Category Archives: Acknowledge the loss

Living Your Dash

I can’t remember when I first heard about the poem The Dash by Linda Ellis. What I do know is that every time I read it I renew my desire to live my life on purpose – to continue to do work that feeds my soul, to do one thing a day that scares me (encouraging my evolution), to step into the emotions that feel difficult or uncomfortable, to let the good stuff sink in including expressing gratitude and love, and to see the possibility in whatever is showing up in my life.

Here’s the general gist of the poem. (I encourage you to read it in its entirety here.) On a tombstone there is a beginning date and an end date. In between those two dates is a dash. That tiny dash represents the fullness of your life. The question the poem raises is what do you want to do with your dash?

The intention here is not to instill fear of the end-date (the second date on your tombstone). Stirring up panic and a sense of scarcity of time is not the vibe I personally want to have clouding my dash. The reality however is we generally don’t know when our end-date is coming. We imagine living a long and fruitful life and yet anything could happen.

Here’s the approach I’ve taken. I’ve asked myself what do I want to be doing now so that if I found out I was terminally ill and going to die within a month or two I would have some degree of ease because I had been living my life on purpose, because I had been making choices in awareness of the reality of not knowing when the end will come. I don’t think it is possible to live without regret (the words that come of my mouth some times – yeesh!), yet I do think it is possible to minimize regret through actions like vulnerability, compassion, empathy, and a willingness to ask for re-do’s or acknowledge mistakes.

Do the people you love and who matter the most to you know it through your words and actions?

Is the work you are doing feeling your spirit – does it make your heart sing?

Are you learning from and in the discomfort that life gives?

Are you being gentle with yourself? Do you acknowledge your self-worth?

Are you having fun?

I ask these questions not to invoke shame or a sense of “not enough”, rather they are invitations to reflect on how you are living your dash. You are worthy and enough no matter how you are living your dash. AND you have agency in how you live your dash. I realize sometimes it can feel like you have anything but power and possibility in your life. This is the gentle reminder that there is always choice. That you can bring “creator” energy to your daily life.

Dream like you’ll life forever. Live as if you’ll die tomorrow. ~James Dean

I’ll be speaking on this topic on Sunday February 23rd as part of the service at the Centre For Spiritual Living Vancouver. Please join me if you are interested in reflecting on how you live your dash. [11 AM Creekside Community Centre, Olympic Village, Vancouver]

Acknowledging Your Losses

As part of the course work I was taking to become a certified Life Coach we dipped into art therapy. Each of us in the class was invited to pick up a piece of clay and play with it our hands. We could squish it, pound it, shape it however we wanted. I started squishing the clay around in my right hand having it ooze through my fingers, then my left, and then back to my right.

We were also asked to connect with the clay through as many senses as possible exploring texture, colour, smell, weight, etc. I opened my right hand and first noticed the shape the clay had taken looked a lot like the images of the vertebrae I had seen in the x-rays of my back. The round core and the “jutty out” parts of the facet joints. Then I noticed the weight – how heavy the clay felt in my hands. And the tears began to flow. And flow. And flow.

I literally cried for hours that day because in that briefest of moments the weight of the clay connected me with the weight, with the burden that my back had been for me for over 20 years. I’ve come to be grateful for that pain because it has lead to so many amazing things in my life. In that moment however I needed to acknowledge my sadness associated with the choices I couldn’t make because of my back. I needed to acknowledge the energy my back and pain had consumed. The weight of that clay represented the moments of sweating profusely because of the pain I was in when all I was trying to doing was stand there and teach, the times I had to say “no” to a friend’s invitation because I was too exhausted and in too much pain, the trips I couldn’t take, the high-heels I couldn’t wear, the gardening I couldn’t do, the racket sports I had put aside.

Until that time I had focused on getting healthy and happy. At this point in my life journey I had left academia. I was now living in Vancouver, supported by friends and family to make a new set of choices. I had but two months earlier undergone an 8 hour double level spinal fusion surgery that had been extremely successful. I had connected with and was excited by the idea of becoming a life coach or counsellor so had gone back to school to better appreciate the differences, and to hone my skills so that I could feel confident in my ability to hold a client and their needs safely and professionally. I was told that the fusion would not fully take hold for at least a year, maybe two so it seemed like the right timing to go back to school. So yes I could acknowledge having made progress – amazing progress as a matter of fact though I would never have labelled it that at the time – and yet here I was crying for hours.

I am so grateful to the facilitator in class that day. He brought to my awareness that I had grieving to do. That I needed to acknowledge my losses. Clearly there were many. Yet they were not the kind of losses we typically think about. I hadn’t lost a person or relationship close to me. I wasn’t terminally ill – I had recovered. Yet I understand now my “stiff upper lip”, “solder on” attitudes served me in one way and harmed me in another.

