liveapathofheart.blog

Tag: loss

  • Beginning Death

    Beginning Death

    I’ve been building a relationship with death.

    I work as a clinical director at a local hospice. I am an RN.

    I began this work on the heels of a few colleagues and friends dying and also just after my father died in Sep 2023. In the years prior to my father dying I also underwent many personal mini deaths. Deaths of parts of my ego structure, belief systems and emotional pattering that I healed and integrated into myself, thus falling away. All of this set me up to come into this hospice work and begin to build this relationship I am evaluating and exploring with death. 

    There is a way I feel that I close off connection with others when its too taxing or doesn’t serve me. This is the result of recent exploration of boundaries, new boundaries, so they may be getting out of hand. So I am noticing that now that I know I can set boundaries, maybe I need to reengage with others try for more connection knowing I can hold boundaries in place if I need to and keep myself safe. 

    This is coming up right now because I’ve been building this conversation with death, which seems to be at the base of all my of fears and terror: that I’m going to die.

    I’ve also been watching this show called, “Dying for Sex” in which we watch a woman and her best friend navigate the woman’s death from cancer and her desire to self actualize using sex before she does so. It also shows the profound love between two friends. 

    There is an interesting scene where a hospice nurse explains death and dying to them in a really quirky and explicit way. 

    I don’t do this often in hospice with my clients. Even though I perceive myself as being able to hold a lot of vulnerability in my life and profession, maybe I am stunted a bit in my capacity to really support clients in the time before death but not being super open about what is going to happen to them and openly volunteering that information. It made me wonder, does my fear of engulfment from others strong emotions prevent me from going deep with people? Do other hospice nurses do this?

    I was on a date yesterday and the man was a wonderful human, but was physically not compatible for me. We elected to continue our day long date even though there was uncertainty about compatibility. I noticed that once I identified he wasn’t a fit for me I totally shut down and went numb. Severing energetically the connection. 

    He commented on his feelings in his body, and in response to this asked me to connect more. 

    I identified that I had trust issues about men not really wanting to be friends with me but only wanting to keep me around because they like my energy and maybe want to fuck me. So I just was planning on cutting this guy out of my life as extraneous and not being it as an opportunity to lean into the potential connection as friends or colleagues. Underlying this pattern is trust. And fear of engulfment, fear of doing the wrong thing, of moving too fast and of falling in love with someone that is not right for me. And thus having pain and suffering which under that is fear of abandonment and death. 

    When I identified all this and spoke about it with him, the numbness lifted. The weirdness lifted. He said he then was able to feel connected. And we had a really nice time despite not being the right fit as romantic partners. 

    So I am wondering, how do keep myself safe and dive deep into connection without it making me feel engulfed and exhausted and worrying I will die?

    Can I expand my capacity with my clients and hold more vulnerability with them and more openness such as the TV nurse?

    Can men and women be friends? 

    Can I ask the numbness to move aside to enable more connection and thus love in my life?

    Can I stop seeing romantic love as the only love that will fill the hole?

    I feel as if I am asking death to teach me this. I don’t know how to explain that connection but it’s there for me. 

  • Fuck that old man, his bottles piled high

    Corrals are empty

    Barn walls are falling down

    His hands are empty

    His mouth though, is full of magical bullshit still

    And that old dog of his is about to die

    But my heart still surrounds him

    And there is nothing I can do about that

    But watch

    Remembering him riding ahead, breaking branches, breaking trail

    Teaching me to be quiet in the mountains, giving me that gift

    Teaching me his magic

    I hold him now where I can

    And I’ll watch him ride off ahead of me into the sunset

    On a horse called alcoholism

  • Rebirthing 101 Part 1: Lean into Grief

    I have gone through a few large transitions involving varying deep levels of grief in the last 6 months.

    I have been watching my processing around it and wanted to share some about leaning towards our grief and transitioning into acceptance, what that can look like, or at least what it looks like for me from a standpoint of the tools I have been implementing around my own healing in this process.

    I want to start by saying that as with all things human there is a continuum, we have have greater or lesser levels of emotional pain, situations that cause grief, so it is not useful to compare our outward experiences, just take what works for you and leave the rest, we all can share in the inner feelings of pain, loss, loneliness, rage, darkness; as well as the light from our hearts that we can bring ourselves and each other in these hard situations; so let us meet there.

    When things fall apart my tendency is to insulate from the pain. If you think about it it’s a total natural way for our systems to handle things. When something punctures our skin, our natural barriers, thereby putting us on high alert for danger, our body sends blood cell warriors to the site of the puncture, and walls off or encapsulates the site in an effort to prevent system wide infection. 

    My initial tendency is to not experience the pain. To push away from it. Pretend it’s not happening. Use sex, shopping, social media addiction, running (I literally try to run away from it, god bless it!), work, and a new one in the last few years…. meditation, ceremony, spiritual practice. 

    But all these behaviors have in common a way that I am trying to change whatever feeling I am having rather than just being with the feeling and actually experiencing it so that it can naturally move through, transmute, and dissipate the emotions out of my body and field. 

