Changing Language to Develop Different Perceptions of Self and World.

Accepted Vernacular


During my morning walk today, I was thinking about how our perspectives on life could change if we modified the terminology used to describe our experiences .Creating a culture for change through the use of words to describe our experiences needs to also be accompanied by motivation to change our behavior and how we view the world.I worked in the human services field for 27 years and we used a variety of functional terms used to classify the circumstances of the persons that we served.  I commonly used terms such as "dysfunctional", "suffered from addiction and/or mental illness during my career either during meetings with my clinical supervisor or with those whom I was assigned   to counsel.  At the time, this was the accepted  universal vernacular of the human services field .Much of the terminology used in the human services field, particularly in the context of diagnoses, has labels and stigmas associated with them.We are a product of the messages we receive during our formative years. If we feel inherently negative about ourselves , how our experience is viewed by others using commonly accepted terminology, can accentuate feelings of low self esteem and self-efficacy.  It is easy for an individual who is already feeling negative about him or her self and the world, to easily buy into the stigmas and feel powerless to change the perceptions.
 I also believe that individuals who are not a part of the human service system, but facing life challenges need to be cognizant of how they describe their experiences, as well.  

A New Language


After my walk, I  wrote in my journal some terms and phrases that I came up with to assist ourselves and others to conceptualize life experiences differently. The word or phrase that I came up with is listed followed by the more traditional term that has been more commonly used.

•           Dancing with Dysfunction vs. Living with or Surrounded by Dysfunction:  Living with or being surrounded by dysfunction ,to me, implies that we don't have a choice in shaping our destiny, or that we are permanent victims of circumstance.  Dancing is time-limited and  involves  among other things movement and rhythm. We can  dance with anything for as long as we choose and then move away from it , and in the process find a different rhythm ,while shaping a new reality. There is empowerment in movement; in movement there is hope.

•                Challenges vs Struggle :  It was always common for me to assess an individual with whom I worked as struggling with addiction or struggling with mental illness.I often used the phrase" struggling with grief" when describing my early journey following the death of my 18-year-old daughter Jeannine in 2003.There is a heavy weight or burden that is linked to struggle. When I think of struggle I recall the tale of Sisyphus ,who was  the king of Cornith . He was punished for chronic deceitfulness by being forced  to roll a huge boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this action forever. Struggle is tiring and associated with futility. We can address challenges and use their lessons to define the world we want to live in, during the best of times and during times of transition in our lives. 

•            Feeling Empowered vs. Feeling Powerful : It is easy to feel powerful when discovering insights or truths that help us address the challenges that life brings us.  However, power can be abused and ego-driven when it comes to the relationship with others. As it relates to our own spiritual growth, feeling powerful  can foster a sense of invulnerability and a belief that there is nothing left to learn from others or the world around us.  Empowerment means that we have given ourselves permission to see reality differently,commit to a constant state of learning, and license to acknowledge our shortcomings without fear of judgment. Empowerment allows us to inspire others to seek their own truth. 

  

            As we progress on our life journeys it is important to regularly assess the strategies that are working for us and discard those that were once useful, but don't apply to us in the present. How we view ourselves and others through the words we use needs to be part of that ongoing self -evaluation and a key part of the skills that we develop to embrace the process of transformation.  

Faith,Doubt and Warriors of Light

To Inspire and Self Inspire
As I have grown older, I have committed to be in a constant state of learning and discovery. Once I believe there is nothing left to learn, then it is time for me  to look deep within. Periodic introspection and reflection as a matter of course is crucial to our ongoing development . A requirement of the human experience is to constantly find ways to reinvent and redefine ourselves.in both the best and worst of times Not only does it keep our perspective on life fresh, but our relationships with others takes on a whole new meaning. We can also use our  ongoing learning about ourselves as a foundation to present observations to others from a perspective that they may not have previously considered. As a result , we inspire them and inspire ourselves in the process.

With that in mind, I would like to offer my reflections and observations on a couple of items that  I recently read:

Viewing Humanity Differently
"We are the warriors of light. With the strength of our love and will, we can change our destiny....and the destiny of many others"- Paulo Coehlo

In the literal sense, a warrior is someone who is skilled in battle and combat. In the context of Coehlo's words the term warrior represents a paradigm shift or change in perspective, that can serve us well during challenging times in our lives. I know that after the death of my daughter Jeannine in 2003, I  eventually began to see the value of treating others with respect and love, even during times when I didn't love myself.  Once I began to consistently commit to these values , the way I viewed humanity changed and the way that humanity responded to me changed. As a result I became aligned with individuals with like values; other warriors of light.  My perspective on life and particularly on Jeannine's death became transformed.


