Grief, That Old Friend

Grief is inexplicable. It hits at its own timing. And, to be honest, it never goes away. We learn to navigate it. We learn to miss without the intense pain. We learn to live in a different manner.

When I was 23 years old I met a young man my age. We worked in the industrial power transmission field. The first day he came for an interview, right out of college, we shook hands and the electricity that passed through our hands was like nothing else I’ve ever experienced, or have felt since.

Before I could even figure out what was happening we had a tremendous love affair. I was in and out of a relationship with someone much older who was married. This young man and I connected in a way that was out of this world.

At 25 years old, after a long break up because of my other relationship, he asked me to marry him one night. I said yes. That was March 11, 1993. He was dating someone else, and I was still in that relationship. We both broke it off that weekend. On the way back from breaking up with his girlfriend he hit a wall on I95 on March 14th. They found him with a small English/Spanish book in his hands.

This loss shut me down. It took my light with it. It would take years to understand. But, something happened shortly after his death. He began to show up in dreams. I wasn’t as spiritually aware as I am now, but I would feel him all the time.

Whenever I am struggling I find a dime and a penny. $.11 was something we would find together. Those close to me marvel at the fact that this happens often. There will be a dime and then a few inches later, a penny. He has been around for almost 30 years and has guided me in ways I cannot explain.

But grief, that old friend that reminds us of love, can sometimes get the best of us. This morning I opened up my kitchen cabinet to get my coffee mug and in a cup I rarely use was a dime and a penny. I don’t even ask anymore how this happens. Maybe the kids did it long ago. I don’t know. I know I was supposed to find it at 4:44 this morning. That’s how guidance works.

We are always held by deceased loved ones. ALWAYS. I often forget to call out to ancestors. Rarely do I forget to call out for him. He has been my steady companion for decades. And, I know we will one day be reunited.

Your grief is not meant to be suppressed. It isn’t meant to be bulldozed. It’s a reminder that you loved. That you were loved. That you lived. That you had someone who loved you. It doesn’t matter if it’s a parent, a child, a lover, a fur baby, or whatever. Sometimes we mourn places and things.

You are loved. You are here. And, I promise you that you will always come out with grace on the other side.

I love you!
Millie

Erasable – Hard Copy

I am feeling it all at this very moment. My publisher messaged me that the book was in my mailbox since Friday. I ran across the dark street gripping the envelope. Once I opened it… OMGosh.

No other book I’ve written has had such an impact. Nothing else has felt so intense and healing simultaneously.

When my publisher reminded me that it is next week, the 11th, it became even more real. Holding it seems surreal. Twenty years all inside a computer waiting for the perfect timing.

My five year old climbed in bed with me as I was tearing up. He took the book from my hands. “Mommy, you wrote a book.” I said, “I have written several. But this one is about my life.”

He sounds out the title which is a big word for a kindergartener. He starts to tear up. I see the puddles of tears in his green eyes. He hugs me.

“Can you read it to me like a bedtime story?”

“When you get older. It’s a big-people book!”

He smiles while wiping his tears. “You did good, Mommy.”

I read the acknowledgment part to him about all my kids and he smiles and thanks me. Then we lay together. He wanted to go wake his sister up. I told him that I would share with her in the morning.

Sweet tears. Sweet love. I am blessed. Not by anything but the recollection of a well-lived and loved life. His reaction will forever be tattooed in my heart.

I love you all for the constant support and love your give.

Millie

Grace

Grace. It is always there for you. We get full of head trash that we forget that we just need to trust. We deviate from faith when we are struggling. We also start to avoid and isolate from folks who can help us. Find your center. Life is fluid. There are ups and downs and twists and turns. Grace is always there for you.

I love you,

Millie

A Mama’s Heart

Our 3 y/o started daycare again today after a three month hiatus. He was as happy to see his school as I was in dropping him off to exhaust his energy. I came home with our 6 y/o to tear my house apart and deep clean it. In the midst of moving furniture and vacuuming I lost my emotions.

I don’t know where they came from. My oldest son and his girl will return home to New York tomorrow and the future emptiness engulfed me. I got him for three months. The first time in over ten years that we had that much quality time together.

So I stopped stripping the living room. I stopped picking up God-knows-how-old cereal from under the sofa. I stopped and allowed for my heart to stop racing.

Today is gloomy outside and inside of me. I thought I would be okay. But, I may not be. It will be a hard mama week. I will return to putting my business back out there. I will find some kind of stability. But the last three months have been (sigh) full of chaos and so many gifts.

I lost myself in the days. I lost myself in little ones. I lost myself in the yard. I lost myself in motherhood. I also found myself in all those things. I returned to a life of what I do best: mother all those around me.

I’m ready for the world to also find itself. For the peace to arrive. For the love to engulf us all. I recognize the shift and how it is well overdue. But, shit, it has been brutal! I recognize now that I have been battling deep state of sadness, perhaps a little bit of depression. Had I not had two little ones I am sure I would have lost myself way down the dark night of the soul.

