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Posts Tagged: loss

Turn Your Gravel Pit Into a Beautiful Garden

Posted by Marlene Anderson, MA, LMHC, NCC

Turn Your Gravel Pit into A Beautiful Garden | focuswithmarlene.com

Can something ugly and scarred be turned into something beautiful and inviting? Let me share with you a true story about a real gravel pit.

A gravel pit is a piece of land where bulldozers and huge earth-scooping machinery have removed the soil to extract gravel and other ingredients needed to build roads, make cement, gather building rocks, etc.

What remains, after all the extractions, is a huge scarred and pitted hole in the ground with unstable and crumbling sides, water seepage from underground springs, stagnant pools of rainwater, huge, discarded pieces of rock and other un-usable mounds of earth. Debris is scattered everywhere, discarded by individuals who consider this a worthless piece of land; a place to throw away their pop cans, beer bottles or candy wrappers.

God’s Love Streaming In

Posted by Marlene Anderson, MA, LMHC, NCC

God’s Love Streaming In | focuswithmarlene.com

When working through a loss to a new beginning, we experience ups and downs of emotions and thoughts. At times we might feel like a yo-yo, up one minute, down the next. It is an interval when we not only are working through recovery but taking stock of our life – what was important and what was not.

In my book, Learning to Live Again in a New World – available in hard copy, e-book, or audio book – I share strategies and methods to offset those difficult moments. It is a book full of suggestions to make your journey smoother and more complete.

Where Do We Begin?

Posted by Marlene Anderson, MA, LMHC, NCC

Where Do We Begin? | FocusWithMarlene.com

You have grieved, accepted, let go and are now ready to put your energy into making plans for the future.

Before making any major long-term goals, some preliminary questions can help you avoid a lot of wasted time and energy. Some of those questions include identifying your strengths and weaknesses.

Have you given thoughtful consideration to what you would like to do in the future and what obstacles or barriers you may encounter?

Starting over is never easy.

When we started out in life, it seemed there was a more defined path to follow: going to college, establishing a career, getting married, starting a family, etc. Somehow it was easier to coordinate all the pieces and move in the direction we wanted to go.

Hope Helps Us Move from One Season to Another

Posted by Marlene Anderson, MA, LMHC, NCC

eagle soaring

A time to laugh and a time to cry.

Every year we prepare for the traditional changes that occur with the different seasons – fall to winter, winter to spring, etc. We can also identify with the writer of Ecclesiastes when he talks about the seasons of life we go through. But we are not always ready to accept them, especially when that season exchange is out of sync with our expectations.

We want the pleasant things – we don’t want the unpleasant.

We don’t want to give up one to gain the other. We want life – not death. We want laughter and joy, not weeping and mourning. Yet both are necessary components to life.

I believe it is only within our difficulties, troubles and losses where we discover more about life and ourselves.

Those Troubling and Lingering Emotions: Anger, Guilt, and Shame

Posted by Marlene Anderson, MA, LMHC, NCC

Those Troubling and Lingering Emotions: Anger, Guilt, and Shame | focuswithmarlene.com

Anger, guilt or shame can become lingering emotions felt when losses were troubled by difficult circumstances.

We want a quick fix – one we don’t have to work with. Understanding our emotions can help us find a different response.

In my book, Learning to Live Again in a New World, there are two appendixes. In Appendix A, “Complex Grief Emotions,” I offer additional information on how to work through anger, guilt, shame and fear. Here is a quick overview of the first three.

Unresolved Conflict in Our Losses

Posted by Marlene Anderson, MA, LMHC, NCC

Unresolved Conflict in Our Losses | focuswithmarlene.com

When any longstanding conflicts are dumped onto our grief and loss, they add another layer of conflicting thoughts and emotions. Unresolved issues between you and the deceased can initiate feelings of shame or guilt. You may not have had a chance for reconciliation or resolution before death.

If losses were the result of random acts of violence, accidents, suicide or any unforeseen death, we may be left with a multitude of unanswerable questions and feelings of anger, confusion, guilt, anxiety, fear and remorse.

If you had been a victim of past abuse, abandonment, rejection or injustice; or lived with years of misunderstandings or conflict with this person who has now died, you will be left with a multitude of incongruous emotions. It might seem as if death has cheated you from finding resolution.

  • What happens to all that anger and resentment?
  • How do you process it all?

Endings Leave A Bit of Ourselves Behind

Posted by Marlene Anderson, MA, LMHC, NCC

Endings Leave A Bit of Ourselves Behind | FocusWithMarlene.com

ceremonies or rites of passage symbolize leaving childhood to enter adulthood. Sometimes the rituals are physically demanding – others are simply a public recognition and celebration after instruction. Religions also have symbolic ceremonies to represent a major transition such as Jewish Bar Mitzvahs and Confirmation in the Lutheran and Roman Catholic Churches.

We leave something of ourselves behind in our endings as we move into the next stage of life. Even if we are enthusiastic about a new beginning, the ending can be bitter-sweet. We wait with anticipation for that first child, only to discover in becoming a parent, that we are not free to come and go as we please. Life has been altered forever. We may finally have reached that long-awaited retirement, only to experience restlessness and lack of purpose. It is necessary to redefine who we are at each stage of life.

What Transforms Your Life?

Posted by Marlene Anderson, MA, LMHC, NCC

What Transforms Your Life? | FocusWithMarlene.com

Every day, we observe the wonders of our world and the transformations that happen throughout the seasons.

Who hasn’t been renewed and refreshed by a cooling summer’s rain or been moved by the beauty and quiet serenity of an earth blanketed in mounds of downy snow or snowflakes that shimmer like diamonds in the winter sun?

Who hasn’t witnessed the peace of a countryside bathed in the light of a full moon?

And what person hasn’t marveled at stars so dazzling and vivid, it seems we could reach up and touch them? At such times, nature is silenced and time suspended.

And yet, the snow is only frozen water, and the sun, moon and stars are nothing more than hardened, desolate, uninhabitable rocks and dangerous gasses.

Misfortune and hardship can take us out of what was predictable and comforting and place us in unfamiliar territory.

A New Mind Shift – A New You  

Posted by Marlene Anderson, MA, LMHC, NCC

A New Mind Shift - A New You | FocusWithMarlene.com

How do you see yourself?

Are you despondent and dreading the future, unable to see anything positive to look forward to?

Losses can make everything seem gloomy and hopeless and we resign ourselves to this fate moving forward.

But we can change that picture.

We can reframe what is happening in order to see something positive. Let me share a true story with you.

Years ago, I worked for a company that provided training to injured workers in chronic pain to help in their recovery and their re-entry to the workplace. They had been injured on the job, resulting in their inability to continue working in that same capacity.

8 Steps to Begin Living Again

Posted by Marlene Anderson, MA, LMHC, NCC

8 Steps to Begin Living Again | FocusWithMarlene.com

One of the questions people ask when they attend support groups is, How can I enjoy life again when I have just lost the most important thing in life?

As we continue this series on recovering from losses, we will address not only healing and recovery, but rebuilding.

Recovering from a significant loss is never easy. If you lost your spouse, child, parent or best friend, that loss takes center stage and everything else is blocked from view. You may have resumed the daily tasks of life but find no pleasure in them.

Recovery includes the need to not only accept and let go but think about your future. But where do you begin?

You can’t begin to imagine the possibility of happiness in the future without your loved one. You might have accepted, but you can’t envision anything positive to look forward to.