Louise L. Hay In grief, we may tend to worry about what happened in the past or what awaits us in the future. By doing so, we worry about things we can no longer change and things that we cannot foresee. The present moment, theContinue reading “Monday Meditation: Be Present”
Monday Meditation: Rise Up.
Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. -Confucius Grief is far from a smooth path. Just when we think we have mastered some emotion or aspect of grief, something comes along and knocks us off kilter. Maybe we react badly, maybe we feel like we failed. GriefContinue reading “Monday Meditation: Rise Up.”
Monday Meditation: Strength in Forgiveness
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. -Mahatma Gandhi It takes a lot to forgive someone. Many people refuse to forgive because they may feel that forgiving means forgetting, and letting someone else off the hook for bad behavior. It is quite the opposite. Forgiving requires the ability to actContinue reading “Monday Meditation: Strength in Forgiveness”
Monday Meditation: Chose Peace of Mind
For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind. -Ralph Waldo Emerson Grief can bring all sorts of anger: at friends and family, at yourself, at your lost loved one, at no one in particular. While anger is part of the grief process, anger can also become an obstacleContinue reading “Monday Meditation: Chose Peace of Mind”
Monday Motivation: No Matter the Pace, Move Forward
It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop. -Confucius There is no time limit for when grief should be completed. You will not be able to plot grief’s endpoint on a calendar. Grief is not a race with a clearly delineated finish. Nor is grief a road tripContinue reading “Monday Motivation: No Matter the Pace, Move Forward”
Happy 71st!
Today is my mother’s 71st birthday. My mother’s birthday meant a great deal to her. Given her birthday’s proximity to July 4, her birthday became intertwined with the holiday festivities. My mother told me that, as a child, she believed Independence Day celebrations, the cookouts, and fireworks, were all for her birthday. “Yes,” she onceContinue reading “Happy 71st!”
Monday Meditation: Sharing Brings Healing
Part of the healing process is sharing with other people who care. -Jerry Cantrell There is a preconception that people should keep their suffering to themselves. Sad or unhappy conversations should not take place. We can only publically project strength, happiness, and confidence. This is nonsense. Healing requires sharing our pain with others, and inContinue reading “Monday Meditation: Sharing Brings Healing”
Monday Meditation: Grief’s one-two punch
Grief is in two parts. The first is loss. The second is the remaking of life. -Anne Roiphe The first part of grief is the easy part, believe it or not. The second part can be more challenging. Don’t be afraid to pursue the dreams you had before or to try new things. Don’t allowContinue reading “Monday Meditation: Grief’s one-two punch”
Monday Meditation: Friends + Love
The greatest healing therapy is friendship and love. -Hubert H. Humphrey Never underestimate how wonderful a good friendship can be during grief. The person who lets you vent because you just have to get things out, or who laughs at the absurd things you find in your lost one’s belongings, or who just shares allContinue reading “Monday Meditation: Friends + Love”
A.N.Carroll 