I take a seat next to her and take her hand. She immediately leans in to hug me. She knows that I know what is really happening for her in that moment even more than she does. This is comforting to this younger me who felt chronically misunderstood. I tell her how beautiful she is. She brushes it off like yeah-yeah. I take a beat and look in her eyes and say it again, “You are so beautiful, more beautiful than you know. I promise.” She takes it in this time, understanding and not brushing it aside.

And so I grieve. I woke up with the grief all over me this morning. It filtered into my dreams last night and hangs on me still like a heavy wet black cloak of confusion, unanswered questions, sorrow, anger, and despair.

Most of us want to turn away from grief. Most do. We live in a time and an “antiaging” culture that does everything it can to try to convince us that we, and our loved ones, can avoid aging and death.

We can’t.

Grief is a lost art.
Grief can be so beautiful.
Grief can be cathartic.
Grief is necessary for healing.
Grief is Love in action.

So, how do we grieve?

I can tell you for certain that avoidance and distraction are not the way. Pretending not to be sad is not the way. Trying not to think about it is not the way.Denying your feelings or the feelings of others is not the way.

Letting him see my messy, my sadness, my tears…
letting him Love me in this moment, is the most supremely self-Loving thing I can do.

Sometimes, when the moon is in just the right phase, and the stars are in just the right alignment, and the house is too quiet, and I feel too alone, and someone says or does something that reminds me of that trauma, or that song plays…I find myself awash with the grief and pain and sadness and come face to face with my trauma all over again.

Until this morning, in those moments, I have tried an infinite number of healthy and not so healthy ways to, well honestly, not feel what I am feeling. This morning I want to apologize to my sweet traumatized self for trying relentlessly to erase her. Instead I open my arms and heart to her and say, “Oh honey, of course you feel this way. How could you not?”

Autumn, the time of year when leaves fall to the earth away from the trees that have been their home.

What are you ready to intentionally and consciously let fall away?

What do you no longer wish to carry?

What have you realized is too heavy, and are now ready to lay down?

As the leaves fall to the earth they decompose and become nutrients and nourishment for seeds to be planted in the future.

What can you release now to become food for the future?

Here are some prompts to consider, perhaps journal about, or share in your sacred circles:

Resistance causes suffering. Acceptance, non-resistance, allows me to freely move through the feelings as they arise. Judgement and criticism are the actions of resistance. Compassion and curiosity are the actions of acceptance. Awareness is the magical tool that assists me in knowing when I am in resistance or acceptance. Gentleness with myself and others has been most important, and I have kept it close at hand this week.

"I sometimes go a whole day not even thinking about love.
Thank you for the reminder."

Oh! I am not supposed to know everything! I am not supposed to never need help! In fact, not knowing and asking for help is precisely where and how I invite the Benevolent Forces of the Universe enter my life and assist me.

Love acts as a vacuum drawing forth anything unlike Love to be healed. This is what we are experiencing. We have to see it to heal it, we have to feel it to heal it. There is no escaping it. So we may as well turn and face it, look it straight in the eyes and ask, ‘What is Love trying to show me and teach me. What does Love want me to know and do?’

This might be a wildly unpopular notion, and it might not even sound nice; still, we have got to stop this positivity trend. Because here's the thing: Love is never going to ask you to lie. Love doesn't want you to be dishonest. All of these messages about staying positive are not messages of Love. The truth is if you feel sad, feel sad, and if you are grieving, grieve. If you are tired and weary and worn out from all of this, then feel that. Feel whatever you are feeling, stay in the flow. Don't resist your own disappointment, outrage, anger, frustration, overwhelm, because when you do that, it's like you're trying to shove a bunch of beach balls under water all at one time, and it doesn't work.

I wrote this blog post years ago...maybe 6 or 7 years ago. I refer to it often, forwarding it to clients, unearthing it for the truth and goodness and the powerful shift it offers the reader. I shared it again just this week with a client and felt the nudge to share it with all of you again, now, for those of you who need this message as much as I did years ago.

Let me break it down here: We all have ‘oh shit’ moments. And I mean we all, me too. Some days everything feels like an ‘oh shit’ moment. If we had an internal Richter scale gauging our ‘oh shit’ moments, most of them would at least be a 7, some even higher.

Unless a bear is chasing you through the woods, or a lion is about to eat your face off, or there’s a person with a bloody ax at your door, or some other extreme and unlikely event, your ‘oh shit’ moment is a big fat hairy lie.

The number 1 Pearl in my Toolbox is ‘Better out than in’. And it’s number 1 for a reason. 

I firmly believe that whatever we are holding in will eventually find its way out, and when we can let it out on purpose, well, let’s just say there’s a whole lot less mess to clean up.

Trying to hold our feelings in is as futile as trying to hold 10 beach balls underwater at the same time. It’s just not possible. These feelings we think are better kept on the inside, will fester and ooze and get infected without oxygen. Basically, they get worse to get our attention. They get worse because they want out.

Stasis: a period or state of inactivity or equilibrium.

Today I’m going to share with you the importance of getting yourself back to stasis, a state of equilibrium, where you are neither escalated nor de-escalated. You are neither triggered or depressed. You are at peace.

And I’m going to share with you some techniques that can assist you with getting back to stasis.

“I Love myself and so…” is a phrase you may have noticed I use a lot. It’s my fave, my go-to, and has become my signature and tagline.  And today I am going to share with you one potent and powerful way I action this phrase on the regular! 

I want to take you inside of my personal space and experience because it’s easy to think that while I teach this, I don’t live it, and the reality is I teach this because I live it. I’m in it with you, and it doesn’t always feel good. So here’s a juicy peak at my own time deep in it recently walking hand-in-hand with myself and Love.

We all experience moments of discomfort on the daily. What I want you to remember with your spectacularly brilliant intellectual brain that: Discomfort does not necessarily mean you’re not safe. This can seem difficult to understand at first because biologically we are meant to interpret discomfort as danger. 

What is this Self- Love thing that so many people are talking about right now? 

As the mother of 3 spectacular boys 22, 20 & 18, I have had countless teenagers in and out of my home and heart. Teenagers want what we all want - to be seen and heard, to feel validated and valued. And they want boundaries. They don't like them, but they do want them.

I have written this 1,000 times or more in my head. Generally, in the wee hours of the night. For much of my life this was my biggest fear.