Grieving loss

There are many kinds of loss.  It is not always about someone dying.  Loss is also not a good way of describing the feelings that happen.  Loss refers to something that has been misplaced.  There is unspoken hope that you will find it.  You won’t.  It’s gone and you won’t get it back later when you look in your closet or under yesterdays News Paper.  The next time you see the person who has died will be in Heaven, if you believe in Heaven.  If not, your never seeing that person again.  If it is about a loss in relationship, an heirloom that has been ruined or stolen, a house that has burned and you have lost all of your children’s baby pictures and memories, again you have not lost them.  You will not walk into a room one day and find them again.  The feeling that happens is greater than losing something that you still have hope of finding.  It is huge and indescribable.  The pain is breathtaking.  There is no English word for it.  If it is a material thing that has been lost, you will grieve for a while and then it will pass with some sadness.  If it is a relationship it will take the rest of your life, but will lessen with time.  If the relationship has been stolen from you because of lies and deceit it will take a long time.  If it is a child, the pain will lessen, but never go away.  Talking about it helps, letting go of what you cannot control helps, praying helps and so does meditation.  Letting go of a child takes a lifetime and the pain is all-consuming at times. Allowing yourself to feel the pain and then letting go of the pain and what you have no control over is the only way to heal.  Grieving is a process, it has steps to it that are accurate.  You will not go through them and then it is over.  You will go through them many, many times before the pain lessens.  You have to walk through it in order to get to the other side, there is no other way around it.  The love for that child or person will never stop, the pain of not having them in your life any longer takes time.  You have to learn to love them without them being present.  That is not an easy task.  The relaxation and guided imagery video will help you to let go of what you cannot control.   Link to the video’s

Loving unconditionally

Most of us want to be loved unconditionally but are not always willing to give love unconditionally.  Loving unconditionally means that no matter what they do, no matter how difficult things get you will love this person.   You may not always like what they do, but you will always love them.  No strings.  No conditions.  No yeah buts.  Loving unconditionally does not mean that you have to swallow whole whatever they’re doing. You can love them unconditionally from afar.  Like the addicted person, you may have to leave until they are in a better place.  That doesn’t mean you don’t love them, It means you can’t watch them destroy themselves any longer.  It means right now you need a break from watching the destruction.  Unconditional love still can set limits.  It can still be tough.  It can still require respect from the other.  It can still want the other person to be the best they can and encourage them to do so.  Not demand, not make threats if they do not comply with what you want, but encourage.  It is their life and their decision to make what they want with it.  If you love this person it is yours to simply love them without strings with whatever decisions they decide to make about their life.  These video’s will help you to relax and give away what is getting in the way of loving unconditionally,  of letting go of what you need to in order to love unconditionally.  Link to the video’s.     Enjoy!

Closed mindedness

Close mindedness happens when you have to be in control and no one else can have an opinion other than yours.  You will not accept anyone else’s opinion because it differs from yours and you cannot be wrong.  You will close people out and anything that does not support your already existing claim or opinion.  Fear is at the core of this issue.  Fear will stop you from opening your mind to anything or anyone that is different from you and your opinion.  Fear happens when we do not understand or even want to understand anything other than what we already know.  It is safe, what we already know.  There is no pressure to understand or accept anything else.

Changing any behavior is not easy.  Changing, for a person like this has to come from them totally because they will not be open to suggestions.  If you are living with this person or love this person, you will have to accept them for who and what they are without thinking that they will ever change.  Or you will have to ask yourself “Can I live with this for the rest of my life?”  If you can’t then you will need to make the decision to stay or leave.  If by some chance they are willing to change.  The change would happen the way any change happens.  Constantly working to change the habit you want to change until the replacement behavior becomes the habit.  The total process take 3 week as I explained in an earlier blog.  It will work but it takes time and a lot of effort on the part of the person who wants to change.   These video’s will help you to relax and get rid of those things you have no control over through this change.   Link to the video’s ,   Enjoy!