Reflections from Leonard Pitts
"Faith and doubt do not oppose each other. They define each other ,like light and shadow."- From the article, "Having a casual chat with the "universal spirit" by Leonard Pitts

Leonard Pitts is a columnist for The Miami Herald and fast becoming my favorite journalist because he dares to ask the questions everyone else may be thinking. He is creative and does not subscribe to conventional wisdom. I have always thought conventional wisdom was highly overrated anyway.

I have learned during my journey after Jeannine's death, that joy,pain and sadness coexist and that continued spiritual growth occurs as a result of our ability to embrace and learn from all emotions that we experience.  I agree with Pitts' observations on faith and doubt as well. After Jeannine's death, my faith in everything that I believed in came into question. I had doubts that I would ever learn to live with what happened and that I would ever truly feel fulfilled again. As I look at it now, my dance with doubt contributed to my eventual restoration of faith in myself and in the universe to provide for my needs. I couldn't have developed a stronger faith if I was unwilling to allow doubt to embrace me. Do I experience self-doubt now. Absolutely! To deny this would be denying my ability to be human.  I strive in this moment to use self-doubt as a means  to promote continued self-awareness including those limitations that I still possess. I will strive to embrace my limitations for the lessons that they will continue to teach me.

Square Dancing in a Round Room
There is, from my perspective , a concept that connects the thoughts of both Leonard Pitts and Paulo Coehlo....... shapeshifting. Here is how Ted Andrews defines shapeshifting in his book, Animal Speaks

Shapeshifting is natural to all of humanity. Every day on some level,we shift our energies to meet the daily trips, responsibilities and obligations of life..... Shapeshifting is a matter of controlling and shifting your own energies to fit the needs of the moment- being able to draw upon those qualities and energies necessary.

Simply put, the art of shapeshifting is similar to learning how to square dance in a round room.  Our will ,love and determination alone won't change the shape of that room. It will forever remain round. We can however shift our energies and thoughts in a way that fits the existing terrain, and empower ourselves in the process ,to view our worlds through a different lens.

Sometimes the most evolved souls take the most challenging paths

Dr. Brian Weiss

From Spirituality to Carlin: Some Random Thoughts

Today, I just let my thoughts go where they were going to go. Here is what materialized:

1) It is easy for us, at times, to believe that we are entitled to be sad because of events that have occurred in our lives. I have expressed that sentiment on several occasions in my life. What I have discovered today is that sadness is meant to be honored as part of our human experience. By honoring sadness, we learn from it and grow because of our willingness to embrace it.

2) I believe that society overemphasizes the need for us to be happy to achieve our life's purpose. If we unconditionally subscribe to that belief, we set ourselves up for failure. In reality, it is our ability to authentically  acknowledge our emotions in the moment that helps us achieve clarity and contentment during our life journeys.

3) Accepting others as they are all the time is challenging.  Many of us struggle with accepting ourselves as we are, and have specific beliefs and biases that preclude total acceptance of certain members of the human race. Allowing ourselves to share those biases with people that we trust to be objective is just as important as practicing acceptance of others.  Acknowledging those biases are also a step to accepting ourselves as we are and allowing us to become more aware of how we relate to ourselves and the world around us.

4) I become angry when someone tries to script my experience. I was in a class some time ago, where the facilitator wanted the participants to write a statement that was evidence of self love. The facilitator also wanted each individual to say" And I offer this up to you", after we read our statement. If  I am willingly disclosing an expression of self-love to a group, I am already offering it to the group. Nothing more needs to be said. I was determined to be the author of my own experience so I read my statement of self-love and left it at that. Of course, she(the facilitator) asked me :" And are you offering this up to the group?" I replied that I already did.  My reality doesn't necessarily need to be your experience and  your experience doesn't necessarily need to be my reality. We process our experiences in a language and style that provides the greatest benefits to our evolution as spiritual beings.

5) I feel centered when I embrace intention.

6) I wish I knew? I don't. What I need to know will be revealed to me in time, as long as I trust in the universe's ability to address my needs.

7) The key to spiritual growth is  paying attention to what is happening around us and discovering how things are connected.

