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Posts Tagged: shame

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.

Grab Hold, Let Go, and Swing!

Posted by Marlene Anderson, MA, LMHC, NCC

Grab Hold, Let Go, and Swing! | focuswithmarlene.com

When faced with life-altering situations, we struggle not only to grasp the totality of what we are facing, but to plan a way forward. Consider the options my son and us faced years ago. His physical limitations never deterred him. And he lived life never even considering he couldn’t make it and took his talents and built a successful career.

Don was born without the muscles to hold up his head. Muscle weakness extended to other areas of his back and neck. A special brace was designed for him, with a rod that went down the back, anchored with straps around his waist and a pre-formed support for his head.

One might assume he was a prisoner to his physical disabilities. But he never saw it that way and neither did we.

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.

A New Structure for My Life

Posted by Marlene Anderson, MA, LMHC, NCC

Learning to Live Again in a New World, by Marlene Anderson | focuswithmarlene.com

We think of losses as something we quickly address and then dismiss. But the more significant the loss, the more the impact it has on every area of our life: social, financial, personal, family, friendships, and our past as well as our future.

Loss asks the question, where do I go from here?

There are many books on the market that speak to that early universal pain. We can experience a multitude of emotions: shock, anger, fear, anxiety, relief, shame, guilt, etc. Our pain will gradually recede as life demands we engage again to pay the bills and feed our families. But little information is offered to help us create a new roadmap moving forward.

My newly released book, Learning to Live Again in a New World, addresses that need.