Quote of the Day

"Compassion is a deep desire to see others relieved of suffering; love is the other facet, a strong wish to see others happy." -Dali Lama

Taking Risks

"To Laugh is to risk appearing the fool, To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.To reach out to another is to risk involvement.To Express feeling is to risk expressing your true self.To place your ideas, your dreams, before the crowd is to risk their loss.To love is to risk being loved in return.To live is to risk dying.To hope is to risk despair.To try is to risk failure.But risks must be taken,because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.The person who risks nothing, does nothing,has nothing and is nothing.He/She may avoid suffering or sorrow,but he simply cannot learn,fell, change,love,grow,live.Chained by his certitudes,he is a slave,he has forfeited freedom.Only a person who risks is free." -Edgar Gibson, Jr. 

Writing to my other Gold Star Families...

My son, Cpt. Chris Soelzer was killed on Christmas Eve, 2003.  I was on medication for 6 of those 7 years.  It didn't stop the pain, it didn't stop the tears, it just made me able to function and keep my job.  I have learned that if I mourn well I will live well.  I have learned to embrace my loss, my pain, my sadness, my grief, my anger.  There is no right or wrong way to do walk this journey.  I just know that if you can find the one friend and confidant that will not leave you or forsake you and try to get you to "move" through it you will live for another day.  You learn to integrate the death of your son, daughter, husband, wife, grandchild, nephew, niece into your life.  There is nothing that doesn't bring our thoughts back to our loved one.  We can relate most things in life to them.  It becomes part of your story and who you are.  I decided at one point that I was not going to let the death of my son define me...but then how can that be. It does define me.  I have learned to tell my story, over and over and over and over again.  I have learned to only allow the people who understand to stay in my life. I am a mental health therapist on top of all of this.  I specialize in grief counseling...In this area I am the expert in what works for me and maybe a small part of that can help someone else. 

I continue to hold all of you close; I pray for you daily that you find joy once more, that you laugh and not feel guilty, that you find pleasure in the sun coming up, and delight in the loved ones that remained behind.  I have found that joy and delight again.  Because I have loved Christopher, I am honored to have been chosen to be his mother, Josh's mom and Timothy's mom.  I am honored to be the "bonus" mother of Sarah, Christina and Melissa.  I am grateful for the second chance I have been given to be the grandmother of 12 amazing grandchildren. 

I am full of appreciation for sitting at the feet of each of you and learning about your loved ones who were taken too early.  I am humbled that you trust me with your most sacred memories, holy tears and unmeasurable pain and suffering in your grief.

Remember to:

Learn from yesterday, live for today and hope for tomorrow.

Delain

The Many Faces of Grief...

It is overwhelming to say the least...it is everywhere.  Grief and loss surround us, might I even say bombard us everyday.  The newspapers, cable television news reporting around the clock report incredible, horrific stories of devastation.  Devastation that is nature driven and/or man driven.

There is a chance that we have become desensitized to fact that grief has a face.  Real people are affected by the actions of one.  When Christopher was killed in 2003, 600 people attended his funeral.  That was one act of terrorism, one man's death.  Before that day and after, countless numbers of people are directly affected in some way by actions of another, the choice of a sick mind. There is a ripple effect, a sort of tsunami that happens.  It leaves behind sacred rubble and remains for years.

The pictures of the World Trade Center being rebuilt and memorialized, the Oklahoma bombing site has a motto that states, "One City, One Nation, One Resolve".  "We come here to remember those who were killed, those who survived and those changed forever. May all who leave here know the impact of violence. May this memorial offer comfort, strength, peace, hope and serenity.^®"

What does the face of grief look like?  It looks like overwhelming sadness, a distant far off gaze, a blank stare, tearful, empty, SHOCK!!  It also is a chair for every person killed that day.  The survivor tree stands a powerful testimony to the resiliency of most. 

When we see the face of grief in someone close to us, it makes us uncomfortable.  We immediately want to take them to get over it so we feel better and want to be around them.  What would happen if we stay close and companion them on their journey of grief?  Is it contagious?  Will it happen to me?  Everyone loses someone, some thing close to us at some point in our lives. 

