Moments with Mary

TIME OUT...Have you ever noticed that when a team is struggling during a game, a time out is called so the team can revamp their strategy because the current one isn’t working for them.  When a child is out of sorts and can’t control their actions, a parent calls a time out to give the child time to settle down, relax and calm down.  When we are grieving and feel outside of ourselves or struggling with intense emotions because there is no more normal, or we feel completely blank or our emotions are out of control, a time out should be called.  Taking a time out to calm down and think about what is going on inside of ourselves is vital to the process of healing.  We have to touch base and tap into what is happening within and connect to any given emotion(s) we are experiencing and to fully realize what we are feeling and why we are feeling it.  Doing so can lower our anxiety and bring a greater awareness of what struggle is taking place within us.  It’s like...

Grief hurts.  It’s not the kind of pain or hurt you can place a band-aid on, but an incredibly deep wound inside the heart.  Grief also feels like a piercing pain in the soul.  Even though the chronic ache may subside at times, it seems that it will never completely go away.  How long is this pain going to last?  Am I always going to feel like this?  Nothing seems to soothe that ache inside of me.   It’s tempting to drink alcohol or take pills or inject drugs to lessen the pain.  The problem with doing that is the pain goes numb for awhile, but then the pain gets even more intense and hurts even more deeply when the high wears off. The best way to get through the pain is to live through it.  Face it head on and live straight through it.  Without numbing.  Without skipping the long road in the grief journey.  You have to go through the grief to get to the other side.  All of it.   Accept this truth:  You...

 Angry at Everything Grief evokes hurt and hurt evokes anger…and anger evokes an awakening within.  Where did this anger come from?  It’s like uncovering and discovering some piece of you that lie hidden but is now erupting and forced to come out.  We have been taught to suppress our anger or hide it so well, we don’t fully realize we had that kind of force within us.  Anger allows us to feel out of sorts, out of touch and out of control.  Yet, at the same time, anger can feel freeing, releasing and refreshing.  It feels like a jungle of emotions inside. It truly is okay and healthy to feel angry…to get really mad at the circumstances, the loss, the unfairness of it all and even at the people who churn hurt feelings inside of you.  It’s when you finally open up that boil that is festering within, that the healing process begins.  If you stay stuck in your anger, then you may need help processing it, vocalizing it, and work towards moving it o...

  Suicide grief is truly one of life’s greatest sorrows.  On top of grieving the loss of someone we love, missing them, mourning them…we have to live without answers as to “why” our loved one felt driven to end their life and the tragic means with which they chose to do so.  Some loved ones show no signs they felt the need to die.  Some may have expressed they felt depressed or hopeless.  Some have made numerous attempts to leave their life behind.  You may have been the one to find your loved one dead.  That is beyond devastating.   How do we go about living without someone we love so very much – someone we had such hope for…feeling intense sadness for someone who felt so hopeless.  Dealing with our own feelings of helplessness that we could not ease their hopelessness.  The only way to live through this kind of grief IS Hope.   Relief in your hope that they no longer feel hopeless.  Hope that they are at peace....