We all need to be seen, felt, acknowledged and loved. We want to feel connections. And for me that has been the hardest part of the isolation…. Not being able to touch another has been a major test.

I have felt my tribe. I see the world now in a different light when I share openly. I have witnessed who is here and who is elsewhere. The division in our humanity has grown existentially.

I’m hoping the muck in collective consciousness is about finished with this cycle. It hasn’t just been the virus but the anger and hatred that has been unleashed in humanity. I pray we proceed with loving louder in order to heal. I’m ready for the next phase.

Sending love to you today. Be gentle as things are proceeding and evolving. Know your worth and your truth. Remember what you believe is yours but don’t try to push it on anyone else. Holding you from here energetically as I proceed with cleaning some weird stains that are unrecognizable from the carpet. Hugs.

Musical Chairs

Several years ago when I was in the social work field I had a conversation with a co-worker and she shared a story about one of her clients who recently departed our world. We were talking about doing volunteer hospice work if we had money to spare. I told her I was fascinated by the end of life and folks transitioning, especially those who are ready. And for those who struggled, they allowed me to just sit in sacred space and hold their hands. These were precious and priceless moments in my life.

She said one day she went to visit her client and she asked her how she was handling her ending?
Her sweet elderly woman, who had been a missionary for many years, a woman of huge amount of faith, said…“I’m moving from one chair to another. Is that not okay?”

I stared at my co-worker. My eyes began to water. That was such an insightful and beautiful analogy of end-of-life transition. I got chills. From that statement I knew she was a woman who had lived with grace.

I feel life is like that: moving from chair to chair trying to find the most comfortable one.

It takes pure divine “knowing” to accept all of it. It’s in the simple awareness that we are just moving from one form of matter into another.

The joy of life is to continue moving from chair to chair while finding the magic of what it holds for our spirit. The trick is finding the greatest chair while playing music and enjoying it as long as possible in complete love and acceptance with a lovely view.

A Sage and a Lesson

There is a story about a woman who travels a great distance with her son to meet a sage. After an entire day traveling by foot she sees the sage. “I need you to tell my son he cannot have sweets. It makes him sick.”

The sage said to her, “Okay, come back in a week!”

The woman left disturbed, perplexed and angry. She took her son and returned to her village. And even though livid she made the trekking back to see the sage a week later.

When the sage saw her son he immediately said, “Stop eating anything with sugar. Not good for you! Listen to your mother.”

The woman shook her head angrier than a hungry bear waking from hibernation and asked, “Why couldn’t you have done that last week? I travelled so far….”

The sage looked at her and said, “First I had to experience it myself.”

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I can’t remember who the sage was or where I read this many decades ago but it has always stayed in my little head. We move through our experiences which form our perspectives. If we don’t experience it it is hard sometimes to understand it. But, I don’t always have to experience things to understand them. I can empathize and sympathize and do my part to understand. I try to put myself in the other person’s shoes.

These words here all bring us to peace and human connection. We might not understand each other. Many live in fear of what they don’t understand and cannot find a way to experience it themselves but I do believe love is the answer.

Take all the time you need to take this in but I will say it again: Love is what will heal this planet. And yes, love with action. But ultimately when things are done through love the shift arrives.

Fifth Week of Lessons

Fifth week of quarantine has taught me a lot. I am not the same person who entered this crisis.

At first there was release. Old traumas triggered and healed. There was so much old hurt that showed up and I didn’t even process why until weeks later.

Then came anger, disappointments and short fuse syndrome over everything. Denial and acceptance showed up a lot. Sadness would follow with grace. I cried a lot. I was in a fog. It was not pretty to feel it all and be in the midst of darkness. Forgiveness was the mother experience in all of it. It actually lifted the fog.

Every emotion has been deeply felt the last few weeks. I became spiritually detached. It rattled the core of me. I somehow had disconnected from Source and couldn’t get back to my center. Then last week it stopped. It all came full circle. I felt my heart cracking open and accepting. I understood what I didn’t understand. I know not to know anything and it is okay. I accept this being this at this moment in time.

There is something to all of it on a huge cosmic level. My dreams aren’t dreams but incredible travels elsewhere. And I marvel at the opportunity to bring back lessons from other lifetimes. When I close my eyes at night I get to go and come back with deep peace and awareness.

But, I also know that as weeks go by the collective will be in a lot of turmoil. There is heaviness in the world. There is sadness and anger. Every person is undergoing their own growth. There is a rainbow of shitty emotions going on that weigh each of us down. There is no pot of gold ahead for many. Folks ask what I asked in the beginning, “What the hell is my purpose now?”

Our purpose is to rise up and join a higher frequency. We can’t fight dark forces with darkness. We must light the path and lift the fog.

I’ve decided to shift my perception and mindfully return to love every single time I get into that head space. I don’t have to know about tomorrow. I only need to be here now.

My home is sacred. My family is too. I am willing to participate in this giant awakening experiment because obviously I chose this time in history to be here. I will not be shaken by what I read or see or hear. I understand that love is the vehicle, for me, at this time.