If you’re brave enough to say “goodbye”, life will reward you with a new “hello”. ~ Paul Coehlo

Grieving is a very natural human process. The reality is we experience loss daily and it needs to be grieved. This doesn’t mean you have to grieve for days or months or years even – though sometimes, depending on the loss and your process, that’s exactly what you’ll do. There doesn’t have to be public displays of mourning though sometimes there will be that as well. What I do advocate is that we take time to acknowledge our losses – big and small – because there are no beginnings without an ending. We are effected by losses and rather than pushing those emotions back inside, I’m inviting acknowledging them so that the e-motion (energy in motion) can be released. That energy release can lead to new things. It certainly did for me.

The next day after my clay experience I was exhausted and I absolutely felt lighter. I also felt calmer. I could begin to see all the changes that I had made in a different light – I could begin to celebrate them rather than stay focused on “What is the next thing I need to get done? Keep going. Keep going. Soldier on.”

My own experience with loss has inspired me to study the processes of grief more closely and bring it more deeply into my work. I have seen the value of acknowledging losses and stepping into the associated sadness – the sense of freedom it garnered, the relaxation, the sense of opening and even more possibility.

If sharing my story of losses has struck a cord, I invite you to contact me. I am also offering a workshop on Creative Hurt: Turning Loss into Learning and Growth. (March 1st. More details on my Schedule page.) The invitation is to begin to acknowledge your losses and in so doing discover what catalysts those could be for you moving forward.

Window Into Death

Have you ever seen a dead body?

Have you thought about about what you would like to have happen with your body once you have died?

Have you shared those thoughts with someone?

Here is a window into all of that as told in the context of a family, Lynch and Sons, and their Funeral Direction services. Through their story we learn about how caring for the dead is just as much about caring for the living.

I personally did not know all of elements that I saw in this video. I’m glad I watched it. It has, interestingly, given me a greater sense of ease imaging that my family members were treated with the same reverence and respect.

I hardly remember my Grandfather’s funeral. I was a young adult, yet the memories are very vague. Curiosity about why I don’t remember.

When my Nagymama (Hungarian Grandmother) died, I did not travel to Hungary for the funeral. I have been to her grave site several times and appreciate being able to connect with her there.

When my Grandmother died, I had just spent 10 days with her knowing she would die soon, but without knowing exactly when. I left, saying goodbye, knowing I would never see her alive again. That goodbye was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. She fell days later and died rapidly after that. Because I just had the ten days with her, I opted not to fly back for her funeral. Having now studied death and grief, I wish I had flown back. I didn’t appreciate then the value in seeing the body and saying goodbye once again.

I say these things not to advocate for burial, cremation, or to say you should have an open casket. I do however now see the value in ritual and the need for mourning. Mourning is grief made public. It is the outward expression of bereavement and our grieving process needs that.

I invite you to watch this video and consider what you would like for yourself when you die. And I invite you to step into conversations with those that matter in your life about what they want. I encourage you to have a ritual – whatever resonates in the context of you and your loved ones.

I have done some thinking in the context of Advanced Care Planning about what I would like. I’ve gone as far as saying I want to be cremated. I realize now I want to consider a few more details as well. Not with the intention of burdening my family, but rather to open space for some ease at a time when there will be enough “hard”.

Some of you who read this might be saying “Is she obsessed with death?” No. I don’t spend every waking minute thinking about what it will be like to die (who knows!) nor do I spend inordinate amounts of time thinking about what I want when I die. I’d like to live a long life – there is much I still want to do – yet I find some peace in this moment knowing I’ve looked through the window into my own death. It helps me live this life. It gives me a sense of being on purpose – of taking responsibility for my living by giving some consideration to my death.

This video was produced in 2007. You will see dead bodies being prepared for either burial or cremation. You will hear the story of parents preparing for the death of their child. Of a niece caring for her aunt in a hospice setting. Of a family that has dedicated its energy to serving the dead and the living. I’ve imbedded the first part of the video below. To see it in its entirety, I encourage you to go to the PBS FRONTLINE Website and watch The Undertaking.

Watch The Undertaking on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

No Regrets

It seems that as we approach the end of our lives we have regrets.

I’ve read many books that talked to people who are nearing the end of their lives either because of terminal illness or age. A common theme is having regrets.