Relaxing and focusing for the day

When I was younger my day was full of getting kids where they needed to be and then getting me where I needed to be. I often did not have time to think about what I was doing until I was alone, without the kids.  As I got older I realized that my day went better, smoothly,  if I took time in the morning for me.  Not long, 5 to 10 minutes, to meditate, pray or sit alone and gather my thoughts.Relaxing and being able to focus are tied together because if our mind is not calm, you will not be able to focus.  If your thoughts are racing or you are thinking about too many things at once, focusing on just one of those things can be difficult.  How you start your day has a great deal to do with how your day will proceed.  If our day begins on fast forward, it will continue that way.  If your day begins slower it will give you time to not only think about what you need to do with it, but also prioritize those things that have to be done.  As i sat alone in the morning I prayed, it gave me peace and the ability to not only think about what needed to be done but to prioritize those things in my mind.  If you do not pray, then meditate or just sit alone in a quiet place.  You can write those things that have to be done down on paper,  The things that can be done, do, and cross them off the list as you do them during the day.  Those things that you have no control over, put in a shoe box and when the shoe box is full burn them or throw them away each day.  If you have been hanging on to some of those things for years, it may take you several times of writing them down and throwing them away to actually not have them come up in your mind again and again.  After all, if you walk 4 miles into the woods, you will have to walk 4 miles out of the woods and you will also be tired and sore from the walk.  But, you continue because you do not want to stay in the woods, just rest there until you gather your strength to continue your walk home.  If the same things come up over and over again, you may still have something that needs to be done with that situation or issue.  Most of the time it has to do with forgiving ourselves for something we think we have done or not done.  These video’s will help you to relax and give awa wha you have no control over.  Link to the video’s.  Enjoy!

Fear

People who have been abused, neglected or come from dysfunction often times live either in fear or with fear until they deal with the reason for the fear.  Fear is not from God and so if you are living in fear,  prayer will help you not to fear anymore.  So will allowing yourself  to look  at the reasons behind the fear. I also understand that people who have been abused, neglected or come from dysfunction often times will have difficulty believing in a God who would allow that to happen.   The problem with that logic is that God gave us free will and God has nothing to do with us abusing, neglecting or molesting each other.  He has told us how to live our lives so we do not hurt each other.  It is us who misinterpret either on purpose or through misunderstanding, each other.  Pride, arrogance, selfishness, greed all play a part in what we do or do not do to each other.

Fear is usually based in the unknown.  Not knowing what will happen next and thinking that history will repeat itself.  Feeling like we are trapped in the situation with no way out of it and feeling sometimes like we deserve no better than what is happening to us.  The truth is that fear controls our lives because we allow it  to do so.  It is a matter of letting it go and moving on with our lives.  Guided imagery will help to do that.  The link below will help you to do let go. Link to the video’s   Enjoy!

Holiday behaviors

During the Thanksgiving holiday and the upcoming  seasons a lot of us go home to family.  We spend a couple of days with the people we grew up with and are still in communication.  Those people may change from time to time due to divorce or death but they are basically the same  If you grew up in a basically happy functional family then your going home is a time to look forward to with happy expectation.  If you grew up in a dysfunctional home then you may find yourself taking on those old characteristics that were you when you were growing up.  If you have done any work at all on yourself, you are not usually that person because you have found, that person does not function well in the real world.  You may also have found that the only time you find yourself behaving like the old you is in the family setting.  If you are mindful of this fact, you can change it.  Again, no magic bullet, no instant pill to take only hard work on your part.

In an earlier blog I wrote about mindfulness.  Being aware of your surroundings and noticing what is around you and what you are feeling about those things.  Becoming aware of what triggers your mood change.  You cannot change it if you are not aware of what needs to change.  If you are becoming emotional around certain people or around certain things, rooms in a certain house.  There is a reason.  Spend time in the morning or evening allowing yourself time to think about why.  Set a timer for no more than 15 minutes each day on this.  When you find out why it will allow an understanding of where the feelings are coming from and therefore you will be able to acknowledge the fact that you are not that small child any longer and can take care of yourself.  You have to parent the child within, nurturing that child until it is not afraid, angry, sad or hurt by whatever happened in the past. You will need to nurture that child and parent it.  You will need to make sure this child knows it is safe and cared about by you. Using your dominant hand ask the child within what is making you fearful, angry etc.  Then with your non-dominent hand let the child tell you what that might be.  Listen to it and assure it that you will take care of it and they are safe.  You use the non-dominent hand because that engages emotional part of your brain, which is where your child lives. You will then notice the things that used to alter your mood before  when you went home, does not any longer.  You do not become that same old child for your family.  You will not leave there wondering why you turn into someone you are no longer around your family.  Keep in mind though that if your family is still dysfunctional, they will want you to be that old person because they need you to be.  Don’t fall for it, be who you are.  During your meditation you will need to relax first and give away the old behaviors and all of those things you have no control over..  This will help.    Link to the video’s    Enjoy!