8) Spiritual human beings are not powerful; they are empowered.

9) I know that there is emphasis on living in the moment so that we can become more fulfilled and grounded. The past however contains rich lessons that can shape how we live in the present, and therefore should not be ignored.

10) This is one from the "I thought I heard everything department":  I spent some time recently with a dear friend whose son died earlier this year. She told me that a person actually said these comforting words to her: "He was doing ok until he died." Admittedly, I was rendered speechless. This is one to add to the list of things not to say to a parent who has experienced the death of a child.


11) Finally, I will end with this gem from George Carlin, my favorite comedian:"I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, 'Where's the self-help section?' She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose." As therapists or companions to the bereaved ,we can only point out the resources that are available  and assist  them in developing the skills and confidence to access them. Bereaved individuals then need to take that first step....... when they are ready to do so.

Wishing you all peace.

My Journey:The Truth and Nothing But The Truth

It Is What It Is
I am a man who has been redefined by circumstances beyond my control.  My process of redefinition started when my 18 -year- old daughter Jeannine died on 3/1/03 of a rare and aggressive form of cancer. If Jeannine were here now, she would tell me to not make her death a focal point of my change in perspective. However, it is what it is, and I can't deny that my transformation as a human being began with her entry into eternal life. I am secure knowing that she continues to teach me in spirit, and that our relationship has allowed me to be open to further lessons from other spiritual teachers and the universe around me. I do still miss her physical presence, but I have learned that I can't want for what I don't have, or believe I am entitled to have. I had Jeannine in my life for 18 years and in the eyes of sacred law 18 years was sufficient time for her to learn the lessons that she needed to learn in this life, and teach others, including me. For years after her death, I punished myself for not being able to protect her from cancer.  I let my preoccupation with my failure to protect her,overshadow any other positive aspects that I brought to the father-daughter relationship. From my perspective, early grief and continuous rumination about the what ifs and should haves and could haves is one of the challenges we must address if we are to evolve on our journey. After two and one half years of beating myself up for not being able to protect Jeannine from a type of cancer that I had no control over, I decided that I needed to change my perspective. It didn't happen overnight; it has been a seven and a half year journey to get to where I am now. The lessons will continue until I die, and then there will be more to learn when I get to the other side.

Discovering My Purpose As A Father
I stopped obsessing about my failure to protect Jeannine when I began to realize through discussion with my spiritual teachers , dreams and other moments of synchronicity, that protecting her was not my primary responsibility. I discovered that my primary responsibility to her in this lifetime, was to let her make adult decisions. I also believe that in previous reincarnations of myself that I was a protector, even if it meant sacrificing my own life in the process. I know to some that this may sound far -fetched, but this is how my journey has evolved. Everyone's journey evolves differently, the truth manifests itself in a variety of forms. One of the lessons that I have learned is not to judge another person's account of their truth . I can't because I am not living it.

We Have Done This All Before
I do believe that we have lived other lives.I first began to entertain this notion when I read Brian Weiss's book "Many Lives, Many Masters." It has been reinforced by the instantaneous soul connections that I have made with other individuals in my life. I have a good friend who I have spent a total of ten minutes with in person and I feel like I have known him for lifetimes. This becomes reinforced every time we talk with each other. I have had that same feeling with many who I consider to be my spiritual teachers. From what I have read and from what I have experienced, I believe that we were meant to cross paths at the precise moments in time when we did. We were meant to witness each others journeys and learn from each other. We have learned ,in the process, to inspire ourselves and as a result  inspire others. Our self-absorption in early grief has now been replaced by an overwhelming desire to share our transformation and contribute to the common good.

Enlightenment vs.Transformation

I also do not see our process of transformation  as about enlightenment. I can be enlightened about a certain path in my life to take and do nothing. Enlightenment ,to me, doesn't cover the deep spiritual transformation that we undergo in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges. Transformation comes through overt action and an ability to view life from both a physical and ethereal perspective. Embracing a different perspective goes beyond enlightenment; it is about willingness, hard work and faith even when we ourselves question its power. I do not want to be perceived as enlightened, I want  to be perceived as transformed.

My wish for everyone is that they find a path to knowing that will help them address the challenges that life regularly throws our way. There will be emotional and maybe even physical pain in the process. Sit with your pain, embrace it, learn from it, and release it. The empowerment that you discover will allow you to start the process of transformation; sharing your transformation will result in blessings that you never imagined.