Regrets come in all shapes and sizes –

wishing you had said no when you said yes
wishing you had said yes when you said no
wishing you had resolved that problem with a particular person
wishing you had told that person how you felt about him/her
wishing you had jumped, taken the risk, when instead you hesitated

The list could go on. For the most part regrets are about wishing you had taken an action – whether it is to do or say something – an action different than the one you took.

I try and live my life without regret. I ask myself with some regularity “If I were to die tomorrow, how do I feel about the choices I’ve made to this moment?” And then I notice how I feel as I ponder my answer. I have to say that right now I’m noticing some not so good feelings – those feelings are telling me I have to take some different actions.

I did take some action today. I wrote am email I’ve been putting off doing for several days – am email that might well lead to the end of an intimate relationship. Yet now if tomorrow never comes, I shared some things I needed to share. And it wasn’t about yelling, being angry, or about wishing for something different. It was about taking responsibility for my own feelings and asking to hear about theirs.

And there is some other action I need to take. Another friend is, I believe, hanging at the moment because I haven’t responded. I’ve been avoiding – it feels easier in this moment. Yet the idea of tomorrow not coming leaves me with a bad flavour in my mouth if I am to leave things with this friend the way they currently stand. It is not a big deal, but it is about speaking my truth and sometimes that can feel vulnerable and scary. So I’m inviting myself to step into that scary, to be vulnerable, to speak my truth, and know that shifts my feeling of regret.

A person recently asked me “Can you really get to the end and not have regrets?” I don’t know. I’m certainly willing to put the energy into my life, to live it on purpose, to be vulnerable, to speak my truth, and find out. How about you?

The Other Side of Hope

Hope. Hopelessness. Two sides of the same coin?

I’ve been thinking about hope recently, inspired by a book I just finished reading entitled Lessons For The Living: Stories of Forgiveness, Gratitude and Courage at the End of Life by Stan Goldberg. Stan is a cancer survivor and volunteers in a hospice. He brings what he has learned from these experiences into the book.

Here’s an excerpt from his chapter entitled “The Dilemma of Hope.”

Poof! Not only did hope disappear, but as I looked back on who I became during the intervening time between the onset of hope and learning that my dream wasn’t going to be fulfilled, it wasn’t pleasant realizing that I had allowed hope to let the new me slip away. People often contrast hope with hopelessness, as if the former is always positive and the latter always negative. It’s a false dichotomy based on a simplistic understanding of the role of hope. For Joyce [a hospice patient], hope prevented her from living in the present and appreciating the marvelous things she had accomplished. For me, hope transformed the scientist and humanist in me into someone who put all faith on the throw of the dice. Worse, for eighteen months it robbed me of being more genuine with the people I loved.

The absence of hope isn’t a negative state. The disappearance of hope put me squarely into the present…I no longer invest energy in hoping that the cancer will remain under control — I’m too busy living.

Past, present, future. We need all of them. Sometimes looking at the past enables us to reframe it so that we can live in the present. So that those hooks of past experiences don’t weigh us down, rather they inspire us to go forth in our lives. And sometimes those memories from the past bring us great joy in the present as we remember a fun adventure or a now past loved. And yet we can’t live in those past stories, we live here. Now. In the present moment.

Hope takes us, me, to the future. I want hope. I want hope that things can be different. It is part of what inspires me. I help people connect with their own answers in the belief that they can achieve something different for their next moment. That’s hope. Maybe it is even beyond, more, deeper than hope.

At the same time I don’t want hope to take me out of connecting with this moment – of seeing what is in front of me right here, right now. Of being with what is.

I can also feel an edge to hope – the edge that says I want something different and yet I have to consider it might not happen. If I know it will happen, then it is knowing, belief – beyond hope.

I’m reflecting on hope in the context of a good friend of mine who is living with a lot of pain right now. I so hope for him to be pain free. There it is – that edge of hope that says maybe he’ll never be pain free. In the present moment I find myself having to let in his pain and that’s uncomfortable for me. It hurts to see someone I care about in pain. Having hope seems easier. It takes me out of having to fully accept his reality in this moment. It enables me to side step the depth of my own emotions.

So if I don’t have hope, is it hopeless? No. Hopeless feels dark and I don’t feel dark. There is a deeper knowing here that regardless of what tomorrow brings, I’ll be okay. He’ll be okay. It may not be pretty, but it will be okay. It will be what that moment of life brings.

So perhaps the other side of hope, as Stan suggests is presence. And perhaps it is belief, knowing. Surrendering to what is.

Change of Address

I’m a controller. In other words I like control and I try to control my life. I understand and appreciate that this is not always the best strategy for life. I have over the years tried to let go, be gentle with my need for control.