    So what’s the answer?

    Lean towards it. Whatever it is. 

    Rage, sadness, even the excitement of love. 

    What I have found is that if I don’t lean towards the feelings , they lodge in my body and turn into stuck feelings. DEPRESSION. 

    I used to feel depression quite often as I was in the habit of never feeling my feelings, always pushing them away in an inability to experience any emotion. So they always settled into a stuckness I began to know well as depression. 

    I really had no idea this was not normal until very recently when I experienced on a body-feeling level the difference in letting emotions process through and also watching what happens when I don’t and the subsequent feelings of stuckness and depressed feelings that follow. 

    How do we lean towards our feelings?

    When we are having big feelings that feel overwhelming or constant, or cyclical/repetitive: 

    ~Focus in on the sensations in your body when you are having the emotions. 

    ~Where is the sensation located in your body, what’s the quality? 

    ~Are there colors, temperatures, visual representation or auditory accompaniment that go along with the emotions? 

    ~Focus and describe these to yourself or if working with a therapist describe them to them.

    Practice this until you can get familiar with this practice, don’t try to change the emotion! Just BE with it. Be with the sensations and whatever is coming up. Try sending some curiosity, some compassion and kindness. 

    Treat yourself and your emotions you would someone you cherish.

    ❤️☀️ Come to a wonderful backcountry glamping retreat

    July 22nd-25th 2021 in Taos Ski Valley!Rebirthing in Nature in is 4 days/3 nights

    Click the link in my bio! Sign up now!Spots are going quickly…..

    This retreat is all about working with your fear, befriending it and moving through it. We will be glamping in the forest above the base of Taos Ski Valley. Expand yourself through rock climbing on the Via-Ferratta, hike into the high mountains to our basecamp for 2 nights, and jump deeper into nature’s healing. Explore mindfulness practices, deep process, silence, and powerful ceremonies for women moving through major life transition and change.

    Rebirthing in Nature in Taos – July 22-25, 2021

    This retreat will help you break through your fear and onto releasing grief and pain–rebirthing you onto your path to the Transformed New You.

    Experience the IFS Toolbox and self-compassion practices you can take home too. Co-facilitated by Donna Roe Daniell, MSW, LCSW, RYT of Women in Transformation and Jennifer Johnson, RN

    ❤️ 🙏🏼 #liveapathofheart #rebirthinginnature #heartofthewilderness #womenintransformation #trailrunning #mountainsaremyhappyplace #loveyourself #recovery #patagonia #healingadventures #healing #getoutsideandblowthestinkoffya #nm #taosnewmexico #tsv #taosskivalley #altrarunning #nmtrue #skitaos #liveyourbestlife #spiritualpractice #earthconscious #earthing #letgo #healingafterdivorce #midlifewomen #letgooffear #play

  • Wonderment

    I was musing on my run today about how in wonderment I was having to stop every so often and marvel at the glory of the outdoors.
    It reminded me about gratitude practice. Allowing myself to feel, see, experience and be present with how beautiful the world around us is, is a powerful mindfulness and gratitude practice tool.
    That for which we have gratitude for INCREASES in our lives…
    There is always something amazing about our world and allowing ourselves to LOOK UP and OUT of ourselves, to get out of whatever mind fuck we find ourselves in, is a way to both practice mindfulness, to practice getting out of our heads and into our hearts, and to see that the more we notice beauty the more there is beauty around us.
    Try it.
    And also try more gratitude practice.
    If and when you are stuck in your mind or are in a dark place. Think of something that you can be grateful for. If you can’t think of anything in the moment, then fake it until you make it. Such as “I am grateful for my breath”, “I am grateful for the earth under my feet, that I am not just careening through space, that I have this huge supportive force under me”.
    As you do this you may get micro bits of space that you can breathe into and grow.
    Practice allowing yourself to be grateful for daily wins, for time spent that feels free, for financial spaciousness wherever possible and watch as those things grow as you focus more on the positive and less in lack.
    Come learn more about yourself and see that the only limits are the ones you make in your mind. Come play and have Ceramony with us under a mountainous full moon in beautiful Taos Ski Valley in July 2021.
    Shed your skin, shed your limits by going more within and finding the limitless possibility that is YOU.


    Sign up now for our Rebirthing in Nature Glamping Retreat in Taos Ski Valley and save $250 by registering now during our early sign up period before April 1st.
    See the link in my Bio and DM me with questions!!

    Come find out. Come to the wild with me!
    https://women-in-transformation.com/product/rebirthing-in-nature-in-taos-july-22-25-2021/

  • Ashes to dust

    Heart

    Still

    Hopeful

    Even

    As

    I

    Grind

    The

    Ashes

    Under

    My

    Boot

  • Letting Grief Be

    I’m going through grief. All phases of it, all stages of it; every little morsel is pelting me in the forehead and large chunks sucker punch me in the gut. There is sweet, honest gratitude for the experiences and love that was/is and that I am loosing as well.