The End of the Innocence

Living With Ambiguity

The older I get ,the more that I realize how quickly and drastically life can change. There are some events that defy logic, and despite our best efforts to try to make sense of them,  many unanswered questions will remain. I have learned in the almost ten years since the death of my own child to live with some unanswered questions, some ambiguity. I believe that as long as I do my best to find meaning and significance  in a world that has permanently changed and  can help others in the process, I can live with some unanswered questions.

Sandy Hook: A Return to the Land of Why

O' beautiful, for spacious skies
But now those skies are threatening… 

Offer up your best defense
But this is the end
This is the end of the innocence 

From the song "The End of the Innocence by Don Henley

On Friday, December 14,2012, 26 people, 20 of whom were students between the ages of 6 and 7 were brutally gunned down at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Innocence died on that day, along with those children and educators.  Like everyone across our country and the world, I was profoundly affected by this tragedy. Like any parent who has experienced the death of a child, I have developed instant empathy for any parent who has become a member of a club; none of us ever envisioned being a part of at any time during our lives. Consequently, the raw emotional pain that I experienced after my daughter Jeannine died in 2003 resurfaced and remained for several days after Sandy Hook.  I also questioned why these beautiful and unconditionally loving children and the adults who were charged with educating and nurturing them had to die so tragically. I didn't stay in that place for long because I asked a lot of why questions after my daughter died. I never got an answer that satisfied me. The only resolution that would have been acceptable for me was for God to appear and tell me and my family that He had made a mistake, that He was returning Jeannine to us and that life as we knew it would be restored. Once I finally realized that that was not going to happen, I stopped asking the why questions. I then chose to focus on "Where do I go from here?"

The Need For Names
I spent a significant amount of time Friday and Saturday watching the news coverage surrounding the Sandy Hook victims. I wasn't concerned about the psychological profile of the shooter or the discussions about the need for more stringent gun control laws.  I was more concerned with the families of the victims and the impact of the shootings on the community of Newtown. I also felt the need to watch the news coverage until the names of the victims were released. I know how significant it was for me to hear Jeannine's name after she died. I wanted to be able to mention the first name of each of the victims of this tragedy in prayer. This would be my way to honor them and their families.

A Different Perspective

The Sandy Hook shootings have been one in a series of other mass murders that have seemed to occur with alarming regularity in our country over the last few years. Aurora, Colorado and Tucson, Arizona immediately come to mind. As I mentioned previously, the current gun control laws were scrutinized intensely by the media and many experts weighed in on the issue.  From my perspective, it is not just an issue of gun control.  For one thing, more resources for mental health treatment needs to be allocated. As an addiction professional who worked in the field for 27 years, there were always more chemically dependent and mentally ill clients that needed treatment, and fewer resources to serve them. The mantra was always" do more with less." Frankly, I could never figure out how to accomplish that without compromising the quality of treatment.  Our existing gun control laws and our mental health system are just two of the components that need to be examined.

President Obama remarked (and I am paraphrasing) at the interfaith vigil service in Newtown, that mental health professionals, parents and law enforcement need to come together to address the issue of violence in our country.

Politics aside, I agree with his observations.

What we have done to date hasn't worked.

We need to be proactive, not reactive.

Our entire society needs to be a part of the solution.

We cannot address ways to create a less violent environment for our children in a vacuum.



Closing Thoughts
Finally, it is my hope that the support and resources that are being offered to the Newtown community are available for the long term. I also believe that the families of the victims and the community need to empower themselves to determine when and how they avail themselves of that support and whom they choose to have support them. From my perspective, the death of my child was the most disempowering event of my life.  In retrospect, determining whether I needed to sit with my grief or ask for support from those with whom I was comfortable, helped me to take some power back in the early aftermath of Jeannine's death. The right for us to self determine what we need and how we will meet those needs empowers us in both the best of times and worst of times.

The victims' families will be on a life long journey of grief. For the siblings, grief for their deceased brothers and sisters will recapitulate throughout the life cycle. They will also be grieving for classmates who died as well as their teachers. The surviving teachers will grieve for colleagues lost and students who touched their lives and whose lives they touched. There will be many layers of lifetime grief to navigate.

 The families' ongoing connections to their deceased loved have been supported by the residents of that close knit community of Newtown, and will from my perspective continue to be supported for the long-term. This will not only allow the surviving family members to engage in the transformative process of grief, but will allow the entire community to do so as well.