What does the face of grief look like? Despair...a silent inner scream all the time.  Changed forever...how could we not be changed.  Every breath that we take, every thought that we have centers around the one that left us too early.  How could we ever be as were before the trauma of loss?  Someone close to us has died.

This post seems heavy today, yet as I write I want to leave HOPE with each of you that even though you have experienced loss, saddness, depression and anger, asked a million why's, the sun comes up every day and gives us an opportunity to move one more day away from "that day".

If you have had a resent loss and find yourself in the process of grief, I hope and pray for each of you that you will honor this process.  Mourn well that you might live well!  There is nothing wrong with you and no right or wrong way to walk this journey.  If you want to talk about it, share your story over and over again, DO IT!  Call a trusting friend, a Pastor, a counselor and find joy once more in the every day!

Key Stages of the Process of Grief
The process of Loss and Bereavement

1. Denial and disbelief

2. Alarm - anxiety, restlessness, physiological accompaniments of fear

3. Urge to find/search for lost person/object/title/job/security/known situation.

4. Anger and guilt

5. Bargaining - in anticipation and reaction to the loss/threatened loss

6. Despair and depression - internal loss and deprivation

7. Identification phenomena - adopting traits, habits of deceased/adopting behavior patterns to insure that the loss/perceived loss does not occur again in the person's environment. In the case of job/career security this can be taking on traits of person that is perceived as causing the loss. At this stage one may begin to repress certain aspects of their personality and curtail their instinct to reach and respond in relationship to their environment and world. Withdrawal.

8. Pathological variants - delayed/prolonged/inability to grieve.
Lack of motivation. The loss/perceived loss must be grieved in order to move through the cycle and restructure. It is at this point that many people may feel "stuck", blocked, or feel a virtual victim of circumstance and environment. The feeling of "why try again?" "It's no use." may prevail.

9. Acceptance - non-acceptance or resignation. This is a decision making interim; and the beginning of recovery as a resolution is mandated at this point.

10. New identity - reorganization. At this juncture the restructuring begins and all that entails in the process, and individual development.



Choose Gratefulness "In Spite Of"...

All around us today are reasons to lose hope, grumble and complain, and wonder what challenge tomorrow is going to bring.  I don't need to list all the nation's woes to convince any of you that life is bringing us to our knees.

We cannot wait until everything is OK in our world, our community, or in our home or our family to be thankful and have a heart of gratitude.  There is unshadowed joy all around us. 

Lewis Smedes points out in his writing that we must catch and kiss our joy as it flies by, even in the midst of sorrow or suffering.  It doesn't imply that we should deny the suffering, but that we do not let suffering envelop us and cloud the beauty and joy all around us.

Where do your thoughts lie?  I challenge you to stop and think every hour on the hour in the morning and think of all the great things that happened to you during that hour.  Then in the afternoon I want you to stop what you are doing every hour on the hour and reflect back on all the awful things that happened to you during the last hour...

Do you feel the difference in your thoughts and your feelings when you are focused on the positive and when you are focused on the awful things.

It is another way to look at the "glass is half full or half empty" cliche'.  But I really believe that we can't change what we aren't aware of.

Yesterday, I talked to you all about the throat chakra--the 5th Chakra.  I hope that you are more consciously aware of what it is that would cause your throat to close up.  As you continue your awareness and breathe through your throat and embrace healing, that you continue your enlightenment today and have a heart of gratitude.

Thankful for each of you,

Have a truly great day!

Delain

Remembering to breathe

I learned today that our fifth Chakra is the throat Chakra.  It controls our communication and our healing.  I've been aware over the last seven years that when grief overwhelms me, I feel like I'm choking and I cannot speak or think of what I might say.

In Louise Hay's book "You Can Heal Your Life", she talks about the neck and the throat.  The neck represents our ability to be flexible in our thinking...to hear an other's point of view.  If your neck is stiff and won't turn it usually means that we are only open to our viewpoint or concept of a situation.