    When I have gone through grief in the past it has felt like a truck hitting me. Stabbing pain in my gut and my heart, inability to breathe, inability to function, lots of bed time, lots of time crying. But this time seems different.

    It is definitely not different due to the quality of the loss, let me tell you. The man I am loosing is my favorite man. I would have spent the rest of my days wrapped around him if I could. But its not to be anymore. I’ve never quite gone through this type of thing where I actively love someone yet am not able to be with them anymore, feels like a death.

    Its not been easy either, I don’t want to make it sound like that, but its been a different experience of being with my grief in a way I’ve not been before.

    The difference is that while I have had time where I hurt immensely and felt like I couldn’t breathe, I was able to stay with the feelings, see them as energy, not let them take me over and even to notice that, wow I AM breathing. And cooking and working and running and taking care of my kid! I AM BREATHING! Even in the face of this loss. The energy of the grief is a painful feeling but if I switch the way I think of it as an energy I am being with, as an energy, a necessary moving through. A process that must be witnessed and allowed, then the grief does not take me over and I don’t drown in the tears.

    Some small practices : placing my hands on my heart and my solar plexus, providing holding to myself, because shiz, what I really need right now is HUG! So I’m holding myself.

    When I notice that I am making stories in my head about what the other may be doing or thinking, or feeling confounded about his motives, I am instead, again, turning towards myself, focusing on my heart and the solar plexus which for me is where the pain resides. When I notice I am reaching outward toward him, I am reaching in. I am sending all that longing for my former lover and sending the love I want so desperately to give, to. my. self.

    I am intentionally doing anger and grief release and crying for some time everyday, so that there is an outlet everyday. I have noticed that when I do not consciously release trauma and or grief out of my body with bio energetic exercise like kicking or letting my muscles shake, that it lodges in my body and becomes what begins to feel like depression. I realized this recently when my daughter had a seizure, and I was able to see the feelings solidifying into a depressive feeling from not being released properly!

    It’s important to get support. I am talking about a friend, sponsor or therapist, but I am also talking about touching and holding another human or even a dog or cat if you can. This has become some what hard for us in covid times I know, but do your best. Get a massage if you can. We all need connection.

    Please come and share in a wonderful, awesome retreat with me and my mentor Donna Roe Danielle this coming July 2021 in Taos Ski Valley in the mountains of Northern New Mexico! We are in the early sign up period so you can save some money by signing up now! Sign up before April 1st! Share with you friends and DM me with questions or on the website.

    Rebirthing in Nature in Taos – July 22-25, 2021

  • Fly

    And I guess, she thought,

    I am very grateful.

    For She never knew

    She could love that much,

    and in that way.

    So that as she turned her eyes

    once more toward the horizon

    she realized she’d never look elsewhere

    than her own sweet heart again.

  • Passing

    In the evening

    When friends have gone

    The light is perfect and

    The sun is slung low on the horizon reminding you of another day slipping full of you into the night.

    When will you pick up the phone and tell her you love her, that you miss her or him?

    Because another day is going

    Life is passing

    And love is abundant but rarely makes you laugh so.

    And you’re still breathing

    So what do you have to loose?

  • The Other

    And she said to him, Tom, love

    Life is long… you have no idea what the

    universe has in store for you.

    Or for me.

    We tip our hats to fate.

    Measure our steps in the sand.

    Breathe the cold air into our lungs and just

    be with what is.

    And we keep reminding each other of this,

    even as we grow older.

    Even as time and the arduous, trudging

    journey threatens to harden our hearts.

    This is why we love each other,

    this reminding each other.

    And he said Jen, love…

    Be soft sweetheart.

    We speak the words and we run with the

    wind.

    Let the universe have you for now and

    Don’t forget.

    That life, it is long… and we know not what

    the other will have in store for us along

    the way.

  • Salt

    After the fall

    The light no longer beamed in my chest

    I found it harder to channel the light

    Sitting alone, I felt alone rather than full

    Missing the skin touching my own

    Even though it may have not been meant for me.

    In the face of the man I felt as if I was doing it wrong, too much sexuality, not enough sensitivity, not enough words, or at least the right words, came from my mouth.

    Round and round the words came from him making my head spin and it started to dawn on me that I’d done something wrong, blankness, seeing red, flooded by words I was, and this will not do!

    Reminders of times in my life when my big feeling body just could not compute, shut down would happen.

    My truth disappears.

    So now after the skin was here pressing near to mine, the breath was on my neck, fingers on nipples squeezing just right, making me shudder…

    I’ve had to ask it to leave…

    Because I want the light back.

    I’ll wait for the light and the skin to exist together in my house.

    A small sadness abides here now, parts that were weary of wandering alone curl up here on the couch in longing.

    I was almost ready I guess.

    Not quite I guess.

    When the man comes that is filled with light and can offer his darkness as a tool to more light, when he says honey let’s go biking, let’s go for a quick swim.

    When we don’t even have to discuss the fact that each day we must commune with the mountains.

    When there is a man that revels in my powerful sex, that can’t help but grasp my hand and hold me tight, when neither of us can resist feeding each other.

    When the salt of our skin continually mingles…