I get that it is grounded in fear – worries that my needs won’t be met if I’m not in control. And what if I actually do trust somebody and they let me down? If I control it, by doing it myself for example, then I don’t have to worry about that trust or depending on someone thing.

Recently I find I’m asking myself, in a very loving, kind playful voice, “So how’s that control life thing working for you Catherine?” For as much as I try to control the situation (probably more truthfully stated as try to control the people in the situation) life – the Universe – has a way of reminding me I am so not in control.

Here’s my latest example. I have to laugh, because if I don’t, I might cry!

Due to one circumstance or another I found myself moving around quite a bit. Part of it involved a forced move due the condo I was renting being sold. Part of it involved deciding to go to a retreat centre for 5 weeks and book-ending the retreat with a road trip. And I knew once I returned from the trip, I’d be getting yet another new address because returning meant I’d be looking for a new place to live.

“I know,” I thought, “I’ll get one of those mailboxes in place like a UPS store. I’ll pick a convenient location so that way if I move, I can still easily get to it. And if I travel they can mail whatever arrives into the box to me. It will be great to use as my business address anyway. So perfect! Implement that and then no more change of address requests required. Maybe ever!” With this logic I did a little happy dance and have proceeded to move most, if not all, of my mail to the address of my new mailbox. I was proud of myself! I had found a solution – a way to control how things might unfold in the future in my life.

Went to said mailbox today and what did I find? A notice. “What did the notice say?” you might be asking. It was a notice to inform me that the store that is the keeper of my mailbox is MOVING! And could I inform whomever I needed to of my CHANGE OF ADDRESS!!

I re-read the notice hoping it was a joke – that perhaps I had read something incorrectly. Nope. I could get really frustrated with this if I wanted to. I have put in a lot of effort worrying about change of addresses in the last while. I had practiced sound judgement to find a solution! This wasn’t supposed to happen. This didn’t factor in my scenario of life.

In the end I’m laughing, thinking about the Serenity Prayer, asking myself “So how’s the controlling life thing working for you Catherine?”

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

Reinhold Niebuhr

Perhaps at this point I could simply acknowledge that I don’t know what my life is going to look like a year from now. I don’t even know what it is going to look like tomorrow. I can have some idea, but I can’t know it all. I certainly can’t control it all.

So I might as well accept that I’ll be filing “Change of Address requests” for the rest of my life. When, how, under what circumstances, no idea!

Expectations – Good or Bad?

I’ve had two friends recently tell me they are worried about my expectations. They are worried about expectations I have about a particular person and my relationship with that person. I’m perplexed. My body has a sensation of wanting to push back, to reject their voices about my expectations.

What’s so wrong with expectations for myself or someone else? What could be wrong with me wanting to see someone put energy into their health and well-being? What could be wrong with me wanting to go camping? Or more generally on vacation?

Maybe it is not about right or wrong. Maybe they are not saying it is wrong for me to have expectations. Maybe they are just worried that my dreams won’t come true and then how will I feel? And it is lovely that they worry about me, and yet I want to have my dreams and have dreams for others. I’ll deal with the consequences if those dreams don’t come true. Sometimes what I hoped for doesn’t happen, but something even better, that I couldn’t imagine at the time does. Yes, sometimes I’m disappointed and I have to do a little mourning at the loss, the grieving of an unrealized dream. I’m okay with all of that.

Let me back track for a second. What is an expectation anyway? I’ve looked at lots of definitions. Here’s as couple:

something looked forward to, whether feared or hoped for
an attitude of expectancy or hope
anticipation
prospects, especially of success or gain
anticipating with confidence of fulfillment
belief about (or mental picture of) the future

Sounds pretty good wouldn’t you say? I want anticipation. I want hope. And yet when I read online about expectations, so much caution! I came across this quote that seems to sum up everyone’s concern about expectations:

Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed. [Alexander Pope – Letter to Fortescue]

Part of the arguments around this are that expectations take us and maybe even keep us in the future. The alternative is to be in the moment, accepting and acknowledging what is.

I’ve made a conscious choice to question either/or thinking. I think expectations are a good example. I’m going to have them. Not having them, well for me, that’s not life! Life is going to have disappointment. And I’m realizing I’m okay with that. I want to have dreams, ideas, possibilities. Will they all materialize? No. Do they feed me and inspire me to show up in my life? Yes.

AND I want to practice being in the moment as well. I don’t want to live exclusively in the future, with expectation. I want to appreciate what is unfolding now.

My take on expectations is that they are wrapped up in being human. They are tied to needs, desires, values, beliefs – so to say don’t have them, well quite frankly, that seems ridiculous. And why wouldn’t I hold an expectation of another human being being able?