Triggers for the Holidays

For those of us who were born into dysfunction, there can be triggers that send us back into a place in the past.  We are around those people who would rather have us be the person they once knew, then appreciate the person we have worked so hard to become.  That doesn’t have to mean we have to go there with them.  Triggers do not have to be a bad thing.  They can be a warning that something is about to happen and we need to be mindful not to fall into the same routine.  We can use them as a warning, not as a means to make us fall into the role our dysfunctional family prefers us to be.  You can back away mentally or physically if you have to and not engage n the behavior.  If you find yourself instantly angry, in tears or frustrated by what is going on in the present, I will tell you that any instant emotion has nothing to do with what just happened and everything to do with what just got triggered from your past.  Look at it and then change it.  Make these situations, opportunities for growth instead of situations you would rather avoid.  Take a deep breath, step back emotionally from the situation and relax.  Look at what this situation is teaching you. Place it in the box and give it away, it is no longer you, do not pick it up.  In some situations it was never you, it was just your families perception of you.  Here are the relaxation videos to help you relax and the guided imagery to help you give it away.  Enjoy your Holiday and your family.  Appreciate them for who and what they are, they may begin to do the same to you as well.   These video’s will help you to relax , give away what is not working for you and enjoy your time with family.  Link to the video;s   Enjoy!

Letting go

Letting go does not mean that we forget what happened.  Letting go means that we no longer refeel the emotions attached to the memory.  As humans we have the capacity to remember everything that has every happened to us from the time we were born.  As a therapist, when someone tells me that they have no memories of their childhood, I wonder what trauma happened to them that they don’t remember.  If we fall and break our leg as a child, we should remember the fall and the fact that it hurt.  We should not refeel the pain of the break.  If we got blamed for something we did not do and were punished for it.  We should remember the event, the people involved and the fact that we were angry.  We should not be refeeling the anger.  We need to remember the bad as well as the good in our lives.  We need to remember the bad so we do not repeat the mistakes that were made,  either by others or by ourselves.  If we forget we are doomed to repeat them.  Letting go is not easy,  for me it is a process that does not happen overnight, or within a week.  Depending upon what I am trying to let go of, it may take me months to let go of it.  If it is something or someone dear to me it usually takes months, sometimes a year or more.  I know that I have truly let go when I can find humor in it.  If I am remembering it and able to find something humorous about it, then I have let go.  These video’s will help you to let go.  Link to the video’s.  Enjoy!

Violence and Love

Violence and love cannot exist in the same place.  If you love, violence has no place to exist.  If you are violent, love has no place to exist.  That does not mean that violent people do not love, nor does it mean that people who love you are not capable of violence.  We are all capable of both of these emotions.  Just not at the same time.  If you are listening to the voice inside, it will not be telling you to be violent.  It will be telling you to seek peace.  Listening to the voice within requires time to sit and listen to it and if you are a praying person, pray.  If you are listening to it on a daily basis then you will hear it in your everyday life without effort.  If not, then you will have to reconnect with it but taking the time to be still and listen to what it has to say.  Some people call it a gut feeling, some call it your guardian angel, some call it God.  Whatever you call it make sure you are naming your spirits, you do not want the wrong ones. They are violent.  In order to listen you will  have to be still, quiet and relaxed.  You will have to be able to concentrate on hearing what your gut, angel or God is telling you.  We as a people have lost that ability because we are too busy and do not take the time to be still any more.  Here is my relaxation video to help you relax enough to hear.   Link to the video’s    Enjoy!

Emotional Blackmail

Often times I have seen people hurt each other through withholding love in an attempt to get what they want.  Some men will withhold their presence in their wives lives until they get what they want. They stay away at work or with their friends until their wives or girlfriends comply with what they want.  Some women will withhold sex until they get what they want.  This is not love.  It is emotional blackmail and it has nothing to do with loving someone.  I understand that you need to stay away until the anger subsides.  But, then you talk about what happened, what angered you or hurt you.  You don’t hold out until you get your way.  I also understand that you do not want to make love to someone who you are angry with or hurt by.  So you take care of your anger in a mature manner and then you talk about what hurt or angered you.  You do not withhold anything from the person you love.  If you are, it is not love.  It is also not a healthy relationship.  We learn how to have healthy relationships from our parents.  If your parents did not have a healthy relationship then you have learned what you don’t want to do, if you want a relationship to last.  Emotional blackmail will send the other person running as far from you as they can get and you will repeat the pattern for the next generation.

Changing this happens the same way we change any behavior we do not want.  Making a conscious effort to catch ourselves doing it and stopping it.  You then replace it with a behavior that is healthier and will help your relationship, not hurt it.  Again it will take 3 weeks of practicing this and 3 more weeks to make it a habit.  These video’s will help you to relax and gt rid of whatever behaviors you no longer want or are no longer working for you.  Link to the video’s   Enjoy!