The throat represents our ability to "speak up" for ourselves, to have our voice heard, to ask for what we need, for the ability to say "I am".  When our throat closes up we are really saying to ourselves and to each other that we do not have a right to be heard and we feel inadequate.

Sore throats are really unexpressed anger.  When we are so angry we cannot speak, it can take on a literal form of laryngitis; and if not literally certainly a spiritual/emotional laryngitis. 

The throat represents the creative flow in our body.  When we are not honoring our creative self we are in a sense only trying to please others; only doing what others would want us to do. 

Louise Hay states, "The energy center in the throat, the fifth Chakra, is the place in the body where change takes place.  When we are resisting change or are in the middle of change or trying to change, we often have a lot of activity in our throats." 

So as you go throughout your day, be conscious of your thoughts and your throat's reaction to your thoughts. Notice when you cough or clear your throat.  What was just said, what were you thinking.  Is it resistance to change or is it the process of change.

You can not change what you are not aware of...today when you are aware of your throat being sore, tight or full, say to yourself, "I am willing to change" or "I am changing".  Have a thought of gratitude for the change happening and how sacred that change is.

Blessing you on your journey toward change,
Delain                            

The Greek Tear Jar

Good morning everyone!  I have decided that this Blog will be about the very special and holy tear jar.  When I went to a Bereaved Parents, USA conference a few years ago, I learned about the tear jar.  Each parent was given a tear jar at their table with the following explanation: 

In the dry climate of ancient Greece, water was prized above all. Giving up water from one's own body, when crying tears for the dead, was considered a sacrifice. They caught their precious tears in tiny pitchers or "tear jars" like the one shown here (lifesize). The tears became holy water and could be used to sprinkle on doorways to keep out evil, or to cool the brow of a sick child.
The tear jars were kept unpainted until the owner had experienced the death of a parent, sibling, child, or spouse. After that, the grieving person decorated the tear jar with intricate designs, and examples of these can still be seen throughout modern Greece.
This ancient custom symbolizes the transformation that takes place in people who have grieved deeply. They are not threatened by the grief of people in pain. They have been in the depths of pain themselves, and returned. Like the tear jar, they can now be with others who grieve and catch their tears. ~Pleasant White, PhD

I have since learned that these tear jars are so sacred that people have painted on them and given them to people they know who have lost a child.  One was so precious--they hand painted so small and intricate that you needed a magnifying glass to read the words.  The Lord's prayer was there in its' entity.  Simply awesome.

Today may you mourn well that you might live well,
Delain

New Beginnings

Hello again,
This post is way overdue...I apologize.  My life over the last month has been challenging to say the least.  It never ceases to amaze and humble me to realize that just when I think I am ready, willing and able to do whatever it takes to make a dream of mine manifest, life shows up.
The challenges that reared their sacred head again were grief, intense sadness, and fear.  Grief...okay!  One more time I face you, one more time I surrender to the pain of not having my son near enough to call.  I have to go through this one more time?  God says, "yes"!  Clean out your closet one more time.  Let go and take His hand one more time.
What does it really mean to hold the hand of the Father?  It means to accept and trust that He knows how to walk with me through this journey of grief and loss and the ultimate triumph over death.  To that I say, "But God..."  
This Memorial Day I spent the morning at the Black Hills National Cemetery surrounded by 17,000 grave stones of veterans and their family member.  These soldiers fought for our freedoms and their love of country and of our God. Grief and loss enveloped me this weekend as I watched portrayals of family members whose loved ones died at the hand of our enemies. My tears of grief were once again caught in the tear jar and held sacred in that holy place near the heart of the Father.

I resisted the feelings of grief again.  I didn't want to go to that level of pain "one more time".  Yet, it was in the not resisting that I found peace after I left the cemetery.  I knew that once again I had released a little bit of the pain, the grief, the loss.

I want to leave you with the thought today that in a strange way, there is a "language to letting go".  Relax, breath deeply, and trust.  Trust that it will get easier next time...perhaps it won't last as long.  Remember, while I have breath, I hope! You are never truly alone...

Surrounding you all with love,

Delain