The Armadillo

 Inspiration and Intent
During my journey following the death of my daughter Jeannine in 2003, I have tried to embrace many sources of inspiration to help me find meaning and in the process redefine who I am. I have also learned that when we state our intent to become inspired, we eventually inspire others by exposing them to the lessons that we have learned.
Animal Medicine
I have discovered the benefit of Native American Animal Medicine during the last 19 months of my journey. I have alluded to the lessons that I have learned from the animals who have crossed my path in previous blogs and articles that I have published. One of the tools that I have consistently used is a book called Medicine Cards by Jamie Sams, a revered Native American teacher. The book comes with a set of Animal Medicine cards. The teachings inherent to each animal is outlined in a corresponding chapter of the book. I don't have a set schedule for working with these cards, I simply let intuition rather than the passage of time be my guide.
Feeling Untethered
In early grief ,it is not uncommon for many to feel disassociated from their selves, surroundings and others around them . I believe that the profound alteration of our worldview due to a catastrophic loss
accounts for much or all of those feelings of dissociation. Another way to look at this is feeling untethered; similar to walking in a dreamlike state detached from everything around us that once had meaning in our lives.
Since I filed retirement paperwork in April of this year with the state of New York,  I have been experiencing the same sense of unthetheredness that I had in early grief, following Jeannine's death. Though I have long become disillusioned with a system that makes no sense to me anymore, I will still miss many of the colleagues whose company I have enjoyed and the patients who have touched my life. Though I believe that my life after retirement will be fulfilling and meaningful, it has been more stressful that I anticipated saying goodbye to a routine that has been part of my identity for over 27 years.

My Protective Armor/Walking the Ethereal
During the middle of last week, I got the urge to work with Jamie Sams' Medicine Cards.  I picked just one card: The Armadillo. In  several previous sessions , I never picked the Armadillo. However, as with every animal medicine card that I have chosen, the lesson was appropriate to my present reality.

According to Jamie Sams, the Armadillo "wears its armor on its back,its medicine a part of its body. Its boundaries of safety are a part of its total being." Sams goes on to write: "What a gift it is to set your boundaries so that harmful words or intentions just roll off. Your lesson is in setting up what you are willing to experience."(Sams,p. 149)

I recently had a conversation about transitioning out of my current job and the significance of the Armadillo with a close friend of mine who has witnessed my spiritual evolution in the last 19  months  and has been a wise mentor,in the process . I told her about my  feelings of disconnectedness from my work environment . I also told her that I seemed to be operating strictly from intuition. I have for a good deal of time now allowed my intuition or spirit to guide me, but  have always being able to make connections between my spiritual experience and experience in the physical world.  Due to what has been going on with me at work ,I have struggled to maintain that very important connection in my life.

My friend told me that   "walking the ethereal" without any  current sense of connection to the workplace was not necessarily a bad thing. She viewed my experience as a way to deal with leaving my job. In the context of Armadillo medicine, I  discovered that intuition has served to be the protective armor which has helped me focus on the practical matters( i.e packing my belongings, shredding materials that no longer applied to me) of leaving my job, while insulating me somewhat from the emotions tied to leaving those people who provided me with joy and validation during my career.  I have also concluded that intuition in later grief can, in certain situations, serve to be as much of a coping mechanism as shock and numbness were in early grief to allow me to deal with  practical matters such as Jeannine's funeral arrangements.

Redefining My Experience

Jamie  Sams makes a very simple but powerful suggestion as to how we can best use Armadillo medicine in our daily lives.  She suggests making a circle on a sheet of paper and to "see it as a medicine shield. Within the body of the shield, write down all the things that you are desiring to have, do or experience,including those things that give you joy. She further discloses that this sets up boundaries that allow those chosen experiences to be a part of your life(Sams,P.149). I did this exercise as it applied to my retirement from my job  but took it a step further. Outside the circle, I wrote down those things that I was not willing to experience or let penetrate my medicine shield . Doing this was empowering and has helped me to feel less untethered.

We can define what it is that we truly want to experience in all transitions in our life..... including our journeys after the death of our loved ones. Armadillo medicine can help us to represent our life experiences in ways that are true to who we are.  In the journey after loss, what we are willing to experience or not experience may change depending on where we are emotionally, spiritually and psychologically. The road to enlightenment was not meant to be a static process. Enlightenment is about finding our truth while representing our experiences as authentically and genuinely as humanly possible.

Express your lives as a demonstration of your highest beliefs, rather than a denial of them.
Neale Donald Walsch

The Heart of the Matter

Recently, I got a nudge to find a song on YouTube by Don Henley called "The Heart of the Matter." It is a song about the challenges of relationships and the pain arising from their endings. Since rediscovering the genius of Don Henley in this song, I have been giving thought to the challenges of relationships, particularly during difficult times.

Fantasy vs. Reality

I believe that from childhood, the expectation is that we will, in adulthood, meet the man or woman of our dreams, get married and live happily ever after. I remember that I had very idealized dreams in high school about what my marital relationship would look like. In my dreams, it was all utopic. The anticipation of struggle or pain is not usually entertained in fantasy. If it was, then we'd be fantasizing about reality, and who wants that?

I have been married for almost 30 years to a wonderful woman, and overall there have been some great memories and joyful moments involving our three children and us. There have also been the challenges of child rearing, finances and trying to many times muster up enough energy to carve out moments of time for each other. So for me, my actual marriage was quite different from my fantasized version, but if given the chance to do it over......... I wouldn't. 

The Greatest Challenge of All

The foundation for which our marriage was based underwent the greatest test of all when our daughter Jeannine died at the age of 18 on 3/1/03, after being diagnosed with cancer almost 10 months earlier. I know from my perspective, that the pain of Jeannine's death was all consuming and self-absorbing in the early stage of my journey.  I was also wracked with guilt and anger because of my perception that I could have somehow prevented Jeannine's death if I was less oblivious to her symptoms in the beginning. Trying to sort out the wreckage of my heart and soul was an all-consuming task and affected my ability to be present for my self, and my wife and Jeannine's two surviving brothers.  Plus the way I grieved was different from the way Cheri grieved and we both had to work to understand our unique styles and support them. 

Still Standing After All These Years

Cheri and I are still married and in many ways our relationship has become stronger in the aftermath of Jeannine's death. I believe that it is because our love and respect for each other never waned and in many ways became stronger. Separately we were able to find our own unique ways to deal with Jeannine’s death and together talk about them.

I also want to share some other observations about what I think may be helpful to couples who are dealing with catastrophic loss.

There is empowerment when couples are allowed to express their own unique experiences or perceptions outside of their relationship

Everyone has their own stories to tell and their own unique perceptions that drive those stories. The contract of marriage does not imply that the husband should routinely represent his wife’s reality about their son /daughter’s death and vice versa.  As a human service professional, I have seen the resentment first-hand of clients whose reality I have attempted to interpret.  I have learned to let the experience of my clients unfold and work with it non-judgmentally. I would encourage all couples to do the same in their relationships.

We all need a little tenderness

In "The Heart of the Matter," Don Henley sings that, We all need a little tenderness. How can love survive in such a graceless age?   Tenderness towards self and others is a requirement of our life long grief journey. It is important that we recognize and honor what we can or cannot do in our grief journeys and what are spouses can or cannot do as well.  Supporting without question, each other's unique expression of grief as well as understanding limitations is not only an act of grace and unconditional love but also a step towards becoming spiritually aware.

Forgiveness

Henley’s song also alludes to the importance of forgiveness even in the aftermath of relationship breakups. In the best of relationships, things may be said and done that profoundly hurt the other person. Particularly when catastrophic loss occurs, our emotions are raw and our thoughts are confused.  We may just be angry at the world. It is never too late to own our behavior with our spouses or others who we believe were affected by it.  To acknowledge our mistakes with others genuinely, allows us to acknowledge our humanness and in the process promotes more intimacy with those whom we love.

Forgiveness, though, can be more challenging with people whom we believe have irreparably hurt us. In every relationship there are lessons we have learned or gifts that we have received that can help us navigate the uncertain world of grief after the death of a loved one.  I believe that acknowledging those gifts not only helps us to adjust to loss, but also in the process constitutes acts of forgiveness towards those with whom we had prior conflict.

Remember to be gentle with yourself and others. We are all children of chance, and none can say while some fields will blossom and others lay brown beneath the August sun. Care for those around you. Look past your differences. Their dreams are no less than yours, their choices in life no more easily made. And give. Give in any way you can, of whatever you possess. To give is to love. To withhold is to wither. Care less for your harvest than how is shared, and your life will have meaning and your heart will have peace.”

― Kent Nerburn