How are you feeling after all these weeks? What are you learning?

Taking it One Day at a Time

The wind was wicked all night long in this corner of the mountains. Children slept. We all slept. It was a rare night indeed. But sometime during the middle of the night the wind took over. It is still howling and it forces me to return to my own breath. It allows me to return to this moment.

I begin to understand again. I return to my remembering:

Who you are today is a compilation of every past experience. And, you are nothing of what you will be tomorrow. That’s the beautiful mysticism of understanding the evolution of the soul… especially during these times.

We’ve never been here before. What a journey this is for each of us. For our planet. For our soul evolution.

You are the universe embodied in a human vehicle. You are a zillion cells and infinite years old. Things change every second. I urge you to pay attention.

I’ve been wealthy. I’ve been poor. I’ve been a follower. I’ve been a teacher. I’ve been an avid student. I been a mother. I’ve been a wife and a lover. I’ve been angry and happy and lost and found. I’ve been broken and pasted back together mending in my private times. None of those labels will define my tomorrow because I am ever changing…but they have defined the soul I’ve become at this moment. Every single challenge and experience has molded me. It’s never the end. We are semicolons pausing and quickly beginning a new phase. Every single day.

Just as the sun rising and the night returning…You get to restart and reinvent yourself over and over. It’s a divine privilege. It’s your human right.

So don’t let the stress of tomorrow overshadow the sacredness of presence now. You will never be this young again. You will continue to grow in spirit and the moment you become aware of your power life will begin to shift.

I love you. Be present. Make it a point to stop, have a conscious breath, and taste your life for what it is. Whether it’s good or bad it is your life. And you can change it whenever you accept that this is not a prison life sentence. It is truly a magical experience of endless proportions.

There Will Be a New Normal

We will never be the same when this global event is finished.

The normal we lived was not normal. It was imbalanced and toxic. We worked to survive the rat race. We forgot how to cherish the simple ways of life. We lost our faith and human dignity as we gave away our worth to others who misused our trust.

When this is over we will see the world so differently. We will talk about our lives as B.V. (before the virus) and A.V. (after the virus). It will become the marker of all our experiences…of a human evolution and spiritual transformation.

We will talk about how we saved the lives of billions by staying indoors. And how we came together as a community. We will share how we connected with others through the internet and became friends with strangers.

We will share about the jobs that were lost, money that crumbled and hearts that broke during the pandemic. And how we became stronger because of the lessons while rebuilding our lives in healthy ways.

We will be grateful for the medical staff, the truckers, those who deliver food and supplies, the teachers and all others who were out there putting their lives at risk on a daily basis.

We will talk about countries and how we all came together when it was over while erasing all boundaries. Hate didn’t win. Love lifted us to a whole new level of consciousness.

We will have moved inward instead of outward in a world led by materialism. We will have evolved our spiritual gifts to help so many. Healers and lightworkers will have been in the front line of the metamorphosis. The world became lighter in ways that “normal” never experienced beforehand.

We will have raised the frequency of our planet through joy and compassion. Acceptance, awareness and altruism will become a way of life across all of human lives.

We will be mindful of how we felt being home with our loved ones. How we became more creative and finished all the projects we had on hold. How our homes never looked cleaner and cozier. We filled our little lives with gratitude for what we had.

Our lives will never be the same and it’s a good thing. We will come out of this as a new world. A grateful world. A world with less hate and more love. An earth that will have rested from all we have done to her.

Normal wasn’t working for us. The new normal will be absolutely beautiful. I am holding on to this with the deep knowing that it was well overdue.

Sacredness in Holding Space

The Sacredness of Holding Space During these Moments…

Holding space for someone during these times is a privilege. It is about walking along their side without judgment, not making them feel inadequate and allowing their essence to feel free to just be. We are all on an emotional rollercoaster even if we are all about faith, love and light. We are still human and our emotional bodies do get affected.

These times are offering the opportunity for unconditional support with patience and sacredness that does not always come easy. But, we are learning. We will be learning many powerful lessons together.

Whether or not you feel anxiety and fear it is still very real for many. Your job is to stay open with an open heart. We will find that holding space is truly the only thing we can do for another while recognizing the frailty of life and all we take for granted. Compassion and kindness; altruism and acceptance; unconditional love and mindfulness should be on top of our lists.

The act of holding sacred space is important in all relationships, especially now. We are in need of these sanctified moments that express in silence to another, “I am here for you. There is nothing to do. I see you. I feel you. I hear you. I acknowledge your life.”

Holding space is about being present without distractions and allowing another to feel Divinity through the eyes of your love.

What incredible moments are being presented for us to love and respect each other! We are all under the same experience. This virus doesn’t care about race, gender, religious beliefs, political agenda, or anything else that discriminates us. We are to hold each other in pure sacredness and acceptance without judgment for how we show up through it all.

I love you. You are not alone and I will continue to remind you.