So are expectations good or bad? I guess they just are. Maybe it is more about realistic or unrealistic, healthy or unhealthy expectations. Even those will be hard to define – more organic, permeable, and tied to context I think than black and white in their definition.

I was curious about how some folks who practice NVC might talk about needs versus expectations. They suggested yes, we have our needs, and the invitation is to let go of expectations of how those needs will be filled. I can buy into that, yet at the same time, I’m not letting go of visions and dreams. I practice affirmations and visioning. When I launch one or the other I always say to the Universe “This or something better.” I can’t know what better is until I’ve lived it – experienced it. And sometimes that pathway is through disappointment – I’ve had my share of that – and yet I’m really really glad I am where I am in my life and all the things/experiences/people that have brought me to this place.

So yes, I’m going to keep having my expectations. And yes, I’m going to keep checking on them. I can agree that sometimes they are not serving me – perhaps because through the expectation I am holding myself or someone else to an unrealistic standard. Those expectations can be adjusted.

In this moment I’m grateful my friends expressed their concerns about my expectations. It has been fruitful for me to do this exploration. My expectations remain, yet I’m noticing I hold them a little less tightly, inspired by the reminder that how they come to life might look different than what I am expecting.

In case you are curious, here are some of the websites I look at as I was ruminating on this piece:

Unrealistic Expectations in Relationship

Expectations in Relationships: The Flip Side of Obligations

Building a Healthy Relationship From the Start

The Trust About Relationship Expectations

NVC Needs, Desires, Values, Expectations, Thoughts

Letting Go – pain, struggle, or release and relief?

When is it time to let go?

I’ve been moving into a new place the last few weeks. I chose a place that I felt served me in many ways – love the location and the space itself made me say “I want to live here.” And I knew the space was going to force me to downsize. Not much storage and I was okay with that.

Then came the downsizing.

What if I might some day hold that party for 30 people I’ve been thinking about? I would need those mugs then.

I do wear those shoes sometimes…

And then there’s the books and files that remain from my years as a grad student working on my doctoral dissertation and then as an academic. The collection had already seen one purge several years ago. Much still remained.

I felt heavy – literally and figuratively – as I tried to decide what to do with these items. That is where the pain and struggle came in. The memories – good and bad – of the experiences associated with these items come into my consciousness. Thoughts – oh so many thoughts – came rushing in. Am I throwing away my PhD if I throw away documents and books associated with it? How will I prove that I did the work if I don’t have items from the steps along the way? What if someday I might need this particular piece of information again?

I had lots of advice from friends. “Don’t think about it. Just throw it all away.” Or “You can’t throw that away. That was from your grandmother.” Helpful? Nope.

What in the end worked for me is the following. It took me a while to figure out this was the process that got me the release and relief I was looking for and no, that doesn’t mean I threw everything away. I just found peace with the process.

First I checked in on what the item represented. Maybe there was some grieving I needed to do and in so doing, I would be able release the item. Maybe I wasn’t living the life at 47 I thought I was going to – the parties for 30 co-hosted by me and my spouse weren’t happening. No big parties. No spouse. And yet I could follow-up that up and say unequivocally that life IS good even though it doesn’t look as I had expected. So I acknowledged the loss of the unrealized vision and found gratitude in the now.

Then I asked myself about how I wanted to let go of the item(s). Somehow simply throwing things away didn’t feel right for a variety of reasons. Being able to give them away for reuse, or at least for recycle, felt better. So I created different boxes for items I wanted to offer to friends, to various charities, and to recycle.

And I gave myself some time. Those boxes of books and papers – I had to sit with them for a while as they blocked the ease of movement in my apartment. At first I thought I would send the books to Africa. Yes, that felt right. And then it didn’t. I thought about the environmental impact of shipping. I thought about whether these were really the books they would want. In the end the books and papers went happily to recycle because in that question of grieving and letting go I realized I had the fear that without all those goodies, somehow the PhD wasn’t mine any more. That somehow I was going to be less smart and less capable. When I recognized that story represented a typical shame (less than) response for me, I knew, one of those body knowings, that the stuff needed to go. That I wanted it to go. That I was whole, smart, and capable without those bits and pieces.

I did keep some things. I didn’t need five of the items I had received from my Grandmother. One would do so that every time I opened the cupboard, I could remember her with great affection. And my two friends who bought me the chicken pitcher – well they’ll be happy to know I still have it. It makes me laugh way too much every time I use it, albeit not very often, so I had to keep it. For now!

Catherine Hajnal

Life Fundamentals: Acknowledging pain and loss. Igniting hope and possibility.