Grief creeps into all areas of your life and causes chaos, messy emotions, confusion, anxiety, and loneliness. You thought you could handle anything . . . until you found out that you couldn’t. You thought you would have more time . . . until you didn’t.
When our very being is suffering from a great loss, it is hard to enjoy anything, much less even consider that life will right itself at some point. However, this is not true . . . unless you want it to be. Yes, you can “decide” to be miserable forever. You are grieving and in the midst of
I read quite a disturbing article and feel compelled to write about it so you are also aware. The article is entitled, No One is Coming: Hospice Patients Abandoned at Death’s Door, and focuses on the allegedly negligent services provided by some hospice agencies. The article was co-written by JoNel Aleccia and Melissa Bailey.
Valentine’s Day is inching ever closer and, while many people anxiously await this day, your heart is heavy and you are not anticipating the day at all because your valentine will not be present. He or she is gone and you believe there will be no more Valentine’s Days to celebrate.
Most people are excited to begin a new year. They might have made some New Year’s resolutions and are planning how to fulfill them. Or, maybe they have a special event planned ahead, like a family wedding, graduation, or baby’s birth. Maybe …
It is Thanksgiving and you may still be grieving and lonely, unsure of yourself and in a mental fog. You are likely wondering how you will get through the day with family and friends surrounding you, expressing their condolences, asking how you are doing, or awkwardly trying to ignore the topic altogether.
As you may have read in my blog posts and on my website pages, I feel that family caregivers are LoveGivers. They are exceptional, selfless people who put the welfare of their loved ones above themselves. This means they are more concerned with their charge’s health than they are about their own.
Life coaching is one of the fastest growing industries today. Life coaching presents itself in an assortment of niches, one of which is grief and loss coaching. I would venture to say, based on internet searches and talking to other coaches, that grief and loss coaches are not as prevalent as other types of coaches.
Put simply, no, you are not doing grief wrong. In fact, there really isn’t a “right” way to do grief. Grief is a very individual and personal experience and it does not conform to societal norms. Instead of trying to make yourself follow other people’s grief experiences and expectations, you should focus on what is best for you.
Grief is a highly individual emotion. What do I mean by this? Well, everyone experiences grief somewhat differently. For some, this might mean bouts of anger, while others may not experience any anger at all. Some people may experience fear, while others will not. Some may experience a long mourning period, while others may have a relatively short one.
A simple response to this question would be to say that a caregiver is someone who takes care of someone else. But, is it really this simple? To me, a caregiver is a selfless superhero who often places his or her own life on hold in order to care for someone else who is unable to care for him or herself.
I participated in a webinar today entitled “Active Listening”. This webinar was very interesting and the woman leading the presentation talked about why it is so important for coaches to actively listen to their clients. This is very relevant since listening, of course, is an important competency for